By Kenneth J. Cooper

President Obama has a potent proxy to undercut the political pitch of Mitt Romney, should the Republican frontrunner prevail and become his party’s nominee for president.

Romney has based his campaign on the proposition that he was a great executive in private business who created jobs and therefore he will be an equally great chief executive in the White House. It’s a dubious argument, given that decision-making is centralized in business but spread around three branches of the government. Or that voters didn’t buy a Romneyesque appeal when Ross Perot made it in the 1990s, twice.

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, some voters who have been in a desperate and fruitless search for work may find solace in Romney’s message nevertheless. But there is one big problem with Romney in particular making this pitch.

Deval Patrick

He has had only one job in government since departing his private equity firm in Boston. That job was as a chief executive, the governor of Massachusetts. So there exists a record to assess whether his experience in business translated into success in government, particularly in creating jobs.

This is where his successor, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, comes in. A friend and political twin of Obama, Patrick has established a federal political action committee to fund his out-of-state campaigning on behalf of the Democratic president. The Together PAC raised $575,000 last year and had $250,000 on hand when 2012 began.

On television shows and road trips, Patrick has already test-marketed his case for Obama’s reelection. One prong is to lay out facts to show Romney was not all that as governor. And who would know more about that record than his successor?

“It is a fact that in 2006 we were 47^th in the nation in job creation and today we are fifth in the nation in job creation,” Patrick said recently, referring to the year Romney resigned as Massachusetts governor to run for president the first time.

The current governor continued the then-and-now comparison in the interview with “Basic Black” on WGBH, Boston’s public television station.

“It’s a fact that we moved from the bottom third as best places to do business in the previous administration to fifth or sixth today on the CNBC poll. It’s a fact that our bond rating is higher than it’s ever been. It’s a fact that the structural deficit is gone. It’s a fact that we’ve extended health insurance to 98 percent of our residents, a bill that he signed but that we implemented.”

Patrick recited those facts in measured tones, as is his style.

“I’m not an attack dog. I’m not comfortable at that. Mitt Romney’s always been a gentleman to me,” he explained. “We have very different views about governing although, you know, frankly, these days it’s hard to tell which Mitt Romney you’re going to get because he’s been on various sides of various issues.”

As a surrogate for Obama, Patrick also makes the case that both he and the president have taken a similar approach to governing in these economic hard times, cutting spending and at the same time investing in education, health care, job creation, infrastructure and innovation, all funding increases aimed at promoting future growth and prosperity.

The governor, however, has been more successful than the president in getting his agenda enacted into law. Massachusetts has a lower unemployment rate and has created new jobs at a faster rate than the country as a whole. What a difference a cooperative legislature makes, Patrick says.

In November, he told Democrats assembled in New Hampshire that Obama “has put idea after idea after idea on the table, very like the ones we put on the table in Massachusetts. The difference is the (Massachusetts) Legislature gives me the tools to deliver for the people, and the Congress is denying this president the tools.”

To Patrick, the solution is obvious. “We ought not be talking about changing out the president,” he added. “We ought to be talking about changing out the Congress.”

Barack Obama

Where in the country Patrick will be deployed to campaign this year has been signaled by where he has already campaigned on Obama’s behalf. Last year, the Massachusetts governor spoke at annual statewide Democratic dinners in “Florida, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Colorado, swing states important to Obama’s reelection prospects.

His speechmaking in partisan venues suggests one role will be to bring home and motivate fellow Democrats. Patrick’s popularity with party insiders has risen since he survived the “shellacking,” as Obama called it, in the elections of 2010, when Patrick became the first African American to be reelected as governor.

Patrick’s case for Obama’s reelection may not win over many Republicans, but he could help Obama with independents, an important voting bloc. Like Obama, the governor is a Harvard-educated African-American officeholder who seeks broad support with an inclusive message.

“We are in this together to reduce the deficit and grow the economy,” he said in early February on “Meet the Press” on NBC.

Patrick, first elected in 2006, has a limited national profile among ordinary folks, partly because he has been overshadowed by first candidate and then President Obama. But that profile has been growing, with appearances on network and cable shows, including “Face the Nation” and “The Daily Show.” The number of such appearances is likely to grow as the campaign unfolds.

If he does become the Republican nominee, Romney may at times feel he is contending with two Obamas, including one from his home state who knows his unimpressive record as governor all too well.

Kenneth J. Cooper, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is a freelancer based in Boston. He also edits the Trotter Review at the University of Massachusetts-Boston