Romney adviser: Obama's policies are "hostile to job creators" (CBS News) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's senior adviser Ed Gillespie said on "Face the Nation" that President Obama's policies are "hostile to private investment and job creators." "That's why we have been at eight percent unemployment or higher for the past 39 months," Gillespie said. That is why there are 23 million Americans today who are either unemployed or underemployed or left the work force entirely, and why millions of people have lost their home and ended up in food stamps and poverty, because this president is hostile to job creators. President Obama's senior adviser Robert Gibbs had a different take on the president's record, pointing to "25 consecutive months of private sector job growth." Gibbs added: "We are certainly happy to talk a little bit about Mitt Romney and his record of not creating jobs in virtually every step of his life." He points to Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts. We have seen this experiment in Massachusetts... and [he] took that state's job creation numbers to 47th in the country. However, Gillespie defended Romney's gubernatorial record in the Bay State: "During his time as governor, the unemployment rate dropped from nearly six percent to 4.7 percent; there was net job creation of about 40,000 jobs." Last July, FactCheck.org looked into these claims and reported that Romney's job creation numbers grew slower than the national average.