BY OLYMPIA MEOLA

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has released a new TV ad in Virginia and eight other states taking aim at Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts.

The 1 minute spot called “Heard it Before” focuses on the state’s economy at the time of Romney’s gubernatorial term, claiming the state fell to 47th in the country in job creation and ended up deeper in debt.

“Romney economics: it didn’t work then and it won’t work now,” the narrator says.

The ad is airing here and in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Curt Cashour, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, responded to the ad, saying “Having abandoned ‘Hope and Change,’ the Obama campaign only ‘Hopes To Change The Subject’ from an abysmal jobs report.

“We’re happy to compare the 4.7% unemployment rate Mitt Romney achieved in Massachusetts to President Obama’s weak record any day. President Obama’s policies have failed to get Americans back to work – it’s time for a president who has worked in the real world economy and understands how to get this economy moving again.”