Visually, it's meant to drum up excitement over what might happen at a Presidential debate between the Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Throughout the 2012 political season, 9NEWS will hold those who run political ads on our networks accountable for what they say.

Here's what we found about the specific claims made in the ad:

CLAIM: "Mitt Romney spent his life in the private sector, creating thousands of jobs."

First off, saying Romney "spent his life" in the private sector is an overstatement. He spent much of his life in the private sector, but he also spent four years as Governor of Massachusetts.

As for the thousands of jobs, in Romney's business record we find you can't prove or disprove this claim.

Thousands of jobs were created at some companies owned by Romney's firm Bain Capital. 

But others went bankrupt and shut down. 

There's no good figure out there to show whether Romney created jobs overall.

However, as Governor it's true Massachussets added 61,000 jobs during Romney's term.

We've looked at why in prior tests of ads that spar over Romney's jobs record.

CLAIM: "Barack Obama wasted $800 billion on a failed stimulus."

This claim is tricky, because it is an opinion. However, in the video this ad attributes the claim to the Congressional Budget Office.

Because of that, we have to call this claim false as presented.

The CBO neither called the money wasted, nor the stimulus act a failure.

In testimony to Congress, the CBO director reported that the stimulus added as many as 3.3 million jobs and may have prevented another recession.

You can read more about the stimulus in this CBO summary or this full report.

CLAIM: "[Under Obama] the jobless rate went up."

This claim is arguable.

On this chart based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, you can see that the latest unemployment figure from July 2012 is 8.3 percent.

In January 2009, the month Barack Obama took office, the rate was 7.8 percent, making the ad's claim defensible.

However, President Obama was sworn in on January 20. After his first full month is office, the rate was 8.3 percent. It is the same as the latest figure.

A better claim (which has been made elsewhere) would be that unemployment has not improved to the level it was before President Obama took office.

CLAIM: "Romney cut spending and balanced budgets without raising taxes."

There are three claims in this statement.

"Cut spending" is misleading.

While some budget items were cut during Romney's term as governor, overall state spending increased.

"Balanced budgets" is true. Massachusetts law requires budgets to be balanced.

"Without raising taxes" is arguable.

It's true that tax rates did not increase on the major revenue sources in his state while Romney was in office. But several fees imposed by the state did increase, and some of what Romney called "loopholes" were ended

Combined the overall increase in taxes and fees totaled more than the tax cuts that were made in Romney's term. 

Claim: "Obama has added $5 trillion in debt."

The $5 billion figure is true. 

Context can be added. Debt was trending upward when President Obama took office.

The trend has continued in the President's tenure for a variety of reasons, some of which are detailed in this analysis by the Washington Post. 

Research by: Emily Lande

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