Lee Fisher’s hyperbole about Rob Portman’s jobs record appears to have gone too far even for the press. Politifact Ohio and the Cleveland Plain Dealer have a story savaging his claim that Rob Portman is responsible for lost jobs in Ohio:

‘I’m running against Congressman Portman, who was George Bush’s trade advisor,’ Fisher said while campaigning in the Mahoning Valley. ‘He’s the one who actually sucked the jobs out of the Valley and sent them to China.’ […]
How can you prove something like that? […]
By the same token, Fisher was state development director during some of the worst job losses, in charge of retaining Ohio jobs and attracting new ones. Using Labor Department data, we determined that the Youngstown metro area shed 16,900 jobs — an 8.25 percent loss — during the time Fisher led the state’s job retention efforts.
Was Fisher ‘the one’ responsible for those losses?