David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama’s reelection campaign, said Sunday that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney does not have a record of a “job-creator.”
Speaking on CBS’s "Face the Nation," Axelrod said the former Massachusetts governor shouldn’t be considered an expert on the economy. Romney’s record in government and in the private sector was not about creating jobs, he said.
“No one’s arguing whether Mitt Romney’s qualified to be president. What we’re arguing is whether he’s qualified to call himself a job-creator,” Axelrod said. “That’s not what he did in business. That’s not the purpose of his business. And that’s not certainly what he did in Massachusetts, where they had one of the worst economic records in the country.”
The economy is a central focus of the presidential race. Friday’s jobs report, which said employers only added 69,000 jobs and the unemployment rate climbed to 8.2 percent, could hurt Obama’s reelection chances if the labor market continues to struggle.
Axelrod dismissed suggestions that the Obama campaign would dial back its attacks on Romney’s time at private-equity firm Bain Capital. The Obama adviser talked about one Obama campaign advertisement that focused on Bain’s involvement with GST Steel, a company that went bankrupt.
“No. First of all, It’s part of a piece. Is Mitt Romney’s background, are his ideas the ones that could move our economy forward?” Axelrod said. “That’s not an economic strategy that’s going to rebuild the middle class in this country, that’s going to grow our economy in the long run, and that’s the point we’re making.”
