South Carolina’s unemployment numbers have been on a recent rocket ride — 12.1 percent in October — so it’s no wonder some of the candidates for the state’s 2010 governor’s race have staked their claims in the fertile electoral soil of job creation.

On Nov. 19, Democratic candidate Mullins McLeod, a Walterboro attorney, unveiled a jobs package that, among other things, pledged to end the Confederate flag debate by removing it from the State House grounds and placing it in a museum.

“It is time for us to send a clear and unambiguous signal to the rest of the country, and the entire world, that South Carolina is better than what people see on the news,” McLeod said in a statement.

Also part of McLeod’s jobs plan is to create middle-class tax relief by reforming the state’s tax code; awarding tax breaks for any business that creates even a single job; and reorganizing the state’s Department of Commerce to focus more on small business.

“Small businesses drive South Carolina’s economy, and are responsible for the lion’s share of our new jobs,” McLeod said. “Yet too often, the state’s current leadership focuses only on recruiting large industries.”

McLeod’s proposal also offers an emphasis on creating green energy jobs.

In October, Democratic candidate Dwight Drake, a Columbia lawyer and lobbyist, rolled out the first installment of his own 12-page jobs plan that he says will not only give South Carolinians the hope of better jobs, but also the reality.

“South Carolinians should know that as governor, I will wake up in the morning thinking about how to create jobs, and I will go to bed every night thinking about how to create jobs,” Drake said.

If elected, Drake plans to immediately create a nine-member, bipartisan “jobs cabinet” to council his administration and aide in the appointment of the most qualified secretary of commerce.

When Boeing announced its plans to expand production in South Carolina, Drake said he was proud of a leadership role that he played in earlier legislation that opened the door for the company’s expansion here. He also often talks about his work in helping attract BMW to South Carolina years ago.

His jobs plan includes an emphasis on further large industry growth by updating the state’s incentives approach and identifying “mega sites” for industrial prospects.

Drake’s jobs plan also “includes action to help support, grow, and retain small businesses, recruit large ones, and tap into the state’s unique resources like its ports, its tourism draws, and its educational institutions,” says his spokeswoman Taylor West.

McLeod and Drake are hardly alone in their jobs plans.

Republican S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley wants to eliminate the state’s small business income tax and focus “day-in and day-out on what we can do to make our state competitive.”

Republican state Attorney General Henry McMaster says the central problem is that “we have far too few high paying jobs and our educational system is not preparing young people to compete in the global economy of the 21st century.”

And Democrat Vincent Sheheen, a state senator from Camden, calls for revamping the state Commerce Department and more effectively supporting the state’s port and technical college system.

Last month, South Carolina’s unemployment ranked fifth highest in the nation, behind Michigan (15.1 percent), Nevada (13.0), Rhode Island (12.9) and Colorado (12.5), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.