In response to Mitt Romney's inevitable criticism of President Obama's economic record following Friday's bleakjobsreport, the pro-Obama PAC American Bridge is circulating the following video, taken from a Romney press conference on June 24, 2006 (via Andrew Sullivan): The takeaway, as Alexander Burns puts it, is that "rhetorically, there's not much space between Obama ca. 2012 and Romney ca. 2006." But how much space was there economically? Let's look at a couple of Romney's key claims and compare them against Massachusetts' economy when he was governor and the U.S. economy during Obama's tenure as president to find out.
