Mitt Romney to Rick Scott: Hush up about Florida's dropping unemployment

Gov. Rick Scott (Andrew Innerarity/Reuters) Mitt Romney's message that President Obama is holding the economy back and everything would be better under President Mitt is a tough one to sustain in key swing states that have seen their unemployment rates drop. In Florida, Romney's answer to the problem of Republican Gov. Rick Scott's statements touting falling unemployment was to ask Scott to please tone it down and get on message:

Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state's jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to [two] people, who asked not to be named. [...]

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an e-mail that Romney frequently praises governors 'for their ability to overcome the job-stifling policies of the Obama administration.' Scott spokesman Lane Wright didn't return phone calls seeking comment.  

Romney previously faced this problem in Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich talked about the state's improving economy while campaigning with Romney himself. Talk about awkward. Kasich's clumsy walkback didn't exactly help matters, either. Then there's Virginia, where Gov. Bob McDonnell has run an ad rhapsodizing about falling unemployment. Perhaps the best one, though, is that Michigan's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, has called his state "the comeback state of the United States," while trying to stay on the "Romney would do better" message. Which, President Obama's auto rescue, anyone? If Romney had had his way on the auto industry, Michigan's unemployment would be through the roof, not dropping.

Gee, it's almost like these aren't anomalies coming from the individual genius of their Republican governors, but are part of a national economy that's improving. And yes, we need to do better. But Mitt Romney clearly sees his only hope for election as lying in bad economic news, won't tell us what he'd actually do to improve things, and now is relying on Republicans to pretend good news isn't happening. Where in that, exactly, is there any indication he actually believes he could do better?

9:02 AM PT: The Romney and Scott camps are now denying that anyone "in the Romney inner circle" asked Scott to stop being positive about Florida's economy.