'A Kick in the Gut': Romney vs. Obama on the Jobs Report
We've got the numbers, but now comes the next part of the jobs day specatacle — the spin from the candidates, their surrogates, and the pundits. Mitt Romney took a break from his vacation in Wolfeboro, NH to deliver a statement and take questions. He'll be followed by the President at around 10:45.
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Romney gave a brief statement saying that the numbers from the jobs report are "a kick in the gut." The message from his statement was that Obama has no ideas to create more jobs and that he does. He listed a handful of his ideas: The Keystone pipeline; open markets in Latin America; lower marginal tax rates; fewer deductions; taking on China when they "cheat."
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Some key quotes:
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"There's a lot of misery in America today. These numbers understate what Americans are feeling."
The president has to stand up and take responsibility for it."
Romney also surprised reporters by taking a few questions. Some brought up the health care bill and the fact that Romney is speaking from his vacation. Romney managed to stay focused on the economy, however, blaming Obamacare's costs for slowing job growth.
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The President will offer his response in about 30-40 minutes, and we'll have updates when that happens.
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Meanwhile, here are how some others have responded.
The Crossroads SuperPAC already has an ad playing off the unemployment rate:
Instead of addressing the report, the President's team went after Romney's jobs record.
Worth a read:Mitt on jobs, when HE was in charge.bit.ly/NauS77
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) July 6, 2012
Independent economists say Romney's plans wouldn't create one job, reduce the deficit one cent, could lead to another recession.
— Ben LaBolt (@BenLaBolt) July 6, 2012
Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom chose to stay quiet and retweet others:
10.9%: What the unemployment rate would be iflabor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office
— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) July 6, 2012
Reporter Dave Weigel mocked the Congressional GOP response:
House GOP response: 1) Hold another HCR repeal vote. 2) … 3) Jobs. mobile.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2…
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 6, 2012
Update (11:00 a.m.): Obama is delivering his usual stump speech. He says, "The choice could not be bigger and stakes could not be higher." It takes almost 15 minutes for the President to mention the jobs report. Here's some quotes from the section about the jobs report:
"Business have created 4.4 million jobs over the last 28 months ... That's a step in the right direction, but we can't be satisfied.... We've got to grow the economy even faster. We've got to put even more people back to work.Our mission is not just to get back to where we were before the crisis."
From there he moved on to the rest of his speech, which was the normal campaign speech, attacking the Republicans and their economic plans.
