Hear Me Roar; Just Don’t Tally My Deficit “Savings”
I am surprised how many of my Democrat friends continue to think President Obama is a shoo-in because he holds slim leads in crucial Electoral College states.
I don’t see it that way, even if Obama is leading in some states.
I think that Mitt Romney--warts and all (referring to his public policies which don’t quite add up whether it’s tax reform or deficit reduction)--has Obama and the Democrats on the run going into tomorrow night’s debate.
But there still is hope, if enough light can shone on Mitt's policies and positions.
Truth is a big issue for the Romney campaign, claiming it not telling it.
Hear Mitt Speak Out of Both Sides of His Mouth
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan consistently have accused President Obama of not telling the truth and Romney’s proxies, including former GE CEO Jack Welch, are accusing the Administration of putting out phony employment numbers, despite several prominent GOP policy and political wonks saying Welch is all wet.
Romney already has said that he doesn’t hold with everything that his supporters believe (Trump on “Obama is foreign born”) (Todd Akins’s belief that women can flip a secret body switch and hold off the unwanted rape results) to name two.
He has not commented yet on Rep, Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a senior Republican on the House Space, Science, and Technology committee, who last week called all modern science, regarding evolution, a “lie from Hell.”
Its tough getting Mitt Romney to stick to what he supports or doesn’t; maybe that will change, since his views seem diverse and manifold, which is a nice way of saying they don’t add up.
Tomorrow night and in coming weeks, I hope Mitt Romney will give some details on his own platform, instead of just why he thinks Obama’s policies are bad.
Although now on Obamacare, Romney has backtracked from total rejection (“I am going to repeal it on Day 1”) to identifying major provisions he likes, specifically protecting people with pre-existing conditions and coverage for their children up to young adulthood. (So, what’s he against?)
His retreat was just before he backtracked and flipped on his disdain for the 47% of all Americans who are wedded to their federal benefits and wouldn’t support him for President. He ate that one, too.
Republican Romney this year has backed several GOP state efforts to suppress voter where there has been little or no history of same, but I doubt if he’ll shout that from the roof tops. (State courts have put on hold until after the November elections two of those efforts.)
Romney has been up front about opposing the Obama relief for the automobile industry, which seems to have worked for the auto industry, its workers, suppliers and the US
Treasury’s coffers, as well as allowing “The Big Three” to make attractive and competitive vehicles (which I guess still should play well in Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois and places where they like American cars).
I have a suggestion for President Obama and that is to promote these videos showing Mitt, who claims he will end federal deficit spending, making expensive promises to various audiences around the United States, saying:
--He will not cut Medicare for seniors and near seniors;
--He will not cut social security benefits for the same group;
--He will build 15 new ships every year, including three nuclear submarines and return America’s military to some previous level of strength he claims has disappeared;
--He will reduce tax rates by about 20%
--He will provide more money for job training
--He will close various tax loopholes and deductions (unstated), but not the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for charitable contributions, nor any of the other top 13 US tax expenditures.
They appeared conveniently on the October 9 Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-october-9-2012-ben-affleck
Bloomberg News, hardly a tool of the Democrats, also carried an article claiming that Romney’s tax plan--despite claiming that he won’t give tax relief to the “rich”--appears to provide $86 billion in tax cuts to folks making more than $200,000 per year. (See following link to Bloomberg article.) Experts believe the Romney tax plan would require major new taxes on the middle class, if Romney hopes for any serious deficit reduction goals.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/the-final-word-on-mitt-romney-s-tax-plan.html
When asked how all of this spending will still produce significant deficit reductions, VP Candidate Paul Ryan tell Fox News (also on this Stewart video), “It will take too much time to explain it.”
Oh?
Maybe President Obama or even Candy Crowley will ask Governor Romney to clear up some of this confusion during tomorrow’s debate and tell the nation, once and for all what he proposes to do, specifically, if elected President and who gets to benefit and who gets the pain? Then let the fact checkers have at it.
It does sound like the Romney-Ryan ticker is resorting to a lot of malarkey, but you decide.
Maloni, 10-15-2012
++
Axelrod should hire you as another surrogate. Your post shows the biggest problem Obama has going into the election. The only thing Maloni / Obama can do is find fault in Romney vs give a compelling case for Obama. You never see any details on what Obama is going to do differently or improve upon in the next four years.
ReplyDeletePeople bought into the first Obama term on vague promises, they are expecting more to give him a second term and he is not delivering a vision to motivate individuals. The reason the first debate was so powerful is the Romney in the debate was not the same person demonized in the attack ads and he came off as an acceptable alternative.
Finding fault? Vague?? Attack ads??? That's the pot calling the kettle black. Where have you been in past campaigns? They say what they think you want to hear. Now post Debate 2 - It appeared that Romney really practiced Reagan's soft spoken, fatherly tone of voice...which can be irritating.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like two different folks employing the ID "Anonymous," so let me try and middle my answer.
ReplyDeleteI thought Obama eked out a 51-49 score last, with both candidates playing to their bases and scoring points.
The sigificance there is that a revived D base may do more for Obama than the same thing does for Romney, since he got to his core in the first debate.
The D base was disheartened and I think Obama erased much of that negativity and got them energized, again.
Romney's maddening numbers, which only AEI thinks add up, are not going to flummox the American voter.
You just can't do all of the things Mitt is promising, spend the additional money he claims he will spend (Defense, etc., job training) and cut the deficit, even with some growth.
In growing up in Pittsburgh, I was exposed to a huge number of overwhelmingly rich "WASPs"--whose family money was in coal, oil, timber, natural gas etc-- and Mitt reminds me of them so much.
They never sweated over how to pay rent or mortgage payments, food money, winter clothes fopr the kids, emergency items not not in the budget
Their DNA has no room for concerns of the middle class, let alone poor.
That's doesn't mean they can't talk the talk (although many cannot), but very few walk the walk.
It's not the rich we have to worry about in this country, since they almost always take care of themselves.
It's not the rich that are hurting. It's that huge swatch of other Americans.
And those people have not been in the hearts and mind of the GOP since before my lifetime and I don't think that will change.
For me, the real Mitt Romney was the guy in the GOP fundraiser appealing to those wealthy Republicans, while crapping on the 47% of Americans he claimed didn't have enough guts to walk away from their federal benefits.
Yes, he apologized 17 days later and said he was wrong, but as I blogged, that was when he did the numbers and realized that he needed most of those votes to defeat an incumbent President.
Sorry, that's what I think.
I'd still shake his hand and attend a football game with him and his boys, but I won't vote for his agenda.
Maloni