Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Romney to unveil his jobs plan from Nevada

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney responds to a question from a reporter after meeting with students at the UNLV Student Union Monday, May 16, 2011.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney responds to a question from a reporter after meeting with students at the UNLV Student Union Monday, May 16, 2011.

Sun Coverage

As the country chips away, bit by bit, at the national unemployment rate, the measure of Nevada’s jobless is rising: back up to 12.9 percent last month, and an eye-popping 14 percent in Las Vegas.

Where better then, for the Republican presidential front-runner to unveil his jobs plan, two months before President Barack Obama plans to roll out his.

Mitt Romney announced on Fox News this afternoon that he’d be coming to the Silver State — the state whose GOP caucuses loved him most in 2008 — to unveil his jobs plan on Sept. 6, the day after Labor Day.

Romney wasn’t specific about what he’d be unveiling. But he did say “it will be very different from (Obama’s).”

Obama has focused his jobs message — at least the one he brought to Reno this spring — on investment in research and innovation. Romney has focused his on enabling the private sector to innovate by ensuring that taxes on “job makers” — businesses and top earners — stay low.

“President Obama and I could not be more different. He spent his life in politics, I spent my life as a businessperson; I know what it takes to get jobs in this country,” Romney said on the program. “I understand how the economy works, and I want to use that skill to get Americans back to work and to get America, once again, on a ramp to remain as it has always been the most powerful economic engine in the world.”

Romney often refers to his 25 years in the private sector, the bulk of them spent at Bain Capital, a private equity firm based in Boston. He points to his resume as experience that gives him street cred on the economy — and points out that in the entire GOP field, only he and pizza magnate Herman Cain have spent significant parts of their careers in the private sector.

But that background has brought shots from his competitors.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also a GOP presidential candidate, said on CNN last week that using a private-sector record to run for public office is “oranges and apples ... Running a state is different from running a business.”

For now Romney is focusing his message on Obama — whose jobs plan he admits he doesn’t know, but said today that “if it’s a continuation of what we’ve seen in the past, we know it’ll fail.”

Romney has brought his national jobs message to Nevada before, most memorably in June, when he taped a campaign commercial, “Bump in the Road,” as a response to an Obama speech in which he said there would be “bumps in the road” on the way to economic recovery. The commercial, taped along the Las Vegas Beltway in North Las Vegas, featured locals claiming they were Americans, not bumps in the road.

At this point, Romney has featured Nevada in his campaign more heavily than either Obama or any other GOP candidates; except for Ron Paul, no other front-runner in the Republican field has yet made a trip to the Silver State.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy