Romney hits back at Obama’s ‘job destroyer’ attack

WASHINGTON, Sunday

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney’s team has hit back at President Barack Obama’s campaign for portraying him as a jobs destroyer, ahead of a pivotal US election primary in South Carolina.

Mr Romney, favourite to take on Mr Obama in November, sought to turn the tables on the Democratic president, with a senior campaign aide saying the candidate’s business experience trumped Obama’s background as a “community organiser.”

“No amount of speechmaking will persuade the American people that his economic record has been anything other than an unmitigated disaster,” Mr Romney’s policy director Lanhee Chen said of Obama in a statement.

South Carolina will vote on January 21 for a Republican nominee to contest the country’s November 6 presidential election.

South Carolina is seen as the last chance for Mr Romney’s challengers to revive their chances after the frontrunner triumphed in the race’s opening contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Attacks by Obama aides on Mr Romney’s economic credentials on Friday added to similar outbursts from the latter’s Republican rivals over his 15-year tenure at equity firm Bain Capital and disputed claims that he created 100,000 jobs.

The Obama campaign’s intervention whipped up a new storm around Mr Romney, who has been battered by the jobs debate, in which he has been repeatedly accused of firing thousands of workers while securing millions in profits for himself.

But Mr Chen laid the economic blame at Mr Obama’s door, stating that the number of Americans unemployed, underemployed or no longer seeking work had risen from 22 million people to nearly 24 million during the incumbent’s reign.

“In January 2009, the month President Obama assumed office, the total US public debt outstanding was $10.4 trillion. Today it exceeds more than $15 trillion,” Mr Chen added.

“The American people are all too well aware that this is money that they must eventually pay back.”

The decision of Obama’s team to enter the fray added to the impression that an important moment of the 2012 campaign has arrived, with Mr Romney battling to shore up the axis of his presidential run — that he is the best candidate to create jobs lost since Obama entered the White House.

The Democrats weighed in again on Saturday, arguing that Mr Romney’s plans would cut taxes for wealthy Americans and raise taxes for the middle class.