Romney Campaign Begs Florida Governor To Downplay State's Job Growth
from TPM: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/romney-campaign-reportedly-asked-florida-governor-to-downplay-job-gains.php?ref=fpa
Mitt Romney’s campaign asked Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to downplay his state’s job growth after several press releases from the governor’s campaign and messages from the Florida Chamber of Commerce trumpeted gains for the month of May, according to Bloomberg News.
Florida’s unemployment rate dropped from 8.7 percent in April to 8.6 percent in May, though still significantly above the national rate of 8.2 percent.
A Romney adviser reportedly requested that Scott’s office say that Florida’s unemployment rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, unnamed sources told Bloomberg.
The development is perhaps one of the clearest examples of the messaging predicament the Romney campaign finds itself in. For the Republican presidential nominee, the election is largely a referendum on President Obama’s handling of jobs and the economy. And with last month’s weak jobs report, he appeared to have a winning message. Yet when you ask Republican governors how things are going, especially in swing states, the economic picture starts to brighten considerably - as TPM’s Benjy Sarlin first reported back in March: (http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/job-growth-splits-national-state-republicans.php)
Florida Gov. Rick Scott used his annual address the same month to brag about how his state had “netted more than 120,000 total jobs in the first 11 months of 2011,” even as unemployment remained among the highest in the nation.
“When I said, ‘Let’s get to work,’ it wasn’t just a slogan,” he said. “Florida got to work, and each Floridian deserves the credit!”
Even in Nevada, which holds the worst unemployment rate in the nation after a devastating housing collapse, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) is finding reasons to be cheerful.
“Nevada is on the move again!” he told business leaders in December. “We are seeing signs, some large, some small, of economic improvement.”
read more (with updates of examples of Gov. Rick Scott boasting about Florida job growth): http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/romney-campaign-reportedly-asked-florida-governor-to-downplay-job-gains.php?ref=fpa
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