How does Mitt Romney
justify his claim to having created 100,000 jobs through his work at Bain Capital? Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom:
[...] says the 100,000 figure stems from the growth in jobs from three companies that Romney helped to start or grow while at Bain Capital: Staples (a gain of 89,000 jobs), The Sports Authority (15,000 jobs), and Domino’s (7,900 jobs).
This tally obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain.
So basically it's like a yo-yo dieter telling you how many pounds, total, they have lost over the years, without mentioning all the times they regained all the weight. "I've lost 300 pounds" sounds a lot more impressive than "I've lost 50 pounds six times, and gained 52 pounds six times," just as "I've created 100,000 jobs" sounds a lot more impressive than "businesses I once worked on now employ 100,000 more people than they did at the time I began working on them, and I didn't really pay much attention to how many people were laid off at all the other businesses I worked on."
Maybe he should take it the next step, and count every single job created at any company he ever worked on and none of the jobs cut, even in cases where the same job was created then cut on his watch. For instance, the jobs at Holson Burnes: Under Bain, Holson Burnes opened a plant in South Carolina, then closed it, cutting 150 jobs. Some of those jobs went to New Hampshire, where they were soon cut again. But what if Romney counted the 150 in South Carolina, added it to the number of jobs moved to New Hampshire, and ignored the fact that none of those jobs lasted? Think how many jobs he could claim he created that way!
And since all the while Romney will be using a completely different math to calculate President Obama's jobs record, he doesn't need to worry about subjecting himself to any unflattering comparisons.