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Obama & Romney Stumble Through Friday

WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) – A day of competing news conferences from President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney ended with both men trying to remove their proverbial foot from their mouth.

It started during an Obama news conference early Friday in which he said the following:

"The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last two, 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector's doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in."

Romney and fellow Republicans pounced on the line "The private sector's doing fine," and called the President out of touch and called the line "an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding."

But, while Romney was attacking the President, he also stumbled over his words. Romney equated firemen, policemen, and teachers with government bureaucrats that government's don't need to add at this time:

"He [Obama] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

Obama's remarks are likely to anger small business owners, while Romney's remarks are likely to anger fire department workers, police officers, and teachers.

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