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From this Sunday's State of the Union, while discussing whether President Obama's reelection prospects might hinge on the economy improving or not, Virginia's wingnut Gov. Bob McDonnell decided to throw out here what TPM's Sahil Kapur thinks might be a trial balloon in case the economy continues to improve; it's Republican governors that deserve credit for the recovery, not Obama:

Virginia Governor and Mitt Romney surrogate Bob McDonnell (R) on Sunday floated what may turn into a Republican talking point if the economy continues to improve: It wasn’t President Obama who made it happen, it was the GOP governors.

“Look, I’m glad the economy is starting to recover, but I think it’s because of what Republican governors are doing in their states, not because of the president,” McDonnell said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” [...]

The intricacy of McDonnell’s argument is noteworthy: He didn’t say jobs are created on the state level, as opposed to the federal level. He said the improvements happened because of Republican governors. That’s a difficult argument to make when the recovery is taking hold across the country, even in states with Democratic governors.

It’s also problematic because Republicans have been eager to give Obama ownership of the economy. But McDonnell’s trial balloon suggests that if the economic indicators continue to tick upward, the 2012 elections could shift from a battle over who’s to blame for a weak economy to who deserves credit for an improving one.

During the segment above, after McDonnell took credit for how his and other Republican led states are doing, Crowley cut off Gov. Martin O'Malley before he had a chance to respond to him. I'm wondering if he was going to point out that Virginia is doing well because of the amount of stimulus money his state accepted.

And after all the layoffs of government workers, their attack on public sector employees, with Republicans doing everything they can to sabotage any economic recovery on purpose for political gain, recall elections of unpopular Republicans, and Republican governors tanking in the polls over the last year due to their unpopular agendas, I say good luck with trying to make that argument to the public.

As far as O'Donnell's claim that the stimulus didn't work, I'd just refer readers back to Karoli's post on that -- Dear Democrats: The Stimulus Worked, Start Acting Like It.

Transcript below the fold.

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Michael Moore sat down with Stephen Colbert to talk about the Republican governors and corporate America's assault on the working class in America.

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Rachel Maddow took a whack at the hypocritical Republicans in Wisconsin and the Republican governors across the country who will spare no expense when it comes to taking care of their own -- especially big business and their wealthy campaign donors -- and at the same time are willing to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class.

Case in point, we have Stephen Fitzgerald, the father of Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. The elder Fitzgerald, who after losing his election for Dodge County sheriff by a 2-to-1 margin, somehow got appointed as the head of the State Patrol.

And as Rachel noted, in the midst of the potential recall of a number of Wisconsin Senators, there is "another patronage scandal blossoming today."

Senator's girlfriend had help getting job:

Even though the state is supposedly broke, top officials in Gov. Scott Walker's team were able to scrape together enough money to give a state job to the woman identified as Sen. Randy Hopper's girlfriend.

Anything for a political ally.

Valerie Cass, a former Republican legislative staffer, was hired Feb. 7 as a communications specialist with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. She is being paid $20.35 per hour. The job is considered a temporary post.

Cass previously had worked in the state Senate and for the GOP campaign consulting firm Persuasion Partners in Madison. She also was paid for campaign work for the state Republican Party and U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner before that.

"Ms. Cass' name was among many forwarded to DRL by the Governor's Transition Team as potential candidates for positions with the department," said David Carlson, the agency's spokesman. Read on...

Rachel summed this up rather nicely.

MADDOW: But apart from the awkwardness for the State Senator here, there's also the awkwardness of whether or not Wisconsin state government is so broke because of all those greedy state employees, right? I mean for the Senator already facing the likely prospect of recall, this is not a positive development. But is also really handy as a reminder about the whole nature of this fight in Wisconsin, and why it is resonating nationally.

The Republican justification for the union stripping business in Wisconsin is that it was all about the budget, right? But then something like this comes along and we're all reminded that if it were all about the budget, people hired by the state would not be getting $12,000 raises, whether or not they were State Senators' girlfriends.

She wrapped it up with letting her viewers know about some of Think Progress' Wonk Room reporting on the GOP governors out there and their willingness to raise taxes on the working class while giving their wealthy campaign donors a break -- REPORT: In 12 States, GOP Plans To Slash Corporate Taxes While Increasing Burden on Working Families:

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