Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has been crisscrossing the state, jumping from campaign stop to campaign stop, but he’s not stumping for himself.
Strickland, who is not running for office, is the Obama campaign’s biggest Ohio surrogate. He’s on the campaign trail to sell the 44th President to voters in the key swing state while attacking Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but Strickland’s own record as governor is worse than Romney’s when it comes to job-creation.
The Columbus Dispatch reports:
Strickland has criticized Romney over his opposition to the auto-industry bailout, his record at Bain Capital and his offshore bank account. He’s also cracked Romney for his job-creation record as governor of Massachusetts — the state ranked 47th in job creation [during] Romney’s four years in charge there. Ohio, however, ranked 48th in the same category under Strickland and lost about 402,700 jobs from January 2007 through December 2010 (his last full month in office) during a period marked by the Great Recession.
"This has got to be possibly the worst person you could have to speak on job creation ... Ohio was at the bottom of the list," said Jon Stainbrook, chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party in northwestern Ohio, adding that he thought Strickland "is a nice guy."
"And this guy’s the one speaking on behalf of the president’s accomplishments? It’s a bad choice."