If the first six months don't count...

By Steve Benen

Mitt Romney sat down with CNBC's Larry Kudlow, and made a curious observation. He said voters who want a strong economy should vote for him, but Americans "ought to give, whichever president is going to be elected, at least six months or a year to get those policies in place."

At first blush, that may sound fairly reasonable. A president takes office, he or she needs time to put a team in place, craft an agenda, and get to work. What's more, we generally don't see the results of economic policies immediately; the agenda needs to time to take effect. In Romney's mind, six months to a year seems fair.

But let's go ahead and apply this standard to President Obama, who took office in the midst of the worst global economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Hey, look, here's a new chart I put together.



Throughout the presidential campaign, Romney has said the clock should start in February 2009, Obama's first month in office. If that's fair -- if the president deserves the blame for every job lost on his 11th day in office -- it's true that under Obama, the economy is still in a deep hole and hasn't fully recovered from the losses of early 2009.

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http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/24/12926538-if-the-first-six-months-dont-count

Romney Camp Defends Poor Jobs Record: He Inherited A Bad Situation

Pema Levy

Mitt Romney has been dogged by an unfortunate statistic for his entire campaign: When he was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation. President Obama’s campaign has ramped up the attack this week in response to Romney’s assertion that he knows how to create jobs — a fact he says is backed up by his record in the private sector. Sunday, Romney’s campaign struck back with a new line of defense: Romney stepped into a serious situation and improved it.

If it sounds familiar, it should — it’s the same line of reasoning that Obama is using to persuade voters to stick with his policies.

Twice on Sunday, Romney’s advisers appeared on television armed with different numbers than the ones wielded by the Obama campaign. On ABC’s “This Week,” Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter and top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom duked it out over Romney’s Massachusetts record.

Massachusetts “did fall to 47th out of 50 in jobs creation,” Cutter said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Wages went down when they were going up in the rest of the country. He left his successor with debt and a deficit, and manufacturing jobs left that state at twice the rate as the rest of the country.”

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http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/romney-massachusetts-record-job-creation-47th-fehrnstrom.php