Associated Press
Gov. Bob McDonnell's audition for the Republican 2012 ticket probably took another hit yesterday when the Virginia Republican accidentally told the truth about the effects of the Obama administration's economic policies.
CNN's Candy Crowley and McDonnell discussed the state of Virginia's economy, which is actually quite good, and the host pressed the governor on sharing the credit. "Do you credit President Obama at all for the good fortune Virginia has?" she asked. "He's done nothing at all to help you all?"
MCDONNELL: Well, I would ask you, what would you point to that would lead you to say that that unemployment -- the only thing I can say is he had a nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus, and that was one-time spending. Did it help us in the short run with health care and education spending to balance the budget? Sure. [...]
CROWLEY: So just a tiny bit of credit to the president?
MCDONNELL: Well, sure. I think there's national policies that is have had some impact.
To be sure, McDonnell made the concession reluctantly, and added that while conditions have improved under Obama, they'd improve even more under Mitt Romney, but the Virginia Republican nevertheless conceded what is plainly true: Obama acted to improve the economy, and in McDonnell's state, the policies made a positive difference.
So when Romney travels to Virginia and tells voters Obama "made the economy worse," it's worth remembering that Romney's biggest ally in Virginia -- the Commonwealth's governor and VP wannabe -- disagrees.
And the larger point, as we've discussed, is that the trend is common in several key swing states. In Ohio, the jobless rate is down to 7.4%. In Virginia, it's improved to 5.6%. Even in Nevada, where the unemployment rate is still a crushing 11.7%, the figure has dropped two points in one year, which represents rather extraordinary progress. Bloomberg News reported, "The unemployment rates in a majority of the 2012 battleground states are lower than the national average as those economies improve."
Whether conditions will deteriorate or improve in the near future remains to be seen, but for now, McDonnell's candor is precisely what the Obama campaign wants to hear.
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As much as Mitt Romney and his campaign seek to distort and hide the reality on the ground, even his most ardent surrogates can't bring themselves to lie about the real economic situation in America and in their own states. Bob McDonnell and the rest of the Romney-backing GOP governors are direct beneficiaries of the Obama recovery, and even they cannot deny it. I would hope Mitt Romney can only lie about our president "killing" jobs for only so long before someone in the press absolutely smacks him down for such an outrageous and anti-American fabrication. Apparently his fellow Republicans are better at telling the truth than the media is. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
The Obama is bad rant only works on the bigots and fanatics. This attack on the economy under Obama will do even worse. Republican deregulation and the spending under Reagan and two Bushes are a matter of record.
The only hope the right still has lies with the theocracy seeking nut jobs and the tabacco chawin' anti-everything crowd.
Governor Vaginal Ultrasound actually can tell the truth
Not without a grimace and only to a the degree required at any given moment.
More "Gotcha" "journalism"! Wow, I've never written a 3 word sentence with 2 myths in it before!
"...Obama acted to improve the economy, and in McDonnell's state, the policies made a positive difference."
Even the GOP cannot lie that the policies enacted under the Obama administration have helped, even though they don't want to give the President the credit! It's too bad that the lame-stream corporate owned media can't at least try to do the same!
What is so obvious is that not one Republican has offered a jobs bill that would put people to work. They only strive on the point that if we give more tax credits to the super rich they will then hire. Which may be true, because I believe it is a conspiracy by the one percent against the American worker, to keep them out of work till they vote in the person of their choice.
Perhaps Governor Vaginal Probe decided that maybe he didn't want to be Veep after all?