That 47th ranking in job creation from the Obama attack ad just doesn’t sound right to me. The Romney team should find out exactly how that ranking was calculated and check all the calculations. Make sure the calculations were done in terms of percentages of each state’s population and not in absolute numbers. Check the starting dates and ending dates for all the employment statistics used in this attack ad. Liberals are generally extremely deceptive and they may have used some intentionally or unintentionally mistaken calculations to arrive at that 47th ranking.
After thoroughly checking that calculation, the Romney team needs to compile all the state employment statistics and start ranking them with different methods than the one used in the Obama attack ad. It appears that Romney essentially walked into an economic disaster in MA on his first day in office, which made it difficult for much net job growth to occur in MA within the next four years. So one new way to look at this situation could be to calculate the percentage of jobs gained or lost in MA and all other states in the year before Romney took office and in Romney’s last year in office. Then calculate the improvement in that percentage (net change) from the year before he took office until his last year. (For example, if a state lost 2% of it’s jobs in the first year but gained 1.5% in total employment in the last year, that’s a net improvement of 3.5%) Finally, rank the 50 states by those improvements in job growth during Romney’s four-year term. Measured that way, Massachusetts could easily be in the top five or ten states in the net improvement in job growth. If so, then run that high ranking in a campaign ad that neutralizes Obama’s attack ad, without mentioning Obama’s ad, of course. Just put conflicting information into the voters’ minds which cancels out the impact from the Obama attack ad.
Well, you get the idea. There are many ways to rack and stack employment statistics and many ways to measure improvement during a governor’s term. So the Romney campaign needs to get to work on ways to counter the Obama attack ads, and if those attack ads are using incorrect calculations, then of course nail them for using bad numbers.
What’s worse than lying with statistics is lying in such a way that nobody can even figure out how that conclusion was reached. You’d THINK that the Democrats would have the integrity to toss in at least a little footnote. If you’re right, they have pulled that number totally out of their little rodently derrieres.