Did the Stimulus Really Fail?

All election season I've been seeing campaign ads about how one candidate or another supported Obama's failed stimulus plan and how that should disqualify them from your vote this November.  So the question I ask is this, has the stimulus really failed as the GOP claim?  The CBO sure doesnt' think so, they say that it has added about 3.3 million jobs and increased the GDP by up to 4.5%.  How can that be considered a failure?  Yes, unemployment is still running at 9.6% and that is higher than than the 8% figure that was used to sell the stimulus plan in the first place, so I guess by that argument it did fail, but the part that is left out of that argument is that without the stimulus having passed it is reported that the unemployment rate would be running at about 16%.  Had Obama done nothing wouldn't those same individuals now be claiming that he didn't do enough?  The economy was losing 750,000 jobs a month when Obama took office, something had to be done and he took action that stemmed the job loses, how is that a failure?  Was it perfect?  No.  Did it increase the budget?  Yes. Was it a failure?  Not at all, I'd actually consider it to have been a huge success.