Crossroads GPS, the juggernaut Republican-affiliated group, today announced a $25 million television ad blitz over the next month knocking President Barack Obama for his handling of the economy.

The effort begins with an ad, titled “Excuses,” that will start airing next week on broadcast TV in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKJnwq1ySlY

“America’s jobless rate is still too high,” says a female narrator backed by gloomy music. “Barack Obama’s got lots of excuses for the bad economy.”

The ad then shows a montage of Obama talking about reasons the economy has not been doing as well as it could be, including “headwinds coming from Europe,” “a string of bad luck,” “an earthquake in Japan,” “an Arab Spring,” among others.

The female narrator then comes back in: “But Obama never blames Washington’s wild spending and sky-rocketing debt. Tell Obama, for real job growth, cut the debt.”

The new ad is backed by about $8 million, but another ad could be swapped into that buy.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a worse-than-expected jobs number, while the unemployment rate remained at 8.2 percent.

Explaining why the economy hasn’t gotten better faster has been a key — perhaps the key — challenge of Obama’s re-election campaign against presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney.