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.
In four years.
During the first three years of President Obama's Administration, 4.1 million new private-sector jobs have been added.
Governor Romney's 2.4 million jobs is not quite 60 percent of President Obama's 4.1 million. That is, President Obama has added 40 percent more jobs in absolute terms than Mitt Romney in ¾ of the time.
Romney is now comparing himself to President Jimmy Carter, seeming to believe that anyone would believe that he, Romney, is somehow tougher or better than the former president. Why Romney would believe that others would come to such conclusions is baffling.
We have already dispelled the notion that Romney, who avoided military service as if it were a plague, could hold a national security candle to President Carter.
But, what about job growth? Jimmy Carter was a former peanut farmer, without the Wall Street experience or savvy that Mitt Romney proclaims his Bain experience provides him. So, how could President Carter possibly have added jobs, especially with the Arab oil embargo, the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with which Carter had to contend?
Right? Sorry, Mitt, wrong again. Under President Carter, America added 10 million jobs in four years, a faster pace than under President Reagan, and just slightly slower than under President Clinton.
Romney's extrapolated-to-the-nation job growth during his tenure as governor is less than 25 percent of President Carter's record.
Still want to compare your jobs record to President Carter, Mitt?
You might do better picking on someone more like you -- such as George W. Bush.