GOP governors say the economy is great. Romney campaign says the economy is terrible. Can't be both [View all]

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http://www.freep.com/article/20120519/NEWS07/205190372/Romney-GOP-governors-have-differing-takes-on-economy

Romney, GOP governors have differing takes on economy

<snip>To win, Romney must convince voters -- especially those in the roughly dozen swing states where the race is likely to be decided -- that the situation is so bad that they should give him a chance to do what Obama hasn't been able to do: get the economy really going. snip

In a way, Republican governors aren't making it easy for Romney to make his case.

McDonnell, for one, spent an entire week canvassing his state and used $400,000 from his own political action committee to run TV ads statewide trumpeting a 21/2-year turnaround in job growth and business expansion. Virginia's unemployment rate fell from 7.3% the month he took office in January 2010 -- the depth of the recession -- to 5.6% last month.

Snyder beams when he talks about a jobless rate that has fallen by 2.2 percentage points in his state, Romney's boyhood home, in the past year. And Branstad boasts: "The unemployment rate in Iowa is dropping dramatically, and the kind of jobs that we're creating are the kinds we want."