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The numbers don’t lie: Obama’s a better businessman than Romney

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OK, that does it. President Obama should win in November in a landslide.

Why? Because he’s a better businessman than Mitt Romney.

But don’t take my word for it. As my colleague Matea Gold reported Monday:

The Romney campaign spent $4.04 million on payroll in August -- nearly twice as much as it spent in July -- while the Obama campaign spent $4.37 million, according to campaign finance disclosures filed last week with the Federal Election Commission.

But the president appears to be getting a much bigger bang for his buck.

According to an analysis by the Times Data Desk, part of the Los Angeles Times, the Obama campaign had 901 people on its payroll last month, and paid them a median salary of $3,074 a month, or $36,886 a year.

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The Romney campaign, in contrast, had 403 people on its payroll, and paid them a median salary of $6,437 in August, which would mean $77,250 a year.

A Romney campaign official said the median staff salary is actually $51,500 a year. The August payroll may have been inflated by back pay owed to new employees, the official said.

So, the “businessman” Romney pays fewer people more money than the “socialist” Obama.

Has the world turned upside down? Is this a bad “Twilight Zone”? Because this just doesn’t square with the GOP rhetoric that Romney is the guy to get our ailing economy going again.

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Heck, if a guy can’t run a tight campaign ship, what would he do with the ship of state?

Of course, it also poses a dilemma, neatly summed up by commenter “unclesmrgol”:

Gee I wonder whom I’d prefer to work for -- the outsourcer or the scrooge?

So maybe this story belongs in the Onion. After all, it also says that the Republican National Committee has a smaller staff than the Democratic National Committee but that the RNC pays its people better. So, presumably, the Democrats are running their “business” the way they often criticize Republicans for: hire fewer people, make them do more work and pay them less.

It either shows that the GOP message has been wrong -- or that the GOP message has become so pervasive that even Democrats have bought into it.

Of course, either way, it’s not good news for the working stiff -- provided that stiff is working on the campaign.

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Then again, come November and it’ll be time to find real jobs.

I hear they may be hiring in China -- at Foxconn!

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McManus: What the presidential polls show

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