Romney: Unemployment will get Obama 'tossed from office'

If voters toss President Obama from office in 2012, it will be due to high unemployment, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Monday night.

Romney, one of the top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested that if he or some other Republican were to beat Obama, it would be because of the high jobless numbers.

"This unemployment crisis is part of what I call the 'Obama Misery Index,' and it’s why my view is this man is going to get tossed from office," Romney said Monday evening on Fox News. "He's a nice guy, but he just doesn’t understand what it takes to get the economy going to make America competitive globally, to rein in the size of the federal government, and to allow the American spirit of entrepreneurialism and innovation put Americans back to work."

Romney's stressed his experience as a business executive and governor in his second try for the Republican nomination, following a failed bid in 2008.

Since announcing an exploratory committee in early April, Romney has almost exclusively talked about economic issues, from the jobless rate, to the downgraded outlook for U.S. debt, to the recent spike in gas prices. The former governor's bet is that, by focusing on bread-and-butter economic issues, he'll be able to build a solid lead going into next year's primaries.

To that end, Romney made light of the "Winning the Future" theme Obama first introduced in his 2011 State of the Union address, which he has since emphasized during a nationwide tour to promote his policies.

"The president says he’s about 'winning the future,' well people are losing the present," Romney said. "You’ve got people suffering in this country. Unemployment is not a statistic. Unemployment is people who can’t find work. Unemployment is college kids that can’t complete their education. Unemployment is seniors that don’t know whether they can retire."