The New Republic

We usually have to get a little closer to Election Day before we see campaign attacks of the “You are!” “No, you are!” variety. It’s only early July and already Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are accusing each other of deserving the clever label: “Outsourcer-in-Chief.”

Obama started it, releasing a series of television ads referencing reports that Bain invested in companies that sent jobs overseas. The tagline: “Does [insert your state here] really want an Outsourcer-in-Chief in the White House?” The ads began running in late June, around the same time that Obama started having fun with the fact that a front-page Washington Post story about Bain called some companies they invested in “pioneers” in the business of outsourcing. The jibe also has a double-meaning that is perhaps unintended—Utah officially celebrates Pioneer Day, as do many Mormons outside Utah, to commemorate the arrival of Brigham Young and his followers to that state.

Romney hit back today, telling a campaign crowd in Colorado, “If there’s an outsourcer-in-chief, it’s the President of the United States, not the guy who is running to replace him.” The RNC also made public a new website today, ObamanomicsOutsourced.com, that promises “The Truth About How Obama Shipped the Recovery Overseas.”

They’ll no doubt continue to verbally duke it out over these outsourcing charges through the fall. But might I suggest a better way of figuring out once and for all who deserves the title? Each candidate has to submit a written proposal—not talking points, not vague promises—for what he would do to bring jobs back to the U.S. from overseas. They agree on an independent auditor, who tallies up the number of jobs that would be saved or added by each candidate’s plan. The candidate with the lower number gets the title Outsourcer-in-Chief and a crown made by some workers in the Cayman Islands.

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