At a campaign stop in Ohio on Thursday, Rep. Paul Ryan noted that the GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., shuttered its operations despite Barack Obama's promise to "keep the plant open." What Ryan left out of the narrative: the detail that the plant stopped production in December 2008, before Obama took office.

Ryan, Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, said Obama visited the plant during the 2008 campaign.

"I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open -- one more broken promise," Ryan said.

The announcement by then-GM president Rick Wagoner that Janesville would be one of three plants to close came at a meeting of shareholders in early June 2008, according to a Chicago Tribune report at the time.

Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, telling workers who had already faced layoffs that "if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years."

The plant stopped production on Dec. 23, 2008, according to an Associated Press report.

The report noted that "about 50" workers remained at the plant until May or June 2009 to complete outstanding orders. The Janesville plant opened in 1918 as a tractor production center; it started producing cars in 1923.

"We used to build Tahoes and Suburbans," Ryan said. "One of the reasons why that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs."

Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said the energy policies Ryan referenced to were those held by the president's party. In the summer of 2008, Democrats attempted to block a longtime ban on offshore drilling in the Atlantic and the Pacific from expiring, initiating a lengthy fight with President George W. Bush's White House and congressional Republicans.