Mitt Romney is touring swing states, using poor US jobs data and vowing better economic stewardship to stomp on any lift President Barack Obama received from the Democratic convention.
Making his first campaign stops Friday since holing up in Vermont for three days to practice for next month’s presidential debates, Romney seized on the bad job numbers, saying the White House incumbent’s policies have hurt the US economy.
“This president tried, but he didn’t understand what it takes to make our economy work. I do,” Romney told some 2,600 people crammed into a gymnasium in Orange City, Iowa, describing the US jobs situation as a “national tragedy.”
Immediately after landing in Iowa, the Republican nominee blasted Obama for the job numbers -- just 96,000 posts were created last month and nearly four times as many people dropped out of the workforce altogether.
“That kind of report is obviously disheartening for the American people who need work and are having a hard time finding work,” Romney told reporters ahead of the Orange City rally.
He claimed that Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democrats’ mass gathering on Thursday merely amounted to telling Americans that they could expect more of the same.