Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has had six years to come up with an explanation for his poor job-creation record in Massachusetts. Amazingly, Team Romney still doesn't know what to say.
President Obama's campaign has raised a straightforward and accurate point: during Romney's one term as governor, his state ranked 47th in job creation. Romney had a chance to put his private-sector expertise to work in Massachusetts, but the experiment failed.
Last night, Kerry Healey, who served as Romney's lieutenant governor, talked to CNN's John King about this, and as Greg Sargent noted, her argument took the Romney campaign's "double standard" problem to a whole new level.
As Healey sees it, the Obama campaign is being unfair by evaluating Romney's job-creation record "with one number," which obscures "a progression" in which Massachusetts' jobs picture improved over four years. She added:
"Do you embrace this notion of averaging? Should we average the four years? Does that make any sense? Does that tell the voters anything? What the voters want to know is, what direction are you moving?
"Using one number, this odd average of four years, to come up with 47th in the nation, doesn't really show what happened."
The lack of self-awareness is hard to believe. It's almost as if the Romney campaign and its surrogates haven't paid any attention at all to their own attacks.
In case this isn't obvious, let's spell it out as simply as we can.
* Summarizing a jobs record using one overall figure: The Romney campaign says it's fair to do this with Obama's jobs record, but unfair to do the same thing with Romney's jobs record.
* Inheriting a weak economy: The Romney campaign says this shouldn't be taken into consideration when critiquing Obama, but must be taken into consideration when evaluating Romney.
* Including the first year in office:The Romney campaign said Obama's first year counts when looking at his jobs record, but also says Romney's first year doesn't count when looking at his jobs record.
* Progress: The Romney campaign says it's irrelevant that job creation improved at the national level on Obama's watch, but it's critically important that job creation improved at the state level on Romney's watch.
This double standard has been on display for nearly two weeks now, and slowly but surely, some are beginning to notice.
Ideally, the Romney campaign's standards would be seen as so brazen, they'd start to influence the way in which the political world perceives all of the Republican's arguments. The next time Romney attacks Obama on unemployment, poverty rates, economic growth, or any related metric, observers should stop to think, "But if we're playing by Romney campaign rules, would this criticism hold up?"
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It's all very nice to sit back smugly and point out what idiots Obama is running against. Let's stop that. It doesn't matter. It leads to complacency, and that leads to last night in Wisconsin. The fact is, these "idiots" are moving up, and the Obama numbers are not "ahead of where we were in 2008" as they are spinning. If we don't start running like we are 10 points down, we will be 10 points down on November 6.
Stop cheerleading and start pushing people to WORK.
That's exactly correct. It was like Carville intimated several weeks ago when he was incredulous that Democrats are thinking that Obama has it in the bag. He got pretty animated about it. It is beyond stupid to think Obama has this. I'm really fearing when the polls come in that have been taken after the recent spate of bad news from jobs reports and developments in Europe.
It is time to be more mobilized than ever. This is the country's last chance to stop the barbarians at the gate. Those barbarians fully intend to destroy the 20th century. One reason is that, because of upcoming demographics, it is their last chance. And they mean business.
did you read what the polls said? The people in the middle did not want a governor removed for political reasons, only malfeasance?
So that "John Doe" cloud, the rush to crush organized labor, the lies, the gifting of taxpayer money to his corporate sponsors didn't count? Gee, & people wonder why I call them stupid sheeple!
Shhh! You are bring up facts that don't matter. Keep with the program. What matters is that Walker crossed the unions, deniging them their rights to stick it to the payer for fifty-sixty-seventy years of income and health care for only thirty to forty years of work.
And now they'll likely get their wish. For those in WI (at least those foolish enough to have voted for Walker in this contest - were you one of them, modaca?) enjoy your time with Gov. Kleefish! Some folks just have to learn the hard way...
"...during Romney's one term as governor, his state ranked 47th in job creation. Romney had a chance to put his private-sector expertise to work in Massachusetts, but the experiment failed."
That's probably one of the best 15-second spots the Democrats could come up with to broadcast relentlessly in every swing state. It's simple, easily remembered, and unlike Republican ads, true.
If the dems best argument is.... "as bad as things are right now, they could possibly be worse with Romney" then it's going to be difficult for Obama. Let's hear about what Obama has planned for the next four years instead of weak attacks on Romney. Where is the soaring rhetoric that inspired us so much four years ago???
That's not the Dems argument at all. That's the argument that you claim the the Dems are making.
You didn't comment on the substance of Steve's post, because you have no good retort. You created a Dem argument you think you can rebut, not the actual argument being made.
This is the Democrats argument against Mitt Romney:
"Mitt Romney claims that his private sector business experience gives him a special insight on how the economy works and how to create jobs. But, when he took that business experience into the public sector, as Gov. of Massachusetts, the results were, not just unsuccessful, but among the worst in the nation for job growth.
It didn't work then, and it won't work now."
Romney can't rebut this argument without make a strong case for the turnaround that Obama has done.
Good luck.
Could someone on the Obama team also please call b.s. on the inherent implication that Massachusetts was the only state in a recession in 2000? It's a national economy. Everybody was in roughly the same boat, and Romney's attempts at rowing said boat came in 47th in a race of 50. What was so special about budget shortfalls in Massachusetts at the time?
Conversely, the President's been dealing with a global economic recession/crisis, and arguably the U.S. is doing better than any other major economy in finding its way out.
Excellent points. And let's address the whining from the Romney camp that we're averaging those four years to arrive at 47th out of 50. If MA averaged 47th out of 50, which apparently is a fact even the Romney camp does not dispute, that means a four-year sum of their annual rankings would be 188. Now let's subtract 150 from that, under the supposition that MA ranked 50th in 3 of those 4 years. What's left is 38, which would mean the BEST possible annual ranking for MA during the Romney term was 38th out of 50 (if they were dead last the other 3 years).
Are you happy now, Romney team?
Not defending Romney, but one thing that was special about Massachusetts at the time was that its economy was heavily geared toward the information technology sector, so the recession was especially deep cutting because of the dotcom bubble burst. Similar to how Michigan is disproportionality affected by ups and downs in the auto industry.
Errr....the dotcom bubble burst in 2000-2001.
The reason people seem dissatisfied with Obama's message on this is due to Romney himself. He has nothing. He has no reason to be supported by anyone but the ultra-wealthy and the Mormons. W had more personality in his little finger than this guy. So there basically isn't any material on him but Massachusetts and Bain.
Obama will articulate his vision, just not so soon that the GOP will pretend it's their plan...
You must look at the times to see how different Mitt's term in Massachusetts was from Obama's in Washington.
To put it in proper context, fifty years ago Obama was not even toilet trained, while Mitt had a paper route and helped old ladies across the street! There is just no comparison.
"Vote Mitt: I'm running for President, for Pete's sake!"
Mitt Romney is taking the voters of this great nation for total fools. The facts are ot there, and they are not pretty. Romney is a purebred vulture capitalist, the kind of multi-millionaire that snaps up family businesses and solid companies just to shut them down, kill good-paying jobs, and get a fat write-off to pad his own bottom line. Romney's "business experience" is the kind of experience that America cannot afford to have in the White House. And the only instance where Mitt took the reins of government and tried his hand at "job creation," he failed miserably. Romney cannot be allowed to run away from the fact that he was literally the worst "job creator" in the nation over his four years in office. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
"The lack of self-awareness is almost hard to believe."
Not if you live in GOP-land, where it's what they say that counts!
MA Job Creation standings:
2002: 51st
2003: 51st - Romney enters Jan. 2003
2004: 46th
2005: 40th
2006: 30th - Romney exits Jan. 2007
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Look it up.
This is why the attack on Romney's Massachusetts record will fail. No one is questioning the fact that Obama inherited a lousy economy. The question is where are we now and where will we be at the end of his term. The fact is that, by the end of Romney's term as governor, MA was much better off by the time his policies and decisions had time to take effect. The other fact is that right now and, according to most economists, by the end of the president's term, the nation is not better off and will actually be worse off come November after plenty of time for his policies (Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, Stimulus,...) to take effect.
Incidentally, the 47th out of 50 figure comes from averaging MA's standing from 2002 to 2006. Now, of course, Romney didn't take office until Jan. 3rd, 2003. This is equivalent to attributing the average unemployment rate of 2008 to Obama, which would actually give him a boost. But that would just be nonsense.
Someone did their homework! Thank you! Saved me the trouble!
I would be very grateful if any Democrats on this page could provide a legitimate argument to this little bit of information.
And they say that FOX is just Propaganda! HAHAHA!! What do you call this? Creative Honesty?
Two things:
1. "No one is questioning the fact that Obama inherited a lousy economy." That is exactly what the GOP has been questioning and denying for 4 years now by doing everything in their power to make it look like the recession was somehow Obama's fault. I would wager that many FOX viewers believe that the recession happened because of Obama's policies.
2. "The other fact is that right now and, according to most economists, by the end of the president's term, the nation is not better off and will actually be worse off come November after plenty of time for his policies (Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, Stimulus,...) to take effect."
I don't buy that. Unemployment has been steadily dropping (until last week anyway), government spending has been on the decline (although deficits are widening because of revenue shortfalls), business are making lots of money again (just not spending any of it), the Affordable Health Care act has not even BEGUN to really take effect yet, and the stimulus was so small it was like trying to jump start a car battery with a pair of DD Energizers.
Overall, I would say the economy has been generally moving in a positive direction (but now swiftly), especially when I look at the disaster that has become of Europe after following their leaders call for austerity.
"FactChecker",
You and FOX keep SAYING that Romney was 30th in job creation and you "cite" BLS, but you know, I'm pretty familiar with BLS tables and I DON'T come up with that 30th in job creation stuff - in fact what I come up with is that whereas Massachusetts had a LOWER rate of unemployment than the national figures in 2003, 2004; pretty close to the national figures in the last part of 2005; in 2006 it had HIGHER than the national figures on unemployment.
So could you cite some links that prove your point?? Certainly ALL "factcheckers" can do that - I can!!
I will give you that a governor shouldn't be held responsible for the first two years because he really is living off of his predecessor's budgets, but he MUST be held responsible for the last two years in his "reign"!
Or at least once the new budget that started under his administration went into effect - I don't know when it was for Romney but for the Obama Administration, he was operating under the Bush budget until almost the end of 2008 (Republicans like to include 2008 in the Obama numbers because it's still part of the irrational Bush budget years).
sorry meant to say 2009 not 2008.
Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't package these types of figures into one nice page to be used for political strategies. So it does require some understanding of BLS inner workings. But for you naysayers out there, I've figured it out so that you can see from BLS that MA was 30th in job creation for Romney's last year in office 2006. I found the 12 month percent change in state employment from Jan 2006 to Jan 2007 for each state + DC (This is how Net Job Creation is measured). I then ranked each state from largest percent change to smallest. You can see that MA is ranked 30th. The same approach can be used to verify the rankings for the other years mentioned above. Here is the step-by-step process:
1. Go to: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate
2. Under "Enter series id(s) below" copy and paste the following and press Next. Let me know if you have questions about this.
SMS49000000000000001
SMS22000000000000001
SMS56000000000000001
SMS37000000000000001
SMS16000000000000001
SMS48000000000000001
SMS30000000000000001
SMS15000000000000001
SMS41000000000000001
SMS45000000000000001
SMS53000000000000001
SMS32000000000000001
SMS38000000000000001
SMS28000000000000001
SMS13000000000000001
SMS46000000000000001
SMS08000000000000001
SMS12000000000000001
SMS20000000000000001
SMS04000000000000001
SMS01000000000000001
SMS40000000000000001
SMS31000000000000001
SMS35000000000000001
SMS36000000000000001
SMS44000000000000001
SMS06000000000000001
SMS19000000000000001
SMS51000000000000001
SMS25000000000000001
SMS17000000000000001
SMS33000000000000001
SMS09000000000000001
SMS21000000000000001
SMS24000000000000001
SMS29000000000000001
SMS42000000000000001
SMS11000000000000001
SMS23000000000000001
SMS05000000000000001
SMS02000000000000001
SMS47000000000000001
SMS55000000000000001
SMS27000000000000001
SMS50000000000000001
SMS18000000000000001
SMS34000000000000001
SMS54000000000000001
SMS10000000000000001
SMS39000000000000001
SMS26000000000000001
3. Change Specify Year Range from 2007 to 2007.
4. Uncheck "Original Data Value" and Check "12-Month Percent Change".
5. Select January from "Select one time period:"
6. Press "Retrieve Data" and see that MA is the 30th from the top and notice the descending 12-month percent change values.
Ironically, Utah is number one.
I'd love to see some comparisons between the candidates (graphical if possible) following the guidelines laid out in the video. They actually seem pretty fair (if taken in isolation from the entire Romney campaign). What did each separate year look like for Romney versus Obama? What were the relative year-on-year gains in jobs, in national rankings, &c? How much of those gains are attributable to the passage of universal healthcare? That sort of thing...
A Obama surrogate might start presenting comparison based upon "which standard are we using?. If we use Romney's standard for himself, this is how Obama stacks up... If we use Romney's standard for Obama, this is how Romney stacks up... I will not sit here and let you compare based on two opposing sets of criteria."
MA Job Creation Standings:
2002: 51st
2003: 51st - Romney enters Jan. 2003
2004: 46th
2005: 40th
2006: 30th - Romney exits Jan. 2007
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Look it up.
This is why the attacks on Romney's MA record will fail. No one is questioning the fact that Obama inherited a lousy economy. The question is where are we today and where will we be by the end of his term in office. The fact is that, by the end of Romney's term as governor, MA was much better off after his policies and decisions had time to take effect. The other fact is that right now and, according to most economists, by the end of the president's term, the nation is not better off and will actually be worse off come November after plenty of time for his policies (Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, Stimulus,...) to take effect.
Incidentally, the 47th out of 50 figure comes from averaging the job creation standings from 2002 to 2005. Now, of course, Romney didn't take office until Jan. 3rd, 2003 and served through 2006. This would be equivalent to attributing the average unemployment rate of 2008 to Obama, which would actually give him a boost. But that would just be nonsense.
Right. 30th is in the top 60%! He's a wizard. Nevermind the fact that government employment rose almost 10% during his tenure to help get there.
Look at GDP growth/contraction and employment figures from amongst industrialized economies from 2009-2012. The U.S. looks a lot better compared to our austerity loving competitors than topping the lowest 40%. Also, 8.3% unemployment is better than 10%, not worse.
Most importantly, however, your point is far too nuanced. 47th out of 50 sticks in the mind and is a clear talking point. Saying it's fudging the numbers looks defensive and you've already lost the battle. That's GOP politics adopted here by the Democrats. 34% approval rating at the end of his single term as governor rolls off the tongue and is easily digested. Upward trending to the bottom of the third quintile in employment growth does not and is not.
You know, "Factchecker" thinks that if he keeps saying it enough, then you will believe it! When he provides the ACTUAL LINKS to what he is saying instead of parroting the National Review, then I'll believe him!
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/301652/romney-adviser-romney-took-massachusetts-last-job-creation-30th-katrina-trinko#
Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't package these types of figures into one nice page to be used for political strategies. So it does require some understanding of BLS inner workings. But for you naysayers out there, I've figured it out so that you can see from BLS that MA was 30th in job creation for Romney's last year in office 2006. I found the 12 month percent change in state employment from Jan 2006 to Jan 2007 for each state + DC (This is how Net Job Creation is measured). I then ranked each state from largest percent change to smallest. You can see that MA is ranked 30th. The same approach can be used to verify the rankings for the other years mentioned above. Here is the step-by-step process:
1. Go to: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate
2. Under "Enter series id(s) below" copy and paste the following and press Next. Let me know if you have questions about this.
SMS49000000000000001
SMS22000000000000001
SMS56000000000000001
SMS37000000000000001
SMS16000000000000001
SMS48000000000000001
SMS30000000000000001
SMS15000000000000001
SMS41000000000000001
SMS45000000000000001
SMS53000000000000001
SMS32000000000000001
SMS38000000000000001
SMS28000000000000001
SMS13000000000000001
SMS46000000000000001
SMS08000000000000001
SMS12000000000000001
SMS20000000000000001
SMS04000000000000001
SMS01000000000000001
SMS40000000000000001
SMS31000000000000001
SMS35000000000000001
SMS36000000000000001
SMS44000000000000001
SMS06000000000000001
SMS19000000000000001
SMS51000000000000001
SMS25000000000000001
SMS17000000000000001
SMS33000000000000001
SMS09000000000000001
SMS21000000000000001
SMS24000000000000001
SMS29000000000000001
SMS42000000000000001
SMS11000000000000001
SMS23000000000000001
SMS05000000000000001
SMS02000000000000001
SMS47000000000000001
SMS55000000000000001
SMS27000000000000001
SMS50000000000000001
SMS18000000000000001
SMS34000000000000001
SMS54000000000000001
SMS10000000000000001
SMS39000000000000001
SMS26000000000000001
3. Change Specify Year Range from 2007 to 2007.
4. Uncheck "Original Data Value" and Check "12-Month Percent Change".
5. Select January from "Select one time period:"
6. Press "Retrieve Data" and see that MA is the 30th from the top and notice the descending 12-month percent change values.
Ironically, Utah is number one.
I'm more interested in the details of the national budget, and if anyone can project in detail what will happen under Romney's plan vs. Obama. I suspect - since no one really intends to cut spending - that under Romney we'll just start over with the Bush years.
I hate it when the Rs criticize Obama for not having a plan on getting people back to work. He does have a plan! One supported by many economists! BUT HE HASN'T BEEN ABLE TO IMPLEMENT IT!!
So you could make the case that we're still suffering from the Bush economy, since the Rs have prevented Obama from passing anything.
No, it's almost as if they are so utterly contemptuous of the vapidity and fawning cowardice of our degenerate 21st Century mainstream media that they believe they can just say any damn thing they want and pay absolutely no price for it whatsoever.
So far, there's no evidence that they're wrong about that.
Let's be clear about this; it ocmes down to "do as I say, not as I do".
The Romney campaign can make this argument in various ways, but any effort to improve the look of Romney's job creation record makes Obama's record look better.
Especially under the Gillespie standard - excluding the first year's numbers. Private sector job growth was 1.5 times faster under Obama than Romney, 3.97% vs 2.63%, even though Obama is less than half way through year three.
Check the numbers for yourself at the BLS Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Archived News Releases and Table B-1. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail [In thousands]
I was just going to post this myself. Romney's campaign is holding onto the whole "47th to 30th" line because it's the only way to spin him as a job creator, but Massachusetts under Romney's four years had the 47th worst rate of job growth in the country. Obama has already exceeded his low standard and overall employment in the country has grown faster than Romney's rate.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/12/us-usa-campaign-romney-idUSTRE73A6XM20110412