An Iowa Poll recently showed national Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney (a.k.a. Flopsy Mopsy) and Michele Bachmann (a.k.a. Krazy) leading among the state’s likely GOTP caucus-goers.
The poll, conducted for The Des Moines Register showed Flopsy Mopsy, with support from 23 percent in Iowa. Krazy, who officially launched her campaign in Iowa on Monday, has support from 22 percent.
The results were based on telephone interviews with 400 likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers from June 19 to 22. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Which of course means Krazy could conceivably actually be leading in Iowa by 3 or 4 points.
Flopsy has said he’s not planning to run a scaled-down Iowa campaign, compared to the $10-million losing effort he waged in the 2008 caucuses, and that basically equates that he’s not planning to win there, and thus he’s writing it off. Considering how close Krazy is in the poll that might not be a bad idea.
All that aside, how does someone like Krazy even figure in polls? How? She figures because that’s where the GOTP has gone to, somewhere down a long dark rabbit hole to the Mad Hater’s Tea Party.
Flopsy Mopsy (aka Mitt Romney), the once presumptive Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential candidate, told a group of out-of-work Floridians that “I’m also unemployed.”
Wow, really? What a totally sensitive thing to say, especially to a group of unemployed people.
Only a thoughtless conservative, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, could say something like this. You know, like poor little unemployed Flopsy Mopsy.
Flopsy was trying to be all homey, visiting with a small group of business owners and unemployed workers criticizing President Obama at a Tampa coffee shop. While attacking the President, millionaire Mopsy told the group that although he was currently “unemployed”, he did have his eye on one particular job.
Florida’s April unemployment rate was 10.8 percent, higher than the national rate of 9 percent. But wait, isn’t Florida being run by a GOTP Governor, and isn’t the State Senate and the House both controlled by the GOTP? So, how can the state’s unemployment rate be higher than the national level?
Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said “This comment shows that Mitt Romney – a man who wants for nothing and whose only occupation for more than four years has been to run for president – is incredibly out of touch with what’s going on in our country and around the dinner tables of those who are out of work,” she said. “Being unemployed, Mr. Romney, is not a joke.”
Perhaps, for Mopsy, this will be his Bush 41 moment. Remember? When the President’s handlers thought it would be great for him to go out shopping, and he didn’t know stores had scanners which could read the prices of the items. It was his rich man out of touch with every day life moment, and it helped lead to his defeat against upstart Bill Clinton.
Flopsy is trying to be a just another Joe, but being a millionaire, and joking about unemployment doesn’t ring true. It’s like everything else about him; nothing ever seems to ring true where Mitt is concerned.
And so it begins. Those seeking the GOTP presidential nod have begun officially bowing before the alter of the far-right conservative Bible thumping, fire breathing “Christians” of the party hoping that they will receive the groups seal of approval.
The Washington D.C. two-day conference of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s proved to be just too much of a temptation for the GOTP hopefuls who decided they needed to “render unto” the theocratic right what is there’s playing it as though it was also what is God’s. Never mind the fact at least three of the candidates don’t stand a prayer – or a snow ball’s chance – of ever gaining the group’s “blessing”. Those three of course would be Romney and Huntsman – both Mormon – and Cain, who besides the fact his name will offend some of the group, bears “the mark” of that name and will be snubbed because of it by large numbers of these so-called “religious” folks. Yes, they won’t nominate him because he’s Black.
Ever since their favorite son, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee decided not to run – not wanting to be this election cycle’s Bob Dole – the far-right religious crowd has been looking for someone new to embrace, and all they had to do was hold a convention and off the GOTP candidates run to pander, and to promise, and to sell themselves.
As the selling of political souls began, the candidates set the nation’s most fearful moral concerns as federal debt and health care policies, while still playing up to the sizably overinflated egos of the religious conservatives.
According to the Associated Press, one of the two dreaded Mormon candidates, former Utah Governor – and Obama Administration appointed Ambassador to China – Jon Huntsman bypassed a large scrum of journalists but did give an interview to the Christian-oriented CBN network.
During his address to the “faithful” – after citing numerous anti-abortion laws he signed as governor of Utah – Huntsman declared, “I do not believe the Republican Party should focus solely on our economic life to the neglect of our human life”.
Strangely, neither Huntsman nor Romney mentioned their own religious faith while addressing this very religiously “inclusive” audience.
Others jockeying for the pharisaic endorsement included former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Representative Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who strangely declined an invitation to the conference; now why would Newt turn down an invitation? Maybe the whole being caught in the act of adultery thing is just too much for the sensitivities of these modern day “Christians”?
Pawlenty, a Catholic-turned-Protestant evangelical (basically someone who this group would therefore count as having been “saved”) opened and closed his remarks with biblical quotes. During his sermon, he declared his four top “commonsense principles” – if elected – would be for the nation are to turn toward God, protect the unborn, support traditional marriage and keep Americans secure. Translation being he would oppose anything produced in Hollywood, and would never support the building of any Muslim houses of worship anywhere close to the “hallowed” Ground Zero; he would take away a woman’s right to abortion; he would make sure only “his type” of people could get married, and he would declare crusades against the evil spread of Islam throughout the world, to include bombing Iran, maintaining the war on terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan and wholeheartedly support the torturing of prisoners.
The crazy woman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, told of her home-schooling of her five children and how she had served as foster mother to 23 other children. She told the crowd – of a few hundred – that “marriage is under siege” in America, and then – as the self appointed priestess-in-chief of the GOTP – she ended with a prayer asking a blessing for President Barack Obama, the same Barack Obama she had just finished sharply criticizing moments earlier.
Romney – aka Flopsy Mopsy – who as a Republican Senate candidate and one-term governor in Massachusetts, supported legalized abortion, gay rights and gun control, but who has since “seen the light” and reversed his stands on those positions. His change of heart is not an easy sell when he so fervently defended each during an October 1994 debate against Senator Edward Kennedy
Flopsy spoke of “our belief in the sanctity of human life,” and said marriage should apply to “one man and one woman.” He said the nation’s high unemployment rate was President Obama’s fault and said job losses can push marriages to the breaking point, calling it – unemployment – “a moral crisis.”
It’s interesting that during his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts his state ranked 47 of 50 for job creation, and that he never spoke of this “moral crisis” while his buddies Bush and Cheney were throwing the economy to the wolves of Wall Street.
And last, but not least, the always entertaining Ron Paul of Texas mixed quotes from the Bible’s first book of Samuel with his familiar libertarian proposals, such as returning to the gold standard, appealing to the two things the crowd held most sacred; quoting scripture and personal acquisition of lucre.
But while the economy is a concern for almost everyone else in the country some religious conservatives are not happy with the heavy emphasis on economic matters these days, and the congregation sat stone faced when Boss Barbour spoke of how the sheep must blindly follow whichever shepherd won the nomination despite the absolute certainty they will disagree with that person on some issues – unless of course they pushed for and got someone like Palin or Bachmann.
Boos Barbour declared, “Purity is the enemy of victory.”
Yeah, I’m fairly certain that line isn’t going to become a bumper sticker throughout the Bible belt anytime soon.
I really hate to say it, but perhaps the “smart” candidates were the ones who didn’t go running to the church in the wildwood, and who didn’t promise things they know full well they can’t deliver on. Anyone who promises to overturn Roe v. Wade (i.e., “protecting the rights of the unborn”) is one of three things; a liar, a lunatic, or both. It is established federal law and no President is ever going to be able to overturn it. They are lying every time they speak as though they can.
How truly sad that anyone seeking his party’s nomination for the office of the President of the United States must go hat in hand to any religious group asking its blessing. It is even sadder they pander to the group which screams about Islamic Sharia Law being enforced in America – when it isn’t – while having absolutely no regrets of shoving its brand of “Christianity” down everyone else’s throats.
Perhaps Newt and Palin – gulp – were the smart ones.
So, Mr. Flopsy Mopsy has finally entered the race. Mitt Romney made it official today, declaring his candidacy from the great state of New Hampshire, “I’m Mitt Romney and I believe in America. And I’m running for president of the United States.”
Which America is that Mitt? Is it Paul Ryan’s vision for America? Is it Glenn Beck’s vision of America? Is it the America where you said it would be OK to wire tap Islamic houses of worship? Or is it the America where you signed a health care bill virtually identical to the one President Obama signed, and later flipped over on your back for the favor of the far-right portion of the party who will never support your nomination any way?
Flopsy began his race by challenging President Obama while trying very hard to paint himself as the candidate in the multi-colored coat. He tried to show he was what everyone in the new GOTP wants, a man who can appeal to conservatives, social conservatives, evangelicals and yea verily even to the libertarians.
“It breaks my heart to see what is happening to this great country,” Romney said. “No, Mr. President, you had your chance.”
And exactly why does it break your heart Mitt? Does it break your heart because there’s someone in the White House who isn’t in bed with big business like you are being a former business man?
It’s going to be a long way to the nomination Mitt and you have an equally long record of flip flopping. In fact you’ve flipped more often than a stack of hot cakes at the IHOP. How ill you sell your former support of abortion and gay rights as well as Romney-care? And of course there’s the whole far-right Christian conservative loathing the idea of nominating a Mormon.
Yeah, you’re right in the running for the nomination alright; you’re all set up for the thrashing of your lifetime. You won’t need to worry about what President Obama will do to you because your own are going to eat you alive.
The former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, is calling Barack Obama “one of the most ineffective presidents” he’s ever seen, and says he thinks he can beat him next year.
Yeah, OK. That’s assuming two things; first, that you can win the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) nomination, and currently are trailing – of all people – Rudy Giuliani in the latest poll; and second, the GOTP far-right religious fanatics will allow a Mormon to be their standard bearer. The first I believe you can over come, the latter, not so sure.
In an interview with NBC, Romney said that while the President wasn’t responsible for the recession he inherited, “he made things worse. He’s failed.”
Exactly in what universe did he make things worse? He saved the auto industry from collapsing, which would have been a financial disaster of monumental proportions costing hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars; he used the stimulus to rebuild a badly neglected national infrastructure, saving hundreds of thousands of jobs; the unemployment rate is dropping (albeit very slowly – but still dropping); the stock market has come back to strong numbers, and we’re creating jobs each month. You, Mitt, are a two bit, flip-flopping used car salesman.
Romney also said the President lacks “a cogent assessment” of world affairs. The GOTP hopeful claimed, “The Arab spring came, one of the greatest opportunities we’ve seen in decades, and we’ve been flatfooted.”
What exactly should he have done? I understand under the Bush/Cheney presidency it was the “doctrine” of the United States to meddle in other country’s internal affairs; but that’s not our job. That’s none of our business. I find it very interesting how quickly conservatives want to tell other countries how to do things, but cry “foul” if anyone dares to even suggest anything to the U.S.
Romney, who says he’s planning to formally announce his candidacy later this week, also said he doesn’t think his Mormon faith will be an obstacle to winning the GOTP presidential spot, “we’re not electing a pastor in chief, we’re electing a commander in chief.”
Yeah, that’s going to play well in the Bible Belt; a Mormon cracking wise about electing a pastor-in-chief. Have you forgotten Mitt how fast you fell from political grace when Huckleberry started that whisper campaign in Iowa about you being a Mormon? Face it, you’re running a very tough uphill battle to convince the rabid far-right to nominate you, and if they do? Well, it will be because they see you as the proverbial sacrificial lamb, hoping to finally be rid of you. Oh, and beyond the religious hurdle, your own fellow GOTP types are going to skewer you on your Romney-care plan.
Isn’t it amazing how the Bungling Brothers Three Ring Circus, also known as the GOTP hopeful candidates for the 2012 nomination are all being very quick to criticize the President’s handling of the U.N. mandated no-fly zone in Libya, but not one of them has come forward with how they would have handled it. Well, except for Newt, who was for a no-fly zone before he was opposed to one?
And speaking of the Newt, he’s our first performer in the center ring flip flopping across the ring, “You have a spectator in chief, not a commander in chief,” the Newt grumbled, one assumes meaning he’s for the no fly zone now? Or does he want boots on the ground this week?
At first Newtee very vocally demanded a no-fly zone after the President Obama said Gadhafi needed to be ousted, but then when the President began moving forward and the Newtster saw it was being billed as “humanitarian mission” he quickly decided he wanted nothing to do with that. He also first said in one interview that air strikes would oust Gadhafi and then said jets would not be able to end his rule now that fighting had gone into the cities. Newt’s effectively become the circus’ Push Me Pull You candidate.
Next to perform is Haley Barbour the Governor of Mississippi who is calling the President’s response to the situation “dithering.”
Barbour told a Jackson, Miss., radio station: “we haven’t provided leadership in this administration. In fact, the Obama administration’s position has been to say, ‘You know, we’re just one of the boys. We’re not going to try to be the leader.'”
Yeah, too bad Haley conveniently ignored the fact United States forces led the air strikes over Libya under the auspices of a United Nations resolution authorizing force in the interest of preventing a humanitarian crisis. He offered no opinion on an appropriate U.S. response, just the fact that this response lacked any leadership, as compared to what? The good old days of Sheriff Bush and his posse telling Bin Laden he could run that he couldn’t hide? Newsflash! He’s still out there!
Our juggling act will be performed by the great health care reformist himself, the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who said the President has been “tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced.”
Romney says he supports the mission in Libya. He’s just not a fan of the President who started it or his approach to international affairs. So, he’s saying it’s the right mission, just the wrong guy going to get the credit? He didn’t detail what the Libya policy would be under a Romney administration.
“Thus far, the president has been unable to construct a foreign policy, any foreign policy,” Romney told Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. “I think it’s fair to ask, you know, what is it that explains the absence of any discernible foreign policy from the president of the United States?”
You’re kidding right Mitt? No foreign policy from President Obama?
How about the fact the President has restored strained alliances and friendships around the world? President Obama’s call for partnership, respect for international rules on prisoners, and acceptance of the responsibilities associated with climate change, transformed America from the isolated and lonely superpower of Bush/Cheney often seen as a threat to international order back into a leader in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The President is pulling our troops out of the nightmare of Iraq, and plans to do the same for our troops in Afghanistan.
No circus would be complete with some Paws, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said President Obama erred by not forcing a no-fly zone more quickly.
“The rebels at that time were on the verge of overthrowing Gadhafi. They had the momentum. They were in position to do it,” Pawlenty told FOX PAC. He said President Obama left the rebels without backup and Gadhafi ready to squelch them. But he didn’t say what he would do differently now. So, if we had President Pawlenty he would have gone it alone to support the rebel cause? Pawlenty isn’t entirely wrong in his assessment. Things could’ve and should’ve moved much quicker. But then what?
And our last performer today is the 2008 GOTP vice presidential nominee and former Alaska governor, Palin the Jungle Girl, who whined, “We’ve received different messages from our president and from his advisers as to what it is that we are doing there and what the mission is.”
And how would Palin have handled the situation, if – “gulp” – we had President Palin? She offered her usual snarky complaints with no plan attached, “certainly there would have been more decisiveness.” So, she would have decisively done what? At some point she will probably release a You tube video decrying how she’s the real victim of the conflict in Libya.
Aside from the whining and complaints, notice anything missing ? Not one of these so-called candidates had anything of substance to say. Not one has offered anything of depth. Not one has said how things would be different if they were the King of the Forest. Well, “there would have been more decisiveness”. No plans, nothing.
The most amusing part of these latest attacks from the GOTP misfits is that they’re coming while U.S. forces are enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya to protect rebels trying to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi – just as the GOTP demanded. Remember that, just as the GOTP demanded.
These “candidates” are all sort of saying President Obama is too slow and too reliant on international approval from the Arab League, the United Nations and NATO. Yes sports fans, what we really need is a President who tells the rest of the world to go jump in a lake while we preemptively invade whomever we darn well please, because that worked so well for the United States during the Bush/Cheney years.
Six-term Republican (GOP) Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah is facing re-election next year, a usually not to difficult task, however, in recent months the political phenomenon known as the Tea Party movement has turned what used to be a cake walk into a very steep uphill battle.
Groups such as Save the American Republic (STAR) and Utah Rising are not falling in line behind Hatch, and many other Tea Party (TP) groups are also not so sure if they will throw their support behind him.
But Hatch isn’t the only Republican possibly fighting for his political life in Utah, two other Republicans closely associated with Utah, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, both possible presidential candidates are also facing the chopping block because as far as TP members are concerned they’re simply not conservative enough.
“We oppose all three,” said David Kirkham, a businessman who helped found one of Utah’s first Tea Party groups in a recent New York Times interview.
Romney’s biggest obstacle to overcome is his leadership – as governor – in passing the Massachusetts health care overhaul that is anathema to many Tea Party members who see it as a model for the Obama plan passed last year.
Huntsman’s on the “list” for nonsupport because he played the “moderate” on many social issues as Utah’s governor and he also supported carbon emissions cap-and-trade legislation to reduce heat-trapping gases. Of the two, the latter is the larger sin in the TPs estimation.
“On a good day, he’s a socialist,” said Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of Utah Rising, a clearinghouse group, referring to Mr. Huntsman also in the NY Times. “On a bad day, he’s a communist.”
Really, Jon Huntsman a socialist, or a communist? It’s laughable to think anyone would ever place those nomenclatures on the former governor, which simply highlights how far to the right edge of the political spectrum some of these TP nuts are.
As for Senator Hatch, Mr. Kirkham said in the NY Times, “We have exactly the same game plan as we did last time with Bennett.”
Meaning former Senator Bob Bennett, a Republican whose long political career was unceremoniously ended in 2010 when Kirkham and other TP-inspired delegates swept into control at the party’s state convention, where in short order the TP delegates denied Bennett’s re-nomination, and in his place put Mike Lee, a former clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the Supreme Court, who – not surprisingly – handily won the general election.
For the coming 2012 elections it is indeed looking grim for the GOP in Utah, the monster all the Republicans thought was controllable, the one they thought they could politically potty train, is messing all over their carpet, and no amount of rolled up news paper is going to change that.
Another hypocrite from the right has spun up his presidential campaign. Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP) presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has ridiculed President Barack Obama’s health care law — modeled closely after the one Mitt signed into law as the governor of Massachusetts — as a “misguided” and “egregious” effort to seize more power for Washington.
“Obamacare is bad law, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney declared, vowing to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so.
That’s pretty bold talk from a political has been who will never be allowed to get any closer to the Republican nomination in 2012 than Hillary Clinton can.
Talking about his own Massachusetts health care law, Romney claimed the solution for the unique problems of one state isn’t the right prescription for the nation as a whole.
“Our experiment wasn’t perfect — some things worked, some didn’t, and some things I’d change,” Romney said.
Oh, so Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts was an experiment? That’s how he ran the state as governor? As a political laboratory trying things out in case he wanted to use them later?
“One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover.” Romney said: “The federal government isn’t the answer for running health care anymore than it’s the answer for running Amtrak or the post office.”
First, since when did Mitt Romney become a states-rights candidate? What’s next he’ll put a confederate flag license plate on his car? Second, what do you mean the federal government isn’t the answer for running the post office? I’ll have you know Mitt that the founding fathers set it up that way, and Benjamin Franklin was the first Post Master General. You wouldn’t be claiming to be smarter than the revered founders would you? I don’t think people in the GOTP cotton much to that kind of talk. Especially from a carpet bagger like yourself.
Romney’s Tea Party states-rights pitch is one GOTP primary voters are likely to hear over the next year as he tries to persuade them to overlook his flaws because – in his mind – he’s the strongest Republican to challenge Obama on the country’s top issue — the economy.
And what if the economy continues to improve? Holy cow, then what will he do? If the economy is his one thing he thinks he can challenge the President on good luck with that. What will Middle America think when he’s exposed as a big business, let’s export American jobs candidate that he is?
The challenge for Romney isn’t just the similarities between his 2006 health care law and the current federal law but that Romney’s universal coverage law has a more sweeping mandate for people to get insurance than exists in Obama’s law — and penalizes the uninsured more severely. Romney’s law requires individuals, with a few exceptions, to obtain health insurance, and those who fail to do so have a $219 tax exemption withheld from them.
The big albatross hanging around Romney’s neck though is all the praise Democrats are heaping on him for his efforts in Massachusetts.
The President praised the efforts in Massachusetts during a meeting with governors at the White House, saying: “I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he’s proud of what he accomplished on health care by giving states the power to determine their own health care solutions. He’s right.”
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend, said Romney deserves a lot of credit on health care. “One of the best things he did was to be the co-author of our health care reform, which has been a model for national health care reform,” he said.
Of course the amusing thing with the Democrat praise is that it provides plenty of fodder for his GOTP primary opponents; some of whom are already opening up with pre-emptive campaign salvos.
One presumptive candidate, and someone who understands hypocrisy all too well, Mike Huckabee says in his new book: “If our goal in health care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work.”
Another GOTP likely candidate, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, threw Romney under the bus with a late great liberal icon when he said, “Senator (Edward M.) Kennedy and Governor Romney and then Governor Patrick, if that’s what Massachusetts wants, we’re happy for them. We don’t want that. That’s not good for us.”
Healthcare aside, his candidacy isn’t likely to last any longer than it did in 2008 when it was torpedoed by Huckabee’s disparaging remarks about Romney being a Mormon. The GOTP is so heavily weighted by extreme right wing born again Christians that it isn’t going to back a Mormon anytime soon; and if they were ever to be honest most of them would probably say they’d rather see a “foreign born Muslim” in the White House than one of those Mormons.
So, here’s the big question of the moment. When did the recession start? If you listen to former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney it started January 2009. Now obviously, the current recession began long before Barrack Obama became president, but according to Mitt, while speaking at CPAC this weekend, President Obama is at fault for the country’s current economic fall, and has been since before he was sworn in.
Romney used numbers during his “please I want to be the president” speech that were less than factual, and his staff directed reporters and pundits covering the annual conservative love fest to monthly job data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which they claim clearly shows that from January 2009 to January 2011, the number of jobs lost totaled nearly 4 million. However, the same data set shows the economy actually started losing jobs nearly 12 months before Obama took the oath of office (during the Bush/Cheney administration) – for a total of 2.3 million jobs. So, in other words boys and girls, the Romney people are deliberately misleading people on “the facts”. They are lying.
Romney’s staff begins its estimation of jobs lost beginning with January 2009 (when 820,000 jobs were lost) as part of Obama’s total, but President Obama took office on January 21, so he was president for roughly one third of the month, meaning the other two thirds belonged to Bush. If you move January to the pre-Obama period, where those figures belong in the total numbers of jobs lost, then the job losses are about 3.1 million before he took office and 3.1 million after he took office. In other words, the economy had already been driven off of the cliff. And who drove the economy off of the cliff? If your first guess was Willy Coyote and Bullwinkle Moose then while you were close, but you don’t win anything. The daring duo of economic and foreign policy missteps was none other than Bush/Cheney. You remember? The guys who “stood watch” over the worse terrorist attack on American soil, and who then launched the country into not one, but two, wars without paying for them, meaning, without raising taxes, and who then ruined not only America’s voice on the stage of world politics, but catapulted the nation’s economy into a refuse bin?
Not only were 3.1 million jobs lost before the President took office, some 2 million jobs were lost in the first three months of Obama’s presidency, long before any of his own policies had begun to take effect. And while it’s sort of true Romney doesn’t quite blame Obama, he doesn’t place blame where it belongs either. He just sort of allows his audience – vehement anti-Obama mouth breathers to begin with – to just follow him where his “facts” are taking them.
Romney’s litany of “facts” however lacks something vitally important to those not already willing to vote for him, context; and while four million is an impressive number, it is much less impressive when measured against the overall number of people employed. The GOP-Tea Party always measures everything, and everyone, against its collective hero Ronald Reagan; and while it may be true job losses during the first two years of Reagan’s presidency were fewer, when measured against the number of employed when both men took office, both saw a decline of roughly 2.3 percent in the first two years, or basically the same total. That’s if you use monthly job loss figures, as Romney’s people did in preparing his speech, and as Romney did in delivering it. When anyone who doesn’t watch FOX PAC, or listens to the daily dose of deliberately misleading right-wing radio pabulum, runs Reagan’s number using the same scale Romney attempts to hold President Obama too – the total number of people employed from month to month, guess what? Reagan actually fares worse than Obama, percentage-wise. Yes, it’s true; Reagan’s job losses were just as bad, if not worse, as Obama’s have been.
While Romney’s statement is “technically correct”, because it lacks any context, it’s meaningless. He – like all the other GOP hopefuls’- attempts to place blame upon someone who isn’t at fault. He attempts to attribute job losses to President Obama which arguably belong solely to Bush. The eventual problem with this type of strategy is, while your band of listeners is likely to never check your figures, when you use numbers, without the context, someone will come along and put it all together, and when they do you might soon discover the guy you’re trying to emulate, your hero Ronald Reagan, actually had the same – if not worse – poor showing in job losses during his opening term. Romney has started off his next run at the White House from a position of loose figures and poor context, attempting to mislead the electorate. Not a solid place to start a campaign from.
The Liberty Tree 