The Romney campaign is seizing on a report Wednesday that President Obama’s much-touted jobs council has taken an election-year hiatus and hasn’t met for six months, even as the issue of job creation is front and center in the campaign.
Andrea Saul, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign spokeswoman, blasted Mr. Obama for holding more than 100 fundraisers so far this year but just one meeting of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness back in January, even as the unemployment continues to hover above 8 percent.
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“Coming off the worst quarter of job-creation in two years, and with the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, it’s clear President Obama has failed to live up to his promises,” she said in a statement. “Yet President Obama is listening more to his campaign donors and special interest groups than to his own jobs council. That makes perfect sense for a president more concerned with re-election than getting the economy back on track.”
The report in Wednesday’s Politico about the failure of Mr. Obama’s council, which includes more than two dozen business executives, to meet cites a host of reasons why the White House may be avoiding convening another meeting.
Some business leaders may not want to be seen appearing too cozy with Mr. Obama in the middle of a campaign. Some members of the council have conspicuously declined to endorse him, and in turn, the president has conspicuously declined to endorse some of the group’s recommendations.
Another potential hornet’s nest Mr. Obama may be trying to avoid, according to the article, is that some of the CEOs on the president’s commission have been involved in outsourcing, a theme Mr. Obama’s campaign has tried to use against Mr. Romney since the general election politicking began.
