Fehrnstrom: Obama would ‘happily trade’ his jobs record for Romney’s

Fehrnstrom on ABC’s This Week said Romney had achieved a 4.7 percent unemployment rate while governor and would gladly compare his record to Obama’s.

{mosads}“That’s close to full unemployment. What does that mean? It meant anybody who wanted a job had a pretty good chance of finding one. I have no doubt that President Obama would happily trade his 8.2 percent unemployment rate for Mitt Romney’s 4.7 percent,” he said.

Romney’s record in Massachusetts has come under attack from the Obama administration this past week.  An Obama campaign video accused him of leaving a legacy of “broken promises” in the state. Campaign adviser David Axelrod also targeted Romney’s record in a memo for reporters saying that “Massachusetts couldn’t afford Romney Economics, and neither can the American economy.”

Also appearing on ABC, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter continued those attacks saying that Massachusetts fell to “47th out of 50 in jobs creation” under Romney. 

“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,” she said. 

Cutter said that the state was “36 out of 50 states when Gov. Romney took office, and he was 47th when he left.”

Romney’s campaign however says that the governor managed to lower the unemployment rate from 5.4 percent to 4.7 percent during his tenure.

Independent estimates say that the state gained between 25,000 and 40,000 jobs under Romney.

“If President Obama had even half the job-creation record of Mitt Romney, then he would be running on it,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said last week.

Sunday’s debate between the two rival campaign aides comes after Friday’s weak jobs report which showed unemployment at 8.2 percent.