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House Speaker John Boehner became the latest Mitt Romney surrogate to campaign in must-win North Carolina on Friday, casting the former Massachusetts governor as a proven job creator and urging local Republicans to get out the vote by knocking on doors and making phone calls.
“Elections aren’t won or lost based on what the polls say,” Boehner told about 200 GOP activists gathered outside Romney’s Charlotte office. “They’re won and lost based on who shows up to vote.”
Though foreign policy, abortion and Medicare have become recent issues in the presidential race, the Ohio Republican tried to keep the focus on the economy. The jobless rate has fallen below 8 percent nationally, but the economy is still the prominent issue in some battleground states – including North Carolina, where the unemployment rate is 9.7 percent.
“Mitt Romney understands how to create jobs,” Boehner said about the former CEO at Bain Capital. “He also understands what big government can do to destroy jobs in our country.”
By contrast, Boehner referred to President Barack Obama – a former community organizer, law professor and legislator – as “a guy in the White House who just doesn’t get it. …Never had a real job. Never done anything.”
The Obama administration has charged that the Boehner-led House of Representatives has blocked many of the president’s proposals to create jobs. And Congress’ standing in the polls has reached record lows, in the single digits, this year.
Still, Boehner told the gathering that he’s tried to find “common ground” with Obama. He blamed the president for the breakdown in talks, saying Obama’s idea of investment “is taking your tax money and giving it to Solyndra,” the clean-energy company that went bust after receiving federal loan guarantees.
The House speaker also touted U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan – Romney’s running mate and one of Boehner’s top committee chairmen – for his Thursday night debate performance, “even though he was interrupted 80 or 90 times” by Vice President Joe Biden.
