Governor Romney's Job Growth Record -- Worse than Obama and Carter's

Source:

Mitt Romney's sole claim to the presidency is that his business experience will enable him to accelerate job growth in America.

The GOP debates revealed that Romney was a failure as governor, with Massachusetts 47th in the nation in job growth, and only one of the four states that did not recover to pre-2001 recession job levels before the Bush/Cheney economic collapse hit.

But, let us talk less about rankings, and more about actual jobs.

What is that story? Again, for Romney it is dismal.

During Romney's four years as Governor of Massachusetts, he added 61,000 new jobs. At the time, Massachusetts had 2.5 percent of the nation's population. Thus, extrapolated to the nation as a whole, Romney would have added 2.4 million jobs. 

Transcript, Video: Mitt and Ann Romney's Interview With Diane Sawyer

Full transcript. Excerpt below:

DIANE SAWYER: And John McCain said they gave him 23 years of tax returns when he was considering you for the vice presidency. If John McCain can get 23 should-- for transparency's sake the rest of the American public get 23 years?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, actually the American public has through legislation determined that we need a extraordinary dis-- set of disclosure of financial records of people running for president and I have complied with all that and then in addition put out two more years of tax returns. And exactly as John McCain and-- and-- John Kerry had, and-- I know the Obama people want to get us to do something that will cause a lot of attention to be drawn to the fact that I've been successful. John McCain wasn't worried about diverting from the issues of-- of the-- of the day, but I understand that the Democrats are going to try and do everything in their power to keep this election from being about the failure of President Obama to turn around our economy.

Video: Mitt Romney Was Outraged By Money In Politics In 1994

This video is without a doubt the best argument for getting money out of politics. Thanks to BuzzFeed and Stanscates for the info:

McCain is Right: Romney Called for Timetables

Another Romney flipflop. This one is bad since it occurred just months ago:

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate who sits atop the GOP pack in fundraising, appears to have grown comfortable with talk of "timetables," in addition to talk of "milestones," when discussing U.S. involvement in Iraq.

The former Massachusetts governor is quick to note, however, that these timetables should be private and not published.

When asked by ABC News' Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America" if he believes there should be a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, Romney replied, "Well, there's no question that the president and Prime Minister al Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about, but those shouldn't be for public pronouncement."

The former governor went on to explain, "You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government."

When asked a similar question on CBS's "Early Show," Romney responded, "Well, I wouldn't publish [a timetable] for my adversaries to see," advocating instead "a series of milestones, timetables as well, to measure how well they're doing."

"But," Romney said, "that's not something you publish for the enemy to understand, because of course they could just lay in the weeds until the time that you're gone. So these are the kinds of things you do privately, not necessarily publicly."

While Romney's Tuesday call for "milestones" is nothing new, he has mostly shied away in the past from employing the more politically charged terminology of "timetables."