By Matt Hurley | Special to Ohio Watchdog

Matt Hurley

Mitt Romney came out swinging today in Cincinnati, slamming the president on a number of issues including trade policy, the deficit and energy. Here is a sample:

“Now, you may have heard that President Obama is on the other side of the state.  And he’s going to be delivering a speech on the economy. He’s doing that because he hasn’t delivered a recovery for the economy. And he’s going to be a person of eloquence as he describes his plans for making the economy better, but don’t forget, he’s been President for 3 1/2 years. And talk is cheap, action speaks very loud. And if you want to see the results of his economic policies, look around Ohio, look around the country, and you’ll see that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of people have had some real tough times and the policies the President put in place did not make America create more jobs.  As a matter of fact, he made it harder for America to create more jobs. Now when he was recently elected he went on ‘The Today Show’ and he was asked about what he’d do, how he’d measure his success, and he said: ‘Look, if I can’t turn the economy around in three years, I’ll be looking at a one-term proposition.’ And he’s right; he is looking at a one-term proposition. He’s going to be saying today that he wants four more years. He may have forgotten he talked about a one-term proposition if he couldn’t get the economy turned around in three years, but we’re going to hold him to his word. Now I know that he will have all sorts of excuses and he’ll have all sorts of ideas he’ll describe about how he will make things better, but what he says and what he does are not always the exact same thing. And so if people want to know how his economic policies have worked and how they performed, why they can talk to their neighbor and ask whether things are better.  They can talk to the 50 percent of college kids graduating from college this year that can’t find a job. They can talk to the people who represent the unemployed. The President said that if we let him borrow $787 billion for a stimulus, he’d keep unemployment below 8 percent, nationally. We have now gone 40 straight months with unemployment above 8 percent. But then he’ll say, well, but the things he’s been doing have been good and helped to create growth and put people back to work. Oh, really? Go check on that.”

Of particular interest was Romney’s take on energy. He said that on day one of his administration, he would authorize the construction of the Keystone Pipeline and get that oil to America as quickly as possible. Left unmentioned was any sort of specific idea about how to lower gas prices.

A favorite punching bag in this speech was China. Whether it was the trade deficit or stolen intellectual property, China was a recurring villain. What he failed to talk about was how much of our debt is held by the Chinese.

Romney didn’t knock it out of the park, but he didn’t read it off a teleprompter either.