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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: BayGBM on March 05, 2011, 06:49:55 AM
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A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
The early Republican favorite is wearing Gap skinny jeans and going tieless on network TV. But despite his makeover, he still has a hard time connecting with voters.
By Paul West, Los Angeles Times
Defying his reputation as a 1950s square, the new, more casual Mitt Romney is popping up around the country as he readies a second run for president. He's going tieless on network TV, strolling NASCAR pits in Daytona and sporting skinny Gap jeans bought for him by his wife.
His latest campaign book, just out in paperback, opens with a regular-guy scene: wealthy Mitt in a Wal-Mart checkout line, buying gifts for his grandsons and comparing the surroundings to Target, another discount store he says he's familiar with.
The image tweaks are part of a broader makeover as Romney prepares to run from what should be an enviable spot: He's the early Republican favorite — though far from an inevitable nominee.
The former Massachusetts governor will start out with valuable presidential campaign experience from his 2008 try, and a deeper financial network than his Republican rivals. The national economic debate plays to his background as an investment executive and "gives him a big advantage," said Carl Forti, a former top advisor.
Yet for every edge, there are drawbacks. Taken together, they make Romney an unusually weak front-runner.
One of his biggest problems is "a suspicion that he is not as authentic as voters would like and he doesn't connect as well with voters as they would like," said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster not aligned with any candidate. "Politicians who are viewed as authentic have a much easier time connecting with the voters they are wooing. People like Ronald Reagan and [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie seem to have no trouble connecting, in part because they seem so comfortable in their skin."
The problem has been fed by the fact that, in each of his runs for public office, Romney has remade himself. Last time out, he shed his moderate social views on abortion and gay rights, then struggled to convince primary voters of his conservative bona fides. A perception grew that the handsome candidate, with his almost-too-perfect hair and teeth and seemingly scripted answers to every question, would say anything to get elected.
Meantime, religious conservatives, uneasy with his devout Mormon beliefs, failed to warm to his candidacy — and that remains a problem, particularly in Southern primaries.
In 2008, he had "no overarching theme to answer the question, 'Why should I vote for Mitt Romney?'" said an advisor, requesting anonymity to discuss his candidate's prospects candidly. Romney's campaign book, "No Apology: Believe in America," attempts to frame an answer around a theme of national greatness.
If 2012 were a typical nomination campaign, Romney's status as the establishment favorite would play to his advantage in the nomination contest. But today's GOP is consumed by anti-establishment fervor. Energy in the Republican primaries is likely to be pulsing from fired-up "tea party" backers, and Romney will face fierce competition for their support from more-conservative rivals.
His most serious new challenge involves an issue that wasn't a major factor last time: "Romneycare," the Massachusetts healthcare plan he signed into law in 2006. It features a provision just like the one that has conservatives outraged over President Obama's plan — a government mandate that requires virtually everyone to purchase medical insurance or pay a penalty.
"I still think he has to explain the Massachusetts healthcare law in terms that will satisfy the conservative base in the party, and I think that's a tall order," said former Rep. Vin Weber, policy chairman of Romney's 2008 campaign, who is supporting fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty this time.
Romney defends his Massachusetts creation by arguing that applying a mandate nationwide, as Congress has done, violates states' rights guaranteed under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
But few outside the Romney camp think a legalistic explanation will satisfy conservatives fed up with what they see as excessive government power.
In his most high-profile appearance so far this year, at a conservative convention in Washington, Romney never mentioned his healthcare plan. His remarks, bashing Obama, were in line with a cautious strategy designed to minimize unforced errors.
A formal candidacy announcement from Romney would be a technicality; for months, he has been quietly lining up support from insiders and big fundraisers, while successfully limiting media exposure. His visits to key primary states often take place in private and without advance notice. He declined an interview for this article through his press secretary, Eric Fehrnstrom, who said Romney wasn't scheduling newspaper or magazine interviews at this time.
Tonight, Romney will raise his profile with his first public appearance since last fall in New Hampshire, the first primary state.
His moves so far have been aimed at correcting a flaw from 2008: peaking before it mattered. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he built — and lost — early leads. "The one thing I learned from the last campaign I ran is that we got in too early," he told Hugh Hewitt, among the conservative radio hosts he has cultivated.
A stealth campaign has worked to his advantage up to now, helping him dodge the intense scrutiny that is a front-runner's curse. When he told CNN's Piers Morgan, at the height of the pro-democracy uprising in Cairo, that he would "avoid the term dictator" in describing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Romney received none of the attention Vice President Joe Biden got five days earlier for the same eyebrow-raising remark.
Romney, who turns 64 this month, has streamlined his campaign organization, by reducing the number of voices in the inner circle and shifting his longtime aide and 2008 campaign manager, Beth Myers, out of an operational role. He isn't planning to spend his personal fortune the same way he did last time, when he seeded his candidacy with more than $42 million of his own money. But with a net worth of at least $190 million, he can always dip into his own pocket.
As for doubts about authenticity, Romney is counting on the electorate being less concerned with past inconsistencies than in picking a candidate who can turn the economy around. Brushing aside a question from CNN's Morgan about his tendency to flip-flop, Romney said, "People in America want to know who can get 15 million people back to work."
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LOL @ Romney going after NASCAR voters.
They see him as another John Kerry. He was anti-gun, pro abortion (his family even donated money to planned parenthood!!!), and wrote romneycare. And he defended romneycare this week repeatedly.
he should just kick back and let the GOP winner choose him as Veep. He just doesn't seem authentic. You listen to a huck talk, or a barbour talk, or bachmann or christie - they sounds authentic and real. People like Palin and Romney and Rudy - they were libs when convenient and they're tea party when convenient.
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Embarrassing. He should just be himself.
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Embarrassing. He should just be himself.
I dunno....... you probably wouldn't like the TRUE mitt. He's a lifetime liberal, in case you didn't know... He switched to "I'm a down south righteous tea party conservative (like palin) once that got popular. He's not, as you know...
Romney was all about raising taxes and adding fees to everything as Gov. - including tons of new payroll taxes.
He wanted the state to manage damn near every aspect of peoples' life - healthcare included.
Quote: "my answer is yes. It's liberal in the sense that we're getting our citizens health insurance"
He also ordered town clerks to allow same sex marriage.
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LOL @ Romney going after NASCAR voters.
They see him as another John Kerry. He was anti-gun, pro abortion (his family even donated money to planned parenthood!!!), and wrote romneycare. And he defended romneycare this week repeatedly.
he should just kick back and let the GOP winner choose him as Veep. He just doesn't seem authentic. You listen to a huck talk, or a barbour talk, or bachmann or christie - they sounds authentic and real. People like Palin and Romney and Rudy - they were libs when convenient and they're tea party when convenient.
x2 ;D
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I'd never vote for a Mormon president.
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I'd never vote for a Mormon president.
Why not?
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I'd never vote for a Mormon president.
i dont give a crap about religion.
I am a little concerned about a guy who changes positions so radically based upon what's popular at the time. At least bachmann - who was considered a far-right loon 5 years ago - has always been consistent in her conservative values, and she is believable on it today.
On the other hand... Palin was talking about how she's okay with capping emissions, letting illegals stay if they sign a paper, TARP is so important to pass, etc - in the last 2 years. She'll change positions on anything to be popular - and as president, she'll do it too (just as obama has).
I'd rather have someone I disagree with (but I know where he/she stands on the issue) than someone who tells me what I want to hear, who has a history of changing positions.
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Yet you support obama. Go figure.
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Why not?
A man whose life is dictated by a "faith" whose values and principles are so far out of whack running the free world makes me a tad uneasy.
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Yet you support obama. Go figure.
if romney's the nominee, I will get buck naked and take a picture with romney stickers all over me. and i'll vote for him too.
Like I said (a million times) - i will vote for any repub candidate that isn't Palin. It's that simple. I don't think romney is the most consistent repub - I'd much rather a Christie or bachmann get it over a flipflopping Trump/ Palin/ Romney/ etc.
It's just which GOP candidate it better - and attacking Romney isn't an endorsement of Obama. I can tell you that strawberry ice cream sucks, but coffee ice cream is awesome. This isn't an endorsement of broccoli ;)
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A man whose life is dictated by a "faith" whose values and principles are so far out of whack running the free world makes me a tad uneasy.
aren't all religions a little funny like that? I mean, a book written by men about what is way above the comprehension of a man?
And romney's family $ being donated to Planned Parenthood tells me he's not the most religious dude anyway - but ya gotta hold the bible and go to church if you want the job of POTUS. Too many people vote with their bibles.
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To Quiet Critics, Romney Puts 2012 Focus on Jobs
By JEFF ZELENY
BARTLETT, N.H. — As Mitt Romney travels the country lining up contributors and influential Republicans for a second presidential bid, he is presenting himself as a ready-to-lead executive, gambling that a fluency in economic matters distinguishes him from other candidates and can help overcome concerns about authenticity that dogged his first race.
Mr. Romney makes the case, in private meetings with business owners and in appearances like a dinner speech here Saturday, that the halting economic recovery — even after solid job growth in February, the unemployment rate remains at 8.9 percent — provides a compelling rationale that he is the strongest candidate to create jobs and take on President Obama.
“I like President Obama,” Mr. Romney said, “but he doesn’t have a clue how jobs are created.”
The message is well suited to Mr. Romney’s background as a successful executive and former governor, as well as the man who rescued the 2002 Winter Games from financial trouble. But it may also be his best opportunity to try to steer around criticism over the health care plan he created in Massachusetts, which to many Republicans looks distressingly similar to the federal law signed last year by Mr. Obama.
And it offers him a chance to sidestep the concerns of social conservatives, some of whom question his commitment to their causes and are uncomfortable with his Mormon faith.
As he moves closer to formally opening his campaign, Mr. Romney has taken a far different approach than he did the last time. To avoid the risk of overexposure and early scrutiny, he is operating in a cautious, low-key fashion, building allies among Republicans by doling out money to candidates from his political action committee and testing themes on donors and other supporters with limited news coverage.
Mr. Romney is trying to present a more relaxed image to combat impressions that he is unapproachable and stiff. He has not been seen in a necktie for months — not in television appearances, meetings with donors or political dinners, including the one Saturday evening, where he was one of the few men wearing an open-collared shirt.
He turned up in the pit area of the Daytona 500 last month, mingling with race car drivers while wearing a Bass Pro Shops shirt. And last week, Mr. Romney, who put his wealth four years ago around $200 million, walked into Tommy’s Barber Shop in an Atlanta strip mall for a haircut. (Aides sent out a picture of him in the barber’s chair via Twitter.)
In the early maneuvering for the 2012 race, Mr. Romney has aimed his fire at Mr. Obama rather than any of his prospective Republican rivals, attacking the president as a weak leader who pursued a European-style big-government agenda for his first two years in office instead of focusing on jobs.
“The president points out that he inherited an economic crisis,” Mr. Romney told about 300 people at the Attitash Grand Summit Hotel. “He did, and he promptly made it worse.”
“The consequence is soaring numbers of Americans enduring unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies,” he continued. “This is the Obama Misery Index, and we’re not going to let the American people be fooled.”
So far Mr. Romney has offered few specific details beyond general Republican philosophies, saying only that the country needs “to believe in free enterprise, capitalism, limited government, federalism.” He delivered his speech with the aid of a Tele-prompter and laughed as he recalled the “humbling experience” of his last campaign. “I made more than my share of gaffes here,” he said.
He selected this town nestled in the White Mountains about 125 miles north of Manchester to offer one of the first extensive previews of his campaign themes. He shook hands with nearly everyone at the Carroll County Republican dinner in his first public visit to the state that holds the opening primary of the 2012 nominating season, a contest critical to his success.
“I spent my career in the private sector,” Mr. Romney said. “I know how jobs are created and how jobs are lost.”
In his 2008 race, Mr. Romney shed moderate stances on abortion and gay rights to align with a conservative electorate, prompting questions about whether his positions were driven by politics or conviction. This time, a concentration on jobs and the economy signals a return to themes he struck during his successful bid for governor in 2002. Yet his record as governor also provides one of his biggest obstacles.
More even than his faith and his social-conservative credentials, questions about the health insurance plan he signed into law in Massachusetts have left him open to criticism from his party.
The White House has joined in, showering unhelpful praise on the plan, which, like the federal law, includes a mandate for residents to carry insurance.
Mr. Romney defended the program again on Saturday night, saying that it was “unique to Massachusetts” and should not be imposed on other states. But his criticism of the national law — “I would repeal Obamacare, if I were ever in a position to do so,” he declared — has been overshadowed by his Republican rivals’ trying to conflate the two.
He devoted only a few moments of his speech to health care and tried to lighten the mood, saying: “You may have noticed that the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts health care than ‘Entertainment Tonight’ spends talking about Charlie Sheen.”
Several Republican strategists who worked on Mr. Romney’s first presidential campaign said they had urged him to try to get ahead of the controversy a year ago during the national health care debate. But they said their suggestions had been overruled.
“He made a huge mistake not litigating his health care record when Obamacare was on the table,” said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who advised the early stages of Mr. Romney’s last race. “He should have been the leading opponent and said, ‘I can tell you better than anyone, don’t do this.’ But now he’s chosen to litigate this during a campaign, which is the worst time to do it.”
The health care law, particularly the individual mandate, has been a catalyst for the anti-Obama energy of Tea Party supporters. But Mr. Romney and his advisers argue that voters will be more concerned with the economy and job creation.
Doug Gross, a prominent Iowa Republican and state chairman of Mr. Romney’s last campaign, said Mr. Romney had a chance to create new appeal if he could present himself as genuine and not as someone chasing voters far to the right.
“He was a relatively moderate governor of a Northeastern state, and he tried to come to Iowa to be a social conservative and it didn’t work,” Mr. Gross said. “If he can’t be perceived as a true fiscal conservative and a limited government guy — the burden of proof is against him. He’s got to overcome the burden.”
Mr. Gross and more than a dozen other former supporters who are not aligned with other candidates said they worried whether Mr. Romney could withstand scrutiny without being tempted to reinvent himself again. But they urged him to campaign in Iowa, even with its heavy social conservative presence, because economic concerns topped nearly everyone’s priority list.
Four years ago, Mr. Romney focused considerable attention on the Iowa caucuses, which open the nominating contest, only to finish well behind former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who spent a fraction of the money Mr. Romney did but surged with the support of evangelical voters and social conservatives. Mr. Romney has yet to settle on a strategy this year, but aides said it would include all states.
As he mingled with Republicans here, Mr. Romney offered no hints about when he intended to formally open his candidacy. Delaying an announcement, his aides believe, postpones a bull’s eye that accompanies being perceived as a front-runner. Yet he has a fully formed campaign apparatus and national fund-raising network ready to fire up whenever he gives the signal.
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A man whose life is dictated by a "faith" whose values and principles are so far out of whack running the free world makes me a tad uneasy.
That's pretty much every president and presidential candidate we've ever had. Remember this from the 2008 campaign?
September 27, 2007, 8:57 AM
The Democrats Quote Scripture
By JEFF ZELENY
HANOVER, N.H. – In the final moments of the Democratic presidential debate here last night, after nearly two hours of wading through their differences on Iraq, health care, tax policy and a variety of other weighty matters, the candidates were asked a crisp question: What is your favorite Bible verse?
Senator Barack Obama: “The Sermon on the Mount, because it expresses a basic principle that I think we’ve lost over the last six years.”
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: “The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think that’s a good rule for politics, too.”
Mike Gravel: “The most important thing in life is love. That’s what empowers courage and courage implements the rest of our virtues.”
Representative Dennis Kucinich: “Prayer from St. Francis, which says, ‘Lord make me an instrument of your peace.’ ”
John Edwards: “What you do unto the least of those, you do unto me.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: “The Sermon on the Mount, because I believe it’s an issue of social justice, equality, brotherly issues reflecting a nation that is deeply torn and needs to heal and come together.”
Senator Christopher J. Dodd: “The Good Samaritan would be a worthwhile sort of description of who we all ought to be in life.”
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.: “Christ’s warning of the Pharisees. There are many Pharisees, and it’s part of what has bankrupted some people’s view about religion. And I worry about the Pharisees.”
In the so-called Lightning Round of the debate, there was little time to elaborate. And none of the candidates cited a specific chapter or verse.
The answers from Mr. Obama and Mr. Richardson, for example, come from the Gospel of Matthew. The reply from Mr. Edwards also comes from Matthew, Chapter 25.
A quick check of an on-line Bible passage search found that several of the answers cannot be found in the Bible at all. (The Prayer from St. Francis, invoked by Mr. Kucinich, actually first became known in the early 20th century and gained popularity during World War II.)
Mrs. Clinton referred to her favorite verse as the Golden Rule, which is not listed as such in the Bible. However, Luke 6:31 offers the precise message to which she was referring: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/the-democrats-quote-scripture/
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Romney Slams President Obama's Health Care Law
Published March 05, 2011
Associated Press
BARTLETT, N.H. -- Call it an attempt to address an obvious political vulnerability.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday derided President Barack Obama's health care law -- modeled in some ways after one the ex-governor signed in 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. "And that's the reason why President Obama will be a one-term president." He vowed to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so, and drew hearty cheers from his Republican Party audience.
Then, raising the Massachusetts law, Romney argued that the solution for the unique problems of one state isn't the right prescription for the nation as a whole, and he acknowledged: "Our experiment wasn't perfect -- some things worked, some didn't, and some things I'd change."
"One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover," Romney said, again earning applause. "The federal government isn't the answer for running health care any more than it's the answer for running Amtrak or the post office."
With that, he used his first appearance before New Hampshire Republicans since the midterm elections to start addressing head-on the issue that's certain to be a hurdle in his all-but-certain presidential campaign.
Romney's states-rights pitch is one that GOP primary voters are likely to hear over the next year as he tries to persuade them to overlook his flaws because he alone is the strongest Republican to challenge Obama on the country's top issue -- the economy.
The failed candidate of 2008 is expected to formally announce a second candidacy later this spring. Campaign signs posted along the road leading to the hotel where he was speaking may have gotten a bit ahead of him. They said "Mitt Romney for President" and suggested that the theme would be "True Strength for America's Future."
Romney and his aides insisted they were old signs.
Among Romney's biggest challenges: explaining to GOP primary voters why he signed a law that became the foundation for Obama's national overhaul. Passed by Congress last year, Obama's health care law has enraged conservatives who view it as a costly government expansion and intrusion into their lives because it mandates insurance for most Americans.
Romney all but ignored the topic in his last major public appearance last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
But, since then, the similarities with Romney's 2006 law in Massachusetts have increasingly been dogging him. The state'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.
Obama 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."
Also, 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.
The praise from Democrats provides fodder for Romney's Republican primary opponents; some are already heaping on the criticism.
Former Arkansas Gov. 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." It was a play on the word that conservative critics use to describe the national law: Obamacare.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who is likely to run for president against Romney, took a shot at Romney when he testified before a House committee reviewing Obama's health care overhaul. He lumped Romney in with a late liberal icon and an Obama friend in saying: "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."
A GOP rising star, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also weighed in, saying of Romney's law: "It's not that dissimilar to Obamacare. And you probably know I'm not a big fan of Obamacare."
All that was the backdrop as Romney took the stage at the Carroll County Lincoln Day Dinner at the Attitash Grand Summit Hotel in northern New Hampshire.
First, he poked fun at the criticism that seems to be coming from all sides, saying "you may have noticed that the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts health care than Entertainment Tonight spends talking about Charlie Sheen."
Then he turned serious and provided an explanation, emphasizing states' rights to a crowd from the "Live Free Or Die" state.
His coming candidacy may hinge on whether they buy it.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/05/romney-slams-president-obamas-health-care-law/?test=latestnews
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Republicans looking for the anti-Romney
There's a big opportunity in the 2012 presidential race for anyone with conservative credentials who isn't Mitt Romney.
by Doyle McManus
President Obama launched a vicious, underhanded attack on one of the leading contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination last month: He praised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for launching a state-administered healthcare plan.
"I agree with Mitt Romney, who recently said he's proud of what he accomplished on healthcare in Massachusetts," Obama told the nation's governors.
Romney supporters winced, but his potential rivals for the Republican nomination were delighted. They've already taken to calling the Massachusetts healthcare plan "Romneycare," to remind conservative voters how much it resembles the "Obamacare" law they loathe.
Like the "tea party," the Obama White House, it appears, is hoping for a Republican candidate more conservative than Romney.
On paper, Romney should be the front-runner for next year's GOP nomination: He has experience, name recognition, broad popularity and plenty of money. But Republican strategists warn that because of "Romneycare" and other early flings with moderation, Romney lacks one important factor: fervent support from the strongly conservative voters who dominate the primary electorate in most states.
"I don't see any way he can become the nominee," said Eddie Mahe Jr., a former deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee.
And that's why so many Republican politicians — 17, at last count — are testing the waters for potential presidential campaigns: There's a big opportunity for anyone with conservative credentials who isn't named Romney.
The country's in a conservative mood. Republicans just won a landslide victory in last year's congressional elections. The unemployment rate is likely to remain stubbornly high all 20 months until the presidential election. Defeating an incumbent president is never easy, but this ought to be one of the best chances in a generation. If only conservatives can settle on a champion, that is.
Some potential champions appear unlikely to run. GOP strategists say there's no sign that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a potential front-runner, is preparing a campaign. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a favorite of fiscal conservatives for his enthusiastic budget cutting, has emphatically ruled out a run.
Others are waffling. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is widely popular, but he talks fervently, and convincingly, about how much he enjoys not being a candidate. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced last week that he was "seriously exploring" a candidacy, but all he displayed, aside from a new website, was continued uncertainty. And Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who won attention for a tough speech on fiscal responsibility last month, took a step back from candidacy last week, saying his home state's budget crisis might get in the way of saving the rest of the nation.
That process of elimination has led Republican strategists to begin focusing on two politicians who, though unknown to most Americans, at least appear serious about pursuing the nomination: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Both are orthodox conservatives who, unlike Romney, never passed a healthcare law, supported a federal bank bailout or governed where same-sex marriage was legal. Barbour, a former lobbyist and chairman of the RNC, is a prodigious fundraiser, a useful skill for any national candidate. Pawlenty, who calls himself a blue-collar "Sam's Club" Republican, has built a solid following among conservatives in Iowa, where next year's first caucuses will be held in February.
One danger for the party, though, is that the nominating process could erase one of the lessons of last year's victory: that Republicans can win among independent voters when they focus on fiscal concerns and downplay social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
When Daniels recently called for a "truce" on social issues to focus on deficit reduction, he was roundly condemned by social conservatives. Meanwhile, Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has kept cultural issues prominent in his speeches; last week he said (wrongly) that Obama had grown up in Kenya, and he condemned actress Natalie Portman for "boasting" about her unwed pregnancy. And Gingrich's core message is heavy with warnings about Muslim inroads into American life, including the suggestion, unsupported by much evidence, that U.S. courts might begin to administer Islamic law.
The structure of the election could also push candidates to the right. Iowa, where the first caucus vote is held, has historically been hospitable to cultural conservatives; Huckabee won there in 2008. And the debates leading up to that contest are starting early, with the first one May 2 at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
It's too early to predict which of the potential candidates will prove the strongest alternative to Romney. But the fragmented field suggests two possible scenarios. One is that a multitude of feuding conservatives divide the GOP base into many pieces, allowing Romney to muscle his way through the crowded field.
But it'smore likely, Mahe suggests, that a candidate such as Pawlenty, Barbour or Daniels finds the sweet spot in the race: one step to the right of Romney but one step to the left of everyone else.
"If you have 12 lookalikes, the one who's the most moderate may end up a winner," he said.
"I do not think it's going to be easy to defeat Obama," he warned. "Defeating an incumbent is tough. He has a dedicated, committed base that seems to be holding. The American people don't seem to dislike him as a human being.
"It can be done," he said. "It depends on who we nominate."
On the other hand, with an overcrowded Republican field, a polarizing GOP primary battle, a White House that's heading back toward the center — and, perhaps, a slowly improving economy — it could be a good year for Obama after all.
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See Mitt Romney flip-flop
His convenient and implausibly explained reversals on issues say all we need to know about his character. He will do or say anything to become president.
By Michael Kinsley
We're all for transparency these days, and if anything is transparently clear about American politics, it is that Mitt Romney will do or say anything to become president. The best guess is that at heart he is an old-fashioned moderate, business-oriented Republican (just about the last one standing). But there's no knowing for sure. He may have no sincere beliefs at all.
There was a piece about Romney on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, and what amazes me is the deadpan frankness with which the article exposed him as a phony, and then went on to discuss what Romney might do to solve this problem.
He was criticized last time for being a stiff, so this time he is not wearing a tie. Ever. Even on occasions when every other male is wearing one. Problem solved, as Romney sees it.
"To Quiet Critics," says the Times headline, "Romney Puts '12 Focus on Jobs." In other words, change the subject! "I like President Obama," Romney told the Times patronizingly, "but he doesn't have a clue how jobs are created." Did Romney have a clue in '08 but lost it? Because the last time he ran, Romney played down his experience as a businessman and played up his recently acquired views as a social conservative, because that was what every commentator and consultant was telling him he had to do back then.
One little difficulty with Romney's new emphasis on his expertise — and Obama's lack thereof — about job creation is that Romney doesn't actually say what he would do differently to create more jobs. He just repeats that "I spent my career in the private sector. I know how jobs are created." The nearest he comes to getting specific is to say that in the business world, "the three rules of every successful turnaround" are "focus, focus, focus." This is Peter Pan advice, about as useful as repeating "I do believe in fairies."
To be sure, Obama's economic leadership is not beyond criticism. Many people think his stimulus and various bailouts were too costly (though both policies were initiated under his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush). Some think his financial regulations are too complex. Almost everyone thinks he should have been more aggressive in tackling the deficit, though somewhat fewer have offered specific alternatives.
Anyway, none of this has anything to do with job creation in the short run (which is the run Romney is running). A smaller stimulus or more aggressive deficit reduction would have reduced jobs in the short run.
The Times says that Romney's convenient flip-flops in 2008 on abortion and gay rights "prompted questions about whether his positions were driven by politics or conviction."
In fact, to any reasonable person, Romney's reversals on such questions didn't raise questions about his sincerity as much as answer them. It wouldn't be unreasonable for someone who really admired Romney's record as a businessman, or who really couldn't stand Obama, to overlook Romney's current right-wing stands on abortion and gay rights. But his sudden, convenient and implausibly explained reversals on these issues say something about his character that you can't flip away quite so easily.
But healthcare is the killer. The center of the Obama healthcare reform, and the part that has most excited the ire of conservatives, is the individual mandate — the requirement that everyone purchase health insurance somewhere, somehow. Romney now says, like all leading Republicans, that given the chance, "I would repeal Obamacare." Yet Romney advocated, signed and (for a while) bragged about a similar requirement in the Massachusetts reform passed while he was governor.
The similarity is no coincidence. Private sector healthcare can't work without some sort of mandate that healthy people as well as sick ones carry insurance. As a smart businessman, not just some dumb politician, Romney surely grasps this point. Nevertheless, he says that the situation requiring an individual mandate was "unique to Massachusetts" rather than — more accurately — a universal requirement imposed by mathematics.
To me, these issues and the way Romney has handled them are characterological, unchangeable at this point, and stamp him as ethically unqualified to be entrusted with the presidency. To his former advisors quoted in the Times, they are merely strategic challenges to be overcome. Alex Castellanos says Romney should have gotten healthcare "litigated" and over with long before the 2012 campaign started. Doug Gross, a "prominent Iowa Republican," suggests that Romney has to "present himself as genuine and not as someone chasing voters far to the right." (That is, he can chase them, as long as he doesn't present himself as the kind of guy who chases them.) "More than a dozen" previous Romney supporters worried whether he "could withstand scrutiny without being tempted to reinvent himself again."
Pshaw. Maybe he can, through extreme self-discipline, refrain from flip-flopping this time. But that would only be if he calculated that the cost of the flip-flop exceeded the cost of an unpopular position. (He is, as he keeps reminding us, a businessman.)
Romney and I attended the same private high school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., although he was several years ahead. I remember only one encounter. For some reason, we shared a packed car to a gubernatorial debate during his father's reelection campaign for governor. The younger Romney was arguing vigorously the whole way that people were talking more about why the Michigan economy was good than why the Michigan economy was bad, and that this proved that Romney senior's tenure as governor had been a success.
In a speech over the weekend, as reported in the Times, Romney said that "the president and his people spend more time talking about me and Massachusetts healthcare than 'Entertainment Tonight' spends talking about Charlie Sheen." After half a century, his presentation is a tiny bit funnier, but the point is just as lame.
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"The Times says that Romney's convenient flip-flops in 2008 on abortion and gay rights "prompted questions about whether his positions were driven by politics or conviction."
Voters are smart.
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Yet when obama flip flops 24 7 you have no problem w it. Got it.
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Why not?
He believes in magical underwear. :-X
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For Romney, a different campaign but old obstacles
Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writer
Mitt Romney wasn't in Iowa on Monday, which tells you much about his second campaign for the presidency. It will not be a rerun of the first.
The former Massachusetts governor skipped the first mini-forum of the 2012 Republican nomination battle. As several of his likely rivals shared the stage at a church in Des Moines, appealing to Christian conservatives, Romney chose to make his splash on the front page of the Boston Herald with a guest column ripping President Obama on the economy, just as the president was arriving for a visit.
Four years ago, Romney was in a great hurry to prove his bona fides as a candidate against better-known Republicans such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. This time he has been content to wait and to focus on the president rather than fellow Republicans. His strategy has helped dictate the pace of the slow-starting campaign, which he hopes will be to his advantage. The change reflects Romney's status in the top tier of the Republican field as well as lessons learned from his flawed campaign of 2008.
At every turn four years ago, Romney wanted to be first and earliest. He was overeager. He tried to match McCain organizationally, starting in 2006. He made a fundraising splash in January 2007 as a way to signal that he could go the distance financially, even if he was in single digits in the polls.
He launched television commercials earlier than any of his rivals, and moved the polls in his direction. He won the Iowa straw poll in August 2007 after a heavy investment of time in energy. He never quite recovered from that victory.
His Iowa commitment, from which he could not extract himself, turned out to be a miscalculation of sizable and costly proportions. To his dismay, he eventually found himself in a nasty one-on-one battle against a rising Mike Huckabee.
The former Arkansas governor's support among social and religious conservatives, who were dominant in Iowa, proved too much for Romney's otherwise well-organized campaign to overcome. On the night of the caucuses, a victorious Huckabee handed Romney off to McCain for the next battle in New Hampshire. "Now it's your turn to kick his butt," Huckabee told McCain, according to advisers to both.
Romney's time and money spent in Iowa proved costly in New Hampshire. Had he defeated McCain there, the Arizona senator probably would have been forced to end his campaign. By losing the two early states, Romney essentially doomed his own chances. All the evidence suggests he will not make that mistake this time around.
Romney's Iowa commitment in 2012 is still a work in progress. His attention to New Hampshire is there for all to see. It was there Saturday that he delivered one of his few public speeches of the year. He hasn't been in Iowa since fall.
Romney knows he must win New Hampshire if he hopes to become the nominee, and he will sacrifice Iowa, if necessary, to ensure that he does. An Iowa mini-forum with Christian conservatives held before anyone has declared a candidacy doesn't fit among his priorities at this stage of the campaign.
He wants to demonstrate to his party's activists that he has the knowledge and experience to take on an incumbent president on both economic and foreign policy. And in so doing, he hopes to show Republicans that he would be their strongest candidate in a general election.
Romney still faces two problems left over from his last campaign. The first is health care. Can he ever persuade Republican primary and caucus voters that what he did in Massachusetts was truly different from what Obama did nationally?
Romney used his speech in New Hampshire to try to explain those differences: that Massachusetts was a state-specific solution and not, as he put it, a one-size-fits-all approach for the nation. But he will have more to explain, particularly the individual mandate that both the Massachusetts law and Obama's plan include.
It's possible that the Massachusetts health-care plan will be to Romney what Hillary Clinton's vote for the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq was to her candidacy four years ago: a seminal action that permanently alienates a part of the party's base.
As with Clinton four years ago, it is long past time for Romney to apologize for what he did in Massachusetts or say it was a big mistake that he now regrets. He can only explain why he did what he did and, as Clinton did in ratcheting up her opposition to Bush's policies, become one of the loudest advocates for repeal of Obama's health-care law.
His other big challenge will be establishing his authenticity. If early soundings are any indication, he carries baggage from his first campaign on this question. Many Republicans think he fits the profile of a nominee who could help put the U.S. economy on better footing. But he hasn't fully earned their trust.
So although Romney may follow a different strategy this time, the obstacles in his path will be familiar.
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I'd never vote for a Mormon president.
I'll second that and fuck BB, you don't have to answer to him. Why should you have to explain why you don't want some wacked cult follower leading America... No way to a mormon in the White House. Fuck that.
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Why not?
Would you vote for an atheist?
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Would you vote for an atheist?
Who cares what he believes? WTF is the big deal with someone being mormon?
so long as he leaves me the hell alone, he could believe in the tooth fairy for all I care.
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Who cares what he believes? WTF is the big deal with someone being mormon?
so long as he leaves me the hell alone, he could believe in the tooth fairy for all I care.
I never said there was anything wrong with being a Mormon. Or in your case a moron. Which is why I asked BB this and not you. Because I was expecting a more intelligent answer from his perspective if confronted with that scenario in regards to his faith.
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Romney Makes it Official, Quietly
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, quietly made his presidential ambitions official Monday by forming an exploratory committee to run for president in 2012 and declaring in a video that “it is time that we put America back on a course of greatness.”
Mr. Romney, a top contender in the 2008 presidential campaign, has so far been content to remain largely quiet while other Republicans seek the media spotlight. At this stage, Mr. Romney tops most polls as the Republican front-runner and his advisers saw little need to compete for the boost in name recognition that comes with an early declaration.
But the pressures of fund-raising are likely to be even greater this time around, with President Obama expected to raise as much as $1 billion for his reelection campaign. Every day that Mr. Romney waited to declare his intentions was a day that he could not raise any money for his bid.
That ends now. With a new Web site — www.mittromney.com — and an official registration with the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Romney will now be able to tap his donors for money that he can use to once again seek the Republican nomination.
“From my vantage point in business and in government, I have become convinced that America has been put on a dangerous course by Washington politicians, and it has become even worse during the last two years,” Mr. Romney said in the video. “But I am also convinced that with able leadership, America’s best days are still ahead.”
With his official entry into the race, Mr. Romney is hoping to do in the 2012 race what he was unable to do in 2008. And he appears to be embarking on a very different strategy.
In 2007, Mr. Romney used his own personal wealth and millions from his donors to blanket Iowa and New Hampshire with television ads in the hopes of establishing himself in both of the states with early presidential contest. In the end, he won neither state and watched as Senator John McCain of Arizona recovered from early stumbles to capture the nomination.
This time, Mr. Romney has barely been visible. He has not run any television commercials in the early states. And his entry into the race was done with almost no fanfare — an e-mail message to supporters in the early afternoon.
In the video, Mr. Romney uses a baseball diamond as the backdrop after meeting with students at the University of New Hampshire. The video stands in sharp contrast to Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, who launched his bid with a snazzy, fast-paced video with thunderous music and plenty of American flags.
Mr. Romney, by contrast, speaks directly to the camera, spending most of his time focused on the economic challenges the country faces.
“How has this happened in the nation that leads the world in innovation and productivity?” Mr. Romney asks. “The answer is that President Obama’s policies have failed. He and virtually all the people around him have never worked in the real economy. They just don’t know how jobs are created in the private sector.”
The former Massachusetts governor does not mention health care — perhaps his biggest political vulnerability as a Republican candidate — in the video, which appears a day before the fifth anniversary of Mr. Romney signed into law a health care overhaul in his state that many view as the precursor to Mr. Obama’s own controversial legislation.
Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals have criticized his health care legislation and Democrats have pounced, too, heaping praise on the Romney legislation because they know it won’t help him in the Republican primary.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/romney-makes-it-official-quietly/?hp
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Would you vote for an atheist?
No.
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No.
here's a Q you won't answer.
2012 matchup is Obama (a church goer) versus an experienced businessman with a great vision for america, a 20 year military veteran who got a law degree while raising a family.
The only problem is, this guy who will fix America's problems isn't sure about what's above us - he's not sure about a book telling him tales of gardens of eden, etc.
He doesn't know what happens when we die - he doesn't preach to anyone, he lives a good life - but he's not ready to commit to a particular belief system. He's an athiest, and sees nothing wrong with admitting it. He's anti-abortion not because of the Bible, but because he respects life. He's pro-gun, anti-pork, and rated very highly for his conservative voting record in congress.
BB, would you vote Obama, stay home, or vote for the athiest? (Don't answer, we both know your beliefs won't let you LMAO)
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here's a Q you won't answer.
2012 matchup is Obama (a church goer) versus an experienced businessman with a great vision for america, a 20 year military veteran who got a law degree while raising a family.
The only problem is, this guy who will fix America's problems isn't sure about what's above us - he's not sure about a book telling him tales of gardens of eden, etc.
He doesn't know what happens when we die - he doesn't preach to anyone, he lives a good life - but he's not ready to commit to a particular belief system. He's an athiest, and sees nothing wrong with admitting it. He's anti-abortion not because of the Bible, but because he respects life. He's pro-gun, anti-pork, and rated very highly for his conservative voting record in congress.
BB, would you vote Obama, stay home, or vote for the athiest? (Don't answer, we both know your beliefs won't let you LMAO)
Why are you asking then? lol. No, I don't need to answer (another) dumb question. Just like a Ron Paul/Jesse Ventura ticket. lol . . .
Stop asking stupid questions. :)
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Stop asking stupid questions. :)
There's no such thing as stupid questions.......
............only stupid moderators :D
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There's no such thing as stupid questions.......
............only stupid moderators :D
Nooooo. There are both. You definitely got the stupid questions part covered. :)
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Nothing will change if Romney is elected. He is a big government Repub. He would be just as bad for the country as Obama has been.
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bush never vetoed a single spending bill in 8 years.
Romney had nothing but good things to say about bush's behavior in office.
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bush never vetoed a single spending bill in 8 years.
Romney had nothing but good things to say about bush's behavior in office.
::)
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I like Romney, but i feel he should have been more critical of Bush's performance.
He's too much of a 'yes man'. When GITMo was the issue, mittens couldn't just agree and support it. He had to add "I'd like to DOUBLE it!" I mean, it's like a little kid talking there.
But at this point, as long as the 2012 preson won't embarass us in the world or deliver a completely immature sense of things (sorry palin and trump), I'm all for giving a repub a chance to cut spending.
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Romney in debate:
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Romney would be a vast improvment over bama.
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Romney in debate:
Interesting. He has done a whole lot of flipping.
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the first article is right, he has a hard time connecting with voters. Im not a big fan of him either and I think he would have a hard time beating obama.
Although if things keep going the way there going just about anybody will beat the obama with his streak of horrible decisions.
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i think romney would have the EASIEST time against obama in the general. But he'll have a tough time in the primaries. He can outspend most candidates, luckily for him.
He will look like a grownup on that stage against obama. Can anyone here really say Palin would carry herself in a statesman like manner up there? What about Trump? Today he's pissing on an entire religion, he's said US policy should be to steal resources from Arab nations.... geez, he's a perfect al-Q recruiting tool.
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Mitt Romney gets a lesson in gaffe management
By Troy Reimink
Michigan native and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had to wash the taste of foot from his mouth after an error in an op-ed drew widespread criticism Monday.
His piece criticized President Obama as "not serious about America’s financial health." Here's the excerpt in question, with emphasis added:
Barack Obama is facing a financial emergency on a grander scale. Yet his approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history. With its failed stimulus package, its grandiose new social programs, its fervor for more taxes and government regulations, and its hostility toward business, the administration has made the debt problem worse, hindered economic recovery and needlessly cost American workers countless jobs.
Democrats and news outlets pounced on his use of "peacetime" when the nation quite obviously is at war. Mitt Romney Under Fire For Peacetime Gaffe, went the Newser headline. U.S. Election News: Romney “Peacetime” Gaffe Earns Criticism, etc.
A gaffe, it's said, is when a politician gets caught telling the truth. So maybe that's not the right term for this. Anyway, Romney's staff corrected the error; a spokeswoman said he meant "since World War II."
Elsewhere in Romney-land, NPR this morning began a series of profiles of leading GOP 2012 presidential contenders with a look at how Romney followed his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, into politics. Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, won the 2008 presidential primary in Michigan before eventually losing the nomination to John McCain.
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:D
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Do you want to bang him?
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Romney focused on outraising — by far — Republican presidential competitors
By Dan Eggenand
Tim Pawlenty is heading back to Iowa this week. Newt Gingrich will deliver his first formal speech as a presidential candidate. Ron Paul was among the GOP hopefuls gathered in South Carolina for the first debate of the campaign, while others are testing the waters and weighing whether to run.
In the meantime, Mitt Romney has been quietly, steadily focused primarily on one thing: raising money.
The presumed Republican front-runner, who took a pass on the first party debate last Thursday, has spent his early weeks as an exploratory candidate soliciting pledges in hopes of amassing a war chest that would put him far ahead of his competitors, according to donors, advisers and others close to Romney’s team.
And much of that effort has been targeted toward wealthy banking and corporate executives on Wall Street.
The strategy is aimed in part at taking advantage of Wall Street’s dramatic shift away from President Obama and other Democrats, who have angered many business leaders by passing new financial regulations and seeking to raise taxes on certain types of investment income. The approach also means that Romney probably would have far more money than any of his likely Republican primary challengers, none of whom has his deep connections to the financial world.
Romney easily beats other candidates, including Obama, in the proportion of money he has raised from the financial and banking industry, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. During the 2010 cycle, $4 of every $10 in itemized donations to Romney’s main political action committee came from finance-related companies and their employees, for a total of $1.8 million, the data show.
The list of donors at Romney’s first presidential fundraiser, held April 12 at the Harvard Club of New York City, reads like a who’s-who of the Wall Street elite, including Goldman Sachs bankers and independent financiers. Those attending the breakfast meeting included investment banker Lewis M. Eisenberg, who served as finance chairman for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, and hedge fund king John Paulson, who shattered records in 2010 by earning $5 billion in a single year.
The contributions fit with an emerging strategy by the Romney campaign to focus its message on the candidate’s long business career, including his roles as co-founder of Bain Capital, one of the nation’s largest private equity firms, and as head of the profitable 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In announcing his exploratory committee last month, Romney said that “President Obama’s policies have failed” because of a lack of business experience.
“He and virtually all the people around him have never worked in the real economy,” the former Massachusetts governor said in a video message. “They just don’t know how jobs are created in the private sector. That’s where I spent my entire career.”
Another former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, who was host of the April 12 fundraiser, said Romney’s business background “comes across loud and clear when he meets with people in a fundraising context. He knows how to speak the language of people in the business community.”
But Romney’s close connections to Wall Street interests also pose a clear political risk at a time when many Americans are recoiling at the record paydays in corporate boardrooms, made possible in part by taxpayer bailouts approved during the George W. Bush administration and continued under Obama.
Romney’s business experience — including his alleged role in forcing job losses at companies taken over by his Bain Capital fund — caused him political trouble in past campaigns, and Democrats have signaled an eagerness to revisit the topic. One senior Democratic Party official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Romney’s “love affair with Wall Street” will be a key point of attack by the Obama campaign if he wins the GOP nomination.
Although Romney has always been close to the financial industry, his reliance on the sector has surged since he ran for president in 2008, according to the Post analysis, which was based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
More than 40 percent of the itemized donations to his Free and Strong America PAC in 2010 came from the finance and banking sector, compared with 27 percent during his last presidential run, the data show.
That track record puts him well ahead of Gingrich, Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, who each raised 28 percent or less of their money in the 2010 cycle from the finance and banking sector, records show. Those employees and companies contributed $1.8 million to Romney, compared with $705,000 to Gingrich, $704,000 to Pawlenty and $626,000 to Bachmann.
Obama raised less than 10 percent of his donations in 2008 from Wall Street and other finance industry donors, although the sheer scale of his $750 million campaign meant that he outraised his opponents on that score. Obama campaign aides have said they expect to meet or exceed that total for 2012.
Romney advisers insist that Obama could still outraise them on overall Wall Street donations. “We won’t raise as much from the financial industry as President Obama, but we expect to hold our own,” one campaign official said.
Romney has told major donors that he needs to raise at least $50 million for a competitive primary bid. At the Harvard Club event in April, he asked the 200 or so in attendance to raise at least $25,000 each, and many will bring in far more than that, participants said.
“We in the financial services industry see clearly that the country is on the precipice of a sovereign financial problem,” said Romney fundraiser Emil Henry Jr. of Tiger Infrastructure Partners, who was an assistant Treasury secretary under Bush. “Backing Governor Romney is a key way to get ahead of that challenge.”
Romney has said in the past that he opposes Democratic efforts to raise the 15 percent tax rate commonly paid by hedge fund managers and private equity partners. He also has frequently criticized Obama for “scapegoating” investors.
“He demonizes Wall Street as if Wall Street greed is something new,” Romney said in April 2010, referring to the president. “It’s been there for a long time, and that is not the reason we had an economic meltdown.”
The financial industry overall has abandoned Obama and other Democrats over the past two years. Some of the shift has clearly benefited Romney. Goldman Sachs partner Henry Cornell, for example, gave Obama $2,300 in 2008 but contributed $5,000 to Romney two years later, records show. Cornell did not respond to a request for comment.
David Douglass, a California venture capitalist who gave Obama $2,300 in 2008, said he has long supported Romney because of their personal interaction in the business world, calling him a “smart, unbiased” candidate.
He said he donated to Obama only because he wanted to impress his teenage daughter by taking her to a fundraising breakfast with the candidate. “I got a great return on investment,” he said.
But most of Romney’s early financial supporters for 2012 come from the ranks of longtime GOP fundraisers such as Eisenberg, a former Goldman Sachs partner and founder of Granite Capital International Group.
“He will garner support from Wall Street and beyond,” Eisenberg said of Romney. “The critical issue will continue to be the economy and jobs and the deficit, and there’s nobody who has a proven track record comparable to Mitt’s.”
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The guy comes off as a used car saleman. Total phoney and idiot.
OWNED.
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"And much of that effort has been targeted toward wealthy banking and corporate executives on Wall Street."
So Romney will be indebted to the bankers. Hey, we all want a "business guy" to win the presidency. Will anyone be surprised when he's a puppet of wall street?
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If you voted for Obama you have nothing to say on this.
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If you voted for Obama you have nothing to say on this.
i voted barr.
and i'd vote romney over obama in a minute. i'd rather another repub win the nomination - mitt goes with whatever is popular to get the job - liberal in 94, RINO in 2008, tea party banker in 2012... who knows what he'll be by 2016.
But he's better than obama. And I hope Rpaul or West beats him in the primaries :)
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If you voted for Obama you have nothing to say on this.
It's funny that he's complaining about when every day he's on here sucking Obama's dick, despite the fact that the Obama regime has more Wall Streeters in it than 240 can count (i.e. over 20).
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West is not running.
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It's funny that he's complaining about when every day he's on here sucking Obama's dick, despite the fact that the Obama regime has more Wall Streeters in it than 240 can count (i.e. over 20).
of course obama is tied to the banks... which is why i said i'd vote romney over obama.
i'd prefer the 2012 GOP nominee be someone who will actually smack em down, ala a ron paul.
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Massachusetts health reform a double-edged sword for Romney
The state has 'nearly universal pride' over the universal coverage Mitt Romney signed into law as governor. But the achievement has emerged as his biggest obstacle to securing the 2012 Republican nomination for president.
By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was all smiles in 2006 as he marched into historic Faneuil Hall behind a fife and drum corps and ascended a giant stage festooned with a banner that proclaimed "Making History in Healthcare."
Romney was about to sign a law making his state the first in the nation to effectively guarantee universal health coverage, a landmark the governor would then call "an achievement" that "comes once in a generation."
Five years later, that achievement is still being celebrated here by doctors, hospitals, business leaders and community advocates who credit the law with ensuring that fewer than 2% of the state's residents are uninsured, compared with more than 15% nationally.
Yet the Massachusetts milestone has emerged as perhaps Romney's biggest obstacle to securing the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
With Republican voters still enraged at the new national healthcare law, conservatives regularly criticize the former governor for designing a measure that became a template for the overhaul President Obama signed last year. On Thursday, Romney is to deliver a major speech in Michigan that his campaign said would outline a program to "repeal and replace" Obama's plan, the latest in Romney's efforts to distance himself from the federal law.
"It is quite an irony," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, one of the state's leading business advocates. "You will find nearly universal pride in the state about these reforms and a salute to Romney for his contribution.... He had a pivotal role in health reform, but he is clearly taking less credit than he deserves."
Romney is instead laboring to explain that he never intended the federal government to do what Massachusetts did.
"States are where healthcare programs for the uninsured should be crafted," he told New Hampshire Republicans recently.
He has also embraced traditional GOP prescriptions such as limits to medical malpractice suits, loosening regulations on private insurance companies and expanding tax benefits for privately purchased insurance.
Though Romney calls the Obama program "a major departure from what we had crafted," health policy experts, including many who worked on either the Massachusetts plan or the national law, see far more similarities than differences.
"Massachusetts was the model for the federal Affordable Care Act.... It is the cornerstone of the healthcare overhaul," said John McDonough, a former Democratic state lawmaker and consumer advocate who worked on the state law and subsequently helped write the federal law for the Senate health committee in Washington.
Even some of Romney's critics credit the former governor with developing the basic framework for guaranteeing everyone health coverage.
Like the national law, the foundation of the Massachusetts overhaul is the requirement that nearly every state resident obtain health insurance, a mandate that Romney championed as a "personal responsibility principle."
"We cannot expect some citizens to pay for others," Romney wrote in an op-ed piece in the Boston Herald in June 2005.
That endorsement was crucial, according to people at the center of the state healthcare debate. "He became the first public official to publicly bless the mandate," said the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation president, Sarah Iselin, who worked on the healthcare overhaul.
At the same time, Romney backed the creation of a new regulated insurance marketplace in which state residents who did not receive health benefits from employers could shop for commercial health plans. Government subsidies were made available for those who could not afford insurance on their own.
This type of insurance exchange is also an integral part of the federal healthcare overhaul.
Romney's team even used some of the same financing mechanisms on which the Obama administration and its congressional allies would later rely to expand coverage nationally.
With the blessing of the George W. Bush administration, Romney took federal aid that Massachusetts hospitals received to care for the uninsured and redirected the money to help poor state residents buy health insurance.
"It was Romney's contribution to expand coverage using a private insurance framework, not a welfare framework," said Thomas Glynn, former chief operating officer at Partners HealthCare, the state's most influential hospital system. "He took a conservative idea and sold it to a liberal state."
The law that Romney signed April 12, 2006, did not resolve all of the state's healthcare issues. Emergency rooms have remained full. There are not enough primary care doctors. And hospitals that care for the poor are under strain.
There is still a debate about how comprehensive health plans should be. And small businesses, in particular, have seen little relief from rising premiums. Most critically, the state's healthcare costs remain among the highest in the country.
Those shortcomings have fueled steady criticism from national conservatives, who derisively label the Massachusetts overhaul "RomneyCare" to parallel the "ObamaCare" epithet Republicans use for the federal law.
In his latest book, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a potential 2012 GOP presidential contender, said the people of Massachusetts had "participated in an experiment that blew up in their faces."
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the first Republican to formally enter the race, last year said Massachusetts was not a model "I would want for the country to follow."
In Massachusetts, that kind of criticism is harder to find. Popular support for the overhaul remains high, as does support among stakeholders like doctors.
"There's a lot of pride that we did something that no other state has done," said Dr. Alice Coombs, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. "And physicians like the fact that they can focus on caring for patients, not worrying about who has insurance."
And while state healthcare spending has surged as people lost their jobs in recent years, the law has not blown a hole in the state budget, according to a 2009 analysis by the fiscally conservative Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The group concluded that out of a state budget of $30 billion, the coverage expansion added just $88 million a year to state spending over the first four years.
"The distortions are just amazing," said Widmer of the taxpayers foundation. "It just hasn't broken the bank. That's a myth."
Even business and insurance industry leaders now pushing for more aggressive steps to restrain costs say other factors — such as the economy and the power wielded by hospitals in Massachusetts — are the primary causes for surging insurance premiums.
"Double-digit rate increases have nothing to do with health reform," said Richard Lord, president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the state's largest business group.
Lord is among a group of state leaders, including Romney's successor Gov. Deval Patrick, who are now turning to the more difficult task of taming rising healthcare spending.
That wouldn't have been possible without the 2006 reforms that Romney championed, said Tim Gens, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Hospital Assn.
"People have more access to care now. That's not just better for individuals.... It laid the groundwork for being able to reform the payment and delivery system," he said. "Gov. Romney deserves credit for helping to get that ball rolling."
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Romney Defends Massachusetts Health Plan, but Concedes Flaws
By JIM RUTENBERG
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts came here on Thursday to address the biggest threat to his nascent presidential campaign, defending core elements of the health care law enacted in his home state five years ago even as he tried to reassure conservatives that he would work to roll back the similar national overhaul President Obama signed into law last year.
It was the start of a treacherous balancing act for Mr. Romney, one that forced him to confront not just the complexities and passions surrounding health policy but also questions about his willingness to stick to his principles under political pressure.
Speaking before a group of doctors, health policy experts and local officials at the University of Michigan medical complex, he embraced the aspect of the Massachusetts law most criticized among Republicans, the mandate that individuals buy insurance. He said it was necessary, given the needs of his state at the time.
But Mr. Romney said that if he were president he would seek to repeal the new national health care law with its similar mandate, arguing that it was inappropriate for the federal government to prescribe such a sweeping measure for states.
“Our plan was a state solution to a state problem,” he said while walking his audience through a corporate-style slide presentation, “and his was a power grab by the federal government to put in place a one-size-fits-all plan across the nation.”
Mr. Romney is in an especially tough political box. To fully repudiate the Massachusetts bill he signed into law might give fuel to those who have already accused him of being an ideological flip-flopper, given that he has changed his stances on abortion and immigration to more conservative positions. To defend the health plan too energetically might further alienate a huge group of Republican voters.
He sought to defuse the problem to some degree by addressing it frankly and acknowledging the difficult politics of the situation for him. Addressing calls from conservatives to apologize for the law, Mr. Romney said he was aware that some believe “that would be good for me politically.” But, he said, “There’s only one problem with that: it wouldn’t be honest.”
Mr. Romney’s address here was the first major policy speech of his campaign, which is technically still in its exploratory phase. And Mr. Romney’s aides had been hoping his remarks would begin to help him move beyond criticism of the Massachusetts law so he could a focus on his proposals for “free market reforms” that would replace the overhaul enacted by Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats.
Those proposals include making Medicaid a grant program that would give states greater latitude to set their own standards for health coverage for the poor; expanding use of pretax “health savings accounts” for medical expenses; and providing new tax deductions for individuals who buy their own insurance.
But the day made clear how far he has to go to win over conservatives on the issue. Hours before his speech he received a fresh helping of rebuke from an important referee in conservative politics, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which said Mr. Romney was “compromised and not credible” on the central campaign question of health policy and “the entitlement state.”
Mr. Romney said the Massachusetts law “included a number of things I wish I could do differently.” But, he said: “Over all, am I proud of the fact that we did our best for our people, and got people insured? Absolutely.”
Mr. Romney ducked reporters’ questions about the Wall Street Journal editorial after his address. Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman, said: “We didn’t go into today expecting to quiet the critics. What Governor Romney is doing is laying out his reform plans to replace Obamacare once it is repealed.”
After the speech concluded, Democrats gleefully pointed to some decidedly negative reaction from conservative opinion-makers, which included a headline at National Review Online reading, “Mitt Romney’s Illogical, Terrible Health-Care Address.”
Mr. Romney’s appearance here was part of what is shaping up as a cleansing period for the likely 2012 candidates, many of whom are trying to meet their dodgiest challenges head-on in the early going. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has outright apologized for his past position supporting so called cap-and-trade policies to combat pollution. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, has directly addressed questions about his past marital infidelities.
Thursday’s address was Mr. Romney’s fullest attempt to dispatch with the health care question this year. His failure to do so thus far is widely viewed as one reason why so many in the party are still seeking alternatives — including donors who have voiced concern about his ability to deal with the issue.
“This is an issue that they raise,” former Senator Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican and policy adviser to Mr. Romney, acknowledged in an interview. “But every candidate has issues that they have to manage.”
Mr. Talent said he was confident Mr. Romney would overcome any difficulties once voters get a better idea of his overall approach. “People are going to see that this plan was based on competition and free market principles,” he said, “and whatever else it was, it was not Obamacare, O.K.?”
Making an argument that would qualify as the sort of compassionate conservatism former President George W. Bush espoused, Mr. Romney said he had had a duty as governor to insure the uninsured and contain the costs they added to medical expenses for all.
But his embrace of the mandate — a policy some Republicans once had advocated but nearly all now reject as unwarranted incursion by the government into personal decisions and private markets — seemed to trump his larger state’s rights argument for some conservatives.
“He was for it when he was governor and now it’s clearly something that the broad coalition of conservatives feels is not a good idea at the national level or at the state level,” said James C. Capretta, who worked on health care policy at the Office of Management and Budget under Mr. Bush and now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Governor Romney is trying to navigate through that and it’s going to be turbulent.”
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Mitt Romney in a Time Warp
NY Times Editorial
There was something almost quaint about Mitt Romney’s speech on health care Thursday, as if we were watching early sound footage of Theodore Roosevelt.
Republicans no longer talk about the virtues of government social programs, especially if they intend to run for president in a party that now considers Medicare the first cousin of socialism. Yet there was Mr. Romney defending a mandate to buy health insurance as passionately as in any similar speech by President Obama.
When he was governor of Massachusetts, of course, Mr. Romney created a health care system very similar to the one championed by the president. He could have walked away from it, as he did in the 2008 presidential race, or fecklessly repudiated it, as Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, did in the Republican debate last week regarding his earlier support for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases.
This time, to his credit, Mr. Romney is standing by his record, perhaps hoping there might still be a few primary voters who appreciate candor — assuming he doesn’t pivot again in the heat of the right-dominated primaries.
Tearing it down might help him politically, he said, but “it wouldn’t be honest.” He said he did what he “thought would be right for the people of my state.” A mandate to buy insurance, he said, makes sense to prevent people from becoming free riders, getting emergency care at enormous cost to everyone else.
Where he went off the rails, however, was in not acknowledging that that same logic applies to the nation. Mr. Romney tried desperately to pivot from praising his handiwork in Massachusetts to trashing the very same idea as adapted by Mr. Obama. His was an efficient and effective state policy; Mr. Obama’s was “a power grab by the federal government.”
He tried to justify this with a history lesson on federalism and state experimentation, but, in fact, he said nothing about what makes Massachusetts different from its neighbors or any other state. And why would he immediately repeal the Obama mandate if elected president? Because Mr. Obama wants a “government takeover of health care,” while all he wanted was to insure the uninsured.
That distinction makes no sense, and the disconnect undermines the foundation of Mr. Romney’s candidacy. At heart, he is still the kind of old-fashioned northeastern Republican who believes in government’s role while trying to conceal it under a thin, inauthentic coating of conservative outrage. But in its blind abhorrence of President Obama, the party has also left behind former centrists like Mr. Romney, and it is unlikely that any amount of frantic pandering about the free market will change that. He is trapped not only between the poles of his party but between eras, a candidate caught in an electoral time warp.
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The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
By Dana Milbank
From China this week came the rare news that twin girls had been born with a single body and two heads.
Here in America, though, we have an even more unusual case: Two people conjoined in the body of a 64-year-old man. His name is Mitt Romney.
One head of Romney defends his health-care reform in Massachusetts, the model for President Obama’s version, which also uses an “individual mandate” to force people to buy health insurance — an idea that enrages conservatives.
The other head of Romney denounces Obama’s health-care reform as a “power grab,” a “government takeover of health care” and an “economic nightmare.”
The conservative Romney head, which aspires to be the Republican presidential nominee, is trying urgently to separate itself from its conjoined liberal twin – but the brightest minds in health care have been unable to help him with this logical leap.
And so the Romney twins presented themselves to the University of Michigan medical school on Thursday for a consult. Based on the symptoms, the prognosis is grim.
“Good morning,” he told his audience — a little after 2 p.m.
“You’ve got companies here in Massachusetts like Parago,” he told them -- in Ann Arbor. Parago, by the way, is based in Texas.
He shuffled his notes and tripped over words, turning “human resources” into “human rights.” Asked a question by a member of the audience, he hunted for a paper on his lectern, saying, “Yeah, I’m going to -- I’m going to -- well, I had my -- my list here -- well, I can’t quite find it.”
It was difficult not to feel pity for Romney in his effort to separate from himself. He’s the titular Republican presidential frontrunner, whose business smarts should make him a solid bet to defeat Obama in this economy. But on the issue that matters most to Republicans, health care, he might as well be, as the Wall Street Journal dubbed him Thursday, “Obama’s Running Mate.” The Journal editorialized that Romney was “compromised and not credible” because of his Massachusetts law, “the prototype for President Obama’s.”
Adding to Romney’s misery, a liberal group in Massachusetts uncovered a 1994 quote in which he supported a plan that would have imposed a nationwide individual mandate – the exact thing Romney now criticizes Obama for doing.
On Thursday, Romney pretended that he had never held such a position, maintaining that only states, not the feds, should be able to force people to buy insurance. Yet even then, Romney gave a more powerful defense of the mandate than Obama has.
“We found in our state we were spending hundreds of million of dollars a year giving out care to people, many of whom could afford to buy their own insurance,” he explained. His solution was “to insist on personal responsibility, and to say to folks who could afford to buy insurance: Either buy insurance yourself, or pay your own way.”
Romney embraced health-care reforms that go beyond Obama’s. He praised France’s co-insurance system, and he hailed “capitated rates” – an idea often associated with rationing.
The other Romney twin, though, argued the other side, using the word “Obamacare” 15 times to disparage the reforms he inspired. Obama and his advisors, he determined, “fundamentally distrust free enterprise.” Romney’s current health-care plan, he boasted, “includes no mandates.”
Romney has what might be called an Al Gore problem: Even if he’s being genuine, he seems ersatz. He assumed a professorial air by delivering a 25-page PowerPoint presentation in an amphitheater lecture hall – but the university issued a statement saying it had nothing to do with the event, for which the sponsoring college Republicans failed to fill all seats. His very appearance – a suit worn without a necktie – shouted equivocation. His hair was so slick that only a few strands defied the product.
But Romney’s slippery air comes less from pomade than from policies –abortion, gay rights and now health care – changed over time as expedience required. His calibrations continued Thursday. In one breath, he wanted to “applaud” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) for proposing a plan that ends the Medicare guarantee. In the next breath, he said his own plan “is not going to be identical to the Ryan plan.” How about some specifics, governor? “They’ll be coming,” he said.
Romney, who drew laughter when he acknowledged that his old health-reform law is no longer “an asset politically,” allowed that his Talmudic effort to dissociate Romneycare from Obamacare “is not going to satisfy everybody.” But that evidently won’t stop him from trying to split the baby.
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You obamadildos attacking romney on this are laughable.
How can you attack him for romneycare which is the same as obamacare,which you all jizzed yourselves over?
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You obamadildos attacking romney on this are laughable.
How can you attack him for romneycare which is the same as obamacare,which you all jizzed yourselves over?
dems do NOT want mitt to win the GOP primary.
They shit on him here so that repub primary voters will choose someone more extreme. let's face it, obama will beat a palin easily but will have a tough time against a romney in the general election.
repubs know mitt has presidential phony dbag written all over him, let's be honest. he's a poor man's mitch daniels, with enough hair and height to actually win the job.
so that's why they like to point out his romneycare, and why obama does too.
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Obama's Running Mate
WSJ Editorial
Mitt Romney's ObamaCare problem.
Mitt Romney travels to Ann Arbor today to deliver what his campaign bills as a major address laying out his "2012 principles for health-care reform." These are likely to be sensible, but what we'll be listening for is how he explains his health-care principles of five years ago.
As everyone knows, the health reform Mr. Romney passed in 2006 as Massachusetts Governor was the prototype for President Obama's version and gave national health care a huge political boost. Mr. Romney now claims ObamaCare should be repealed, but his failure to explain his own role or admit any errors suggests serious flaws both in his candidacy and as a potential President.
***
There's a lot to learn from the failure of the ObamaCare model that began in Massachusetts, which is now moving to impose price controls on all hospitals, doctors and other providers. Not that anyone would know listening to Mr. Romney. In the paperback edition of his campaign book "No Apology," he calls the plan a "success," and he has defended it in numerous media appearances as he plans his White House run.
Mr. Romney has lately qualified his praise, saying in a speech in New Hampshire in March that "our experiment wasn't perfect—some things worked, some things didn't, and some things I'd change." He's mostly avoided specifics other than retreating to the cover of state experimentation, but we can fill in the details based on interviews with Romney staffers as well as others present at the creation.
When Mr. Romney took office in 2003, the state was already enforcing public utility-style regulation of insurers for premiums and multiple benefit mandates. The resulting distortions were increasing rates fast, along with the natural increases from good but expensive Massachusetts medicine.
Mr. Romney applied the approach that succeeded when he was a Bain & Company business consultant: He convened an expert task force. His health-care commission immersed itself in data, crunched the numbers and came up with a technocratic solution.
The conceit was that a universal reform would cover everyone and all but pay for itself by reorganizing the state's health-care finances. Since 1985, Massachusetts footed most of the bill when the uninsured showed up for treatment through a $800 million fund for uncompensated care. That money, along with extra federal Medicaid dollars under a special waiver, would subsidize lower- and middle-income residents.
In the name of personal responsibility, Mr. Romney also introduced the individual mandate, first in the nation, requiring everyone to buy coverage or else pay a penalty. Free riders, he said, transferred their own costs to others, either through higher premiums or taxes. This is the same argument the Obama Administration is now using to justify the coercion of the individual mandate in the federal courts. Because the states have police powers under the Constitution, Mr. Romney's plan posed no legal problems. His blunder was his philosophy of government.
The people who don't buy coverage though they can afford it aren't really a major fiscal problem—unless the goal of the individual mandate is to force them to subsidize others. People who are priced out of coverage require subsidies—so in practice the logic of the individual mandate is that it is a government mandate too. Entitlements automatically grow and grow, and then the political class begins to make decisions that used to be left to markets and individuals.
Massachusetts took off on this entitlement trajectory after Mr. Romney signed the bill in 2006 and stepped down to run for President two years later. Let's go to the data, all of which are state-reported, in search of evidence of Mr. Romney's "success."
The only good news we can find is that the uninsured rate has dropped to 2% today from 6% in 2006. Yet four out of five of the newly insured receive low- or no-cost coverage from the government. The subsidies will cost at least $830 million in 2011 and are growing, conservatively measured, at 5.1% a year. Total state health-care spending as a share of the budget has grown from about 16% in the 1980s to 30% in 2006 to 40% today. The national state average is about 25%.
The safety-net fund that was supposed to be unwound, well, wasn't. Uncompensated hospital care rose 5% from 2008 to 2009, and 15% from 2009 to 2010, hitting $475 million (though the state only paid out $405 million). "Avoidable" use of emergency rooms—that is, for routine care like a sore throat—increased 9% between 2004 and 2008. Meanwhile, unsubsidized insurance premiums for individuals and small businesses have climbed to among the highest in the nation.
Like Mr. Obama's reform, RomneyCare was predicated on the illusion that insurance would be less expensive if everyone were covered. Even if this theory were plausible, it is not true in Massachusetts today. So as costs continue to climb, Mr. Romney's Democratic successor now wants to create a central board of political appointees to decide how much doctors and hospitals should be paid for thousands of services.
The Romney camp blames all this on a failure of execution, not of design. But by this cause-and-effect standard, Mr. Romney could push someone out of an airplane and blame the ground for killing him. Once government takes on the direct or implicit liability of paying for health care for everyone, the only way to afford it is through raw political control of all medical decisions.
Mr. Romney's refusal to appreciate this, then and now, reveals a troubling failure of political understanding and principle. The raucous national debate over health care isn't about this or that technocratic detail, but about basic differences over the role of government. In the current debate over Medicare, Paul Ryan wants to reduce costs by encouraging private competition while Mr. Obama wants the cost-cutting done by a body of unelected experts like the one emerging in Massachusetts.
Mr. Romney's fundamental error was assuming that such differences could be parsed by his own group of experts, as if government can be run by management consultants. He still seems to believe he somehow squared the views of Jonathan Gruber, the MIT evangelist for ObamaCare, with those of the Heritage Foundation.
In reality, his ostensible liberal allies like the late Ted Kennedy saw an opening to advance their own priorities, and in Mr. Romney they took advantage of a politician who still doesn't seem to understand how government works. It's no accident that RomneyCare's most vociferous defenders now are in the White House and left-wing media and think tanks. They know what happened, even if he doesn't.
***
For a potential President whose core argument is that he knows how to revive free market economic growth, this amounts to a fatal flaw. Presidents lead by offering a vision for the country rooted in certain principles, not by promising a technocracy that runs on "data." Mr. Romney's highest principle seems to be faith in his own expertise.
More immediately for his Republican candidacy, the debate over ObamaCare and the larger entitlement state may be the central question of the 2012 election. On that question, Mr. Romney is compromised and not credible. If he does not change his message, he might as well try to knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket.
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:D
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Romney camp claims that he deserves credit for auto industry rebound
By Greg Sargent
Dems and liberal bloggers are having a grand old time mocking Mitt Romney in the wake of his spokesman’s claim today that Romney deserves credit for the rebound of the auto industry — even though he opposed Obama’s auto bailout.
The fun started when a Romney spokesman told the New York Times that “Romney had the idea first,” claiming he advocated for “a course of action that eventually the Obama administration adopted.”Dems immediately countered by pointing out that in 2008, Romney penned an Op ed pillorying the auto bailout with the title: “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”
I asked Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul for clarification of the Romney camp’s claim that he deserves credit for the auto industry’s rebound. She emailed:
“President Obama spent billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to bailout the auto industry. Mitt Romney argued that instead of a bailout, we should let the car companies go through a restructuring under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. This is the course the Obama administration eventually followed. If they had done it sooner, as Mitt Romney suggested, the taxpayers would have saved a lot of money.”
In other words, the Romney camp’s position is that is that Romney pushed for a restructing but without any taxpayer bailout of the industry, and that if Obama had undertaken the restructuring Romney suggested sooner, the bailout would not have been necessary.
The Dem pushback to this, of course, is obvious. Romney’s suggested course of action, rather than a taxpayer funded bailout, was for a “managed bankruptcy” and a federal role that consisted of “guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing.” Obama, by contrast, argued that a federally-financed bailout would be essential to the auto industry’s comback. “Executing this plan will require a substantial amount of money that only a government can provide,” Obama said at the time.
Even some initial critics of the bailout eventually conceded that Obama had gotten it right. The Economist — hardly a bastion of Big Government liberalism — apologized to Obama for opposing the bailout, noting that it was “unlikely” that the restructuring would have worked “had the government not stepped in.”
Beyond this, the main problem for Romney here may simply be the title of his initial Op ed: “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” You think a visual of that might appear in a 30-second ad in the crucial swing states of the industrial midwest, should Romney become the GOP nominee?
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Romney labels Barack Obama 'ineffective president'
Tue May 31, 8:53 am ET
WASHINGTON – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is calling Barack Obama "one of the most ineffective presidents" he's ever seen, and says he can beat him next year.
Romney tells NBC in an interview that while Obama wasn't responsible for the recession he inherited, "he made things worse. He's failed."
Romney also says he thinks Obama lacks "a cogent assessment" of world affairs. The Republican charges, in his words, "The Arab spring came, one of the greatest opportunities we've seen in decades, and we've been flatfooted."
Romney, who plans to formally get into the GOP race later this week, says he doesn't think his Mormon faith will be an obstacle to winning the GOP presidential nod, saying "we're not electing a pastor in chief, we're electing a commander in chief."
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wow.... romney's solution was "the american carmakers should have just gone bankrupt!"
I dunno if that's the best approach.
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wow.... romney's solution was "the american carmakers should have just gone bankrupt!"
I dunno if that's the best approach.
Its called bankruptcy - didnt they teach ou anything about it in your MBA course?
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Its called bankruptcy - didnt they teach ou anything about it in your MBA course?
Word.
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i dont think a president should be saying things like that.
talk about fixing the problems, talk about changing the circumstances which caused the companies to sink.
But anytime a president encourages companies to declare bankruptcy? poor form to say that.
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::) Maybe the president and Congress should give federal tax dollars to poorly managed companies to bail them out, only to see them fail again.
Or we have tried that already? ::)
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::) Maybe the president and Congress should give federal tax dollars to poorly managed companies to bail them out, only to see them fail again.
Or we have tried that already? ::)
Oh, i didn't know there were only two options here - declare bankruptcy or govt bailout.
Nothing else could have worked?
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Oh, i didn't know there were only two options here - declare bankruptcy or govt bailout.
Nothing else could have worked?
Not the point. There is nothing wrong with a president or presidential candidate talking about bankruptcy. The failure of a business is part of the system. Businesses that cannot survive due to poor management or lack of consumer interest should fail.
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Not the point. There is nothing wrong with a president or presidential candidate talking about bankruptcy. The failure of a business is part of the system. Businesses that cannot survive due to poor management or lack of consumer interest should fail.
I dunno if a president should say "I prefer major automakers declare bankruptcy".
Of course that is an option. but to encourage it, that's just something he shouldn't say IMO. He should stick to talking points, blaming obama on this one.
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I dunno if a president should say "I prefer major automakers declare bankruptcy".
Of course that is an option. but to encourage it, that's just something he shouldn't say IMO. He should stick to talking points, blaming obama on this one.
What a president should do is speak the truth. What Romney said is absolutely correct:
I asked Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul for clarification of the Romney camp’s claim that he deserves credit for the auto industry’s rebound. She emailed:
“President Obama spent billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to bailout the auto industry. Mitt Romney argued that instead of a bailout, we should let the car companies go through a restructuring under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. This is the course the Obama administration eventually followed. If they had done it sooner, as Mitt Romney suggested, the taxpayers would have saved a lot of money.”
In other words, the Romney camp’s position is that is that Romney pushed for a restructing but without any taxpayer bailout of the industry, and that if Obama had undertaken the restructuring Romney suggested sooner, the bailout would not have been necessary.
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Romney: 'Barack Obama has failed America'
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Mitt Romney is opening his first formal day as a 2012 Republican presidential contender with a direct challenge to the man he wants to replace and is pitching himself as ready to repair the nation's struggling economy. "Barack Obama has failed America," he says.
In excerpts of a kick-off speech released ahead of his formal announcement Thursday, Romney's campaign message homes in on the economic woes that top voters' frustrations: a lack of jobs, persistent foreclosures and runaway spending in Washington.
It's a pitch tailored to the conservatives who hold great sway in picking the GOP's presidential nominee in Iowa and South Carolina — and the independents who are the largest politic bloc in New Hampshire. And it is as much a thesis on his viability as it is an indictment of Obama's leadership.
"A few years ago, Americans did something that was, actually, very much the sort of thing Americans like to do: We gave someone new a chance to lead, someone we hadn't known for very long, who didn't have much of a record but promised to lead us to a better place," Romney says, describing the man he hopes to face head-to-head in November 2012.
"At the time, we didn't know what sort of a president he would make. ... Now, in the third year of his four-year term, we have more than promises and slogans to go by. Barack Obama has failed America."
In the speech, the former Massachusetts governor launches into a scathing critique of Washington, a place where he never has served. Decrying federal spending, the one-term governor promises, "My generation will pass the torch to the next generation, not a bill."
Romney comes to a presidential contest that lacks a front-runner. In the past week, the still-jelling field became less certain with hints that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was considering a bid. Tea party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is inching toward a run, perhaps giving the anti-tax, libertarian-leaning grassroots movement a candidate to rally around.
Romney sought to claim a slice of that constituency when describing families struggling to get by.
"It doesn't matter if they are Republican or Democrat, independent or libertarian," Romney says in remarks he was to deliver at a farm in Stratham. "They're just Americans. An American family."
Meanwhile. Sarah Palin, her party's 2008 vice presidential nominee, continued a bus tour that highlighted not only her potential to upend the race but also served as a contrast to the lackluster enthusiasm for those already running for president. She was set to appear in New Hampshire at a clambake Thursday, although her aides and advisers were not providing schedules and her supporters in the state were left looking for guidance.
Meanwhile, Romney has built an experienced political team, collected serious campaign cash and crafted a campaign that is ready to go full-bore. While his likely opponents have struggled to get the spotlight, Romney largely has worked in private to fine-tune his political machine. He has chosen to weigh in through statements and editorial pages instead of interviews with journalists or town halls with voters.
On Friday, Romney starts to shift that strategy. He has scheduled his first town hall-style meeting for Manchester and later planned to speak at a Faith and Freedom forum in Washington.
His speeches have honed his criticism of Obama and promised alternatives in the coming months. Yet party leaders haven't rallied around him. To that end, Romney hopes his tough talk will inspire support.
"We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy," he says, decrying Obama's health care overhaul — a federal version of the one Romney signed into law for Massachusetts.
"From my first day in office my No. 1 job will be to see that America once again is No. 1 in job creation."
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Romney: 'Barack Obama has failed America'
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Mitt Romney is opening his first formal day as a 2012 Republican presidential contender with a direct challenge to the man he wants to replace and is pitching himself as ready to repair the nation's struggling economy. "Barack Obama has failed America," he says.
In excerpts of a kick-off speech released ahead of his formal announcement Thursday, Romney's campaign message homes in on the economic woes that top voters' frustrations: a lack of jobs, persistent foreclosures and runaway spending in Washington.
It's a pitch tailored to the conservatives who hold great sway in picking the GOP's presidential nominee in Iowa and South Carolina — and the independents who are the largest politic bloc in New Hampshire. And it is as much a thesis on his viability as it is an indictment of Obama's leadership.
"A few years ago, Americans did something that was, actually, very much the sort of thing Americans like to do: We gave someone new a chance to lead, someone we hadn't known for very long, who didn't have much of a record but promised to lead us to a better place," Romney says, describing the man he hopes to face head-to-head in November 2012.
"At the time, we didn't know what sort of a president he would make. ... Now, in the third year of his four-year term, we have more than promises and slogans to go by. Barack Obama has failed America."
In the speech, the former Massachusetts governor launches into a scathing critique of Washington, a place where he never has served. Decrying federal spending, the one-term governor promises, "My generation will pass the torch to the next generation, not a bill."
Romney comes to a presidential contest that lacks a front-runner. In the past week, the still-jelling field became less certain with hints that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was considering a bid. Tea party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is inching toward a run, perhaps giving the anti-tax, libertarian-leaning grassroots movement a candidate to rally around.
Romney sought to claim a slice of that constituency when describing families struggling to get by.
"It doesn't matter if they are Republican or Democrat, independent or libertarian," Romney says in remarks he was to deliver at a farm in Stratham. "They're just Americans. An American family."
Meanwhile. Sarah Palin, her party's 2008 vice presidential nominee, continued a bus tour that highlighted not only her potential to upend the race but also served as a contrast to the lackluster enthusiasm for those already running for president. She was set to appear in New Hampshire at a clambake Thursday, although her aides and advisers were not providing schedules and her supporters in the state were left looking for guidance.
Meanwhile, Romney has built an experienced political team, collected serious campaign cash and crafted a campaign that is ready to go full-bore. While his likely opponents have struggled to get the spotlight, Romney largely has worked in private to fine-tune his political machine. He has chosen to weigh in through statements and editorial pages instead of interviews with journalists or town halls with voters.
On Friday, Romney starts to shift that strategy. He has scheduled his first town hall-style meeting for Manchester and later planned to speak at a Faith and Freedom forum in Washington.
His speeches have honed his criticism of Obama and promised alternatives in the coming months. Yet party leaders haven't rallied around him. To that end, Romney hopes his tough talk will inspire support.
"We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy," he says, decrying Obama's health care overhaul — a federal version of the one Romney signed into law for Massachusetts.
"From my first day in office my No. 1 job will be to see that America once again is No. 1 in job creation."
Romney is the ultimate slime bag.
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Romney Makes His Run for President Official
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
STRATHAM, N.H. — Declaring America to be broken, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, on Thursday harshly criticized President Obama and pitched himself as the turnaround specialist the country needs as he formally began his second run for president.
Mr. Romney accused Mr. Obama of failing to live up to the promise of economic recovery he made in his 2008 campaign. And he blamed the president for high unemployment, rising gasoline prices, falling home values and a soaring national debt.
“At the time, we didn’t know what sort of a president he would make,” Mr. Romney said as he made his announcement from a family farm in New Hampshire. “Now, in the third year of his four-year term, we have more than promises and slogans to go by. Barack Obama has failed America.”
The attacks on Mr. Obama promise to be a centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s campaign as he seeks to present himself as the inevitable choice for Republicans eager to reclaim the White House. In his speech on Thursday, he pledged, without hesitance, to repeal the president’s health care reforms.
“We will return responsibility and authority to the states for dozens of government programs – and that begins with a complete repeal of Obamacare,” he said in his speech. “From my first day in office my No. 1 job will be to see that America once again is No. 1 in job creation.”
At the farm, Mr. Romney invited supporters and members of the news media to a cookout with him and his wife, Ann. Under clear but windy skies and with tractors and hay bales as a backdrop, Mr. Romney hoped to send the message that he intended to win New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.
The choice of the Bittersweet Farm for his announcement is an interesting one for Mr. Romney, who regularly argues for a smaller federal government that spends less. The rolling green hills of the farm were preserved in recent years in part with $1 million in federal money, according to a recent report in Seacoast Online.
A spokesman for Mr. Romney’s campaign told John Harwood of The New York Times: “I don’t think it’s fair to call it a federally subsidized backdrop. It’s a nice farm in New Hampshire, a landmark.”
Mr. Romney has emerged as the front-runner for the Republican nomination after reassembling a powerful fund-raising apparatus and an extensive campaign operation from his 2008 run. But he faces tough questions from conservatives about the health care plan he pushed through as governor.
Democrats are already firing back at his economic argument. An Internet video released Thursday morning by the Democratic National Committee cast Mr. Romney as someone who takes positions out of convenience, not principle.
Mr. Romney is “going into this campaign with the same fatal flaws that doomed him the first time around,” said Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic National Committee spokesman. “That he’s seen as a wishy-washy, flip-flopping politician who lacks any core convictions or principles and who you simply can’t trust to shoot straight with you.”
Mr. Romney’s path to the presidency must first go through his potential Republican rivals, who are eager to steal the spotlight. Even as he spoke, they were on the move. Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, criticized Mr. Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan even as her “One Nation” bus tour headed toward the coastal town of Portsmouth, N.H., for a clambake Thursday evening.
“In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously … there will be more the explanation coming from former Governor Romney on his support for government mandates,” Ms. Palin told reporters in Boston, taking aim at Mr. Romney’s past support for a requirement that individuals in Massachusetts buy health insurance.
“It’s tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept, because we have great faith in the private sectors and our own families,” Ms. Palin said. “And our own businessmen and women making decisions for ourselves. Not any level of government telling us what to do.”
Asked on Thursday what he thought about Ms. Palin’s arrival in New Hampshire, Mr. Romney said: “I think it’s great. New Hampshire is action central today.” In addition to Ms. Palin, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, was also in New Hampshire on Thursday, speaking to a local Republican committee.
Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, arrives this weekend for several days in the Granite State. And Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has said he will compete aggressively in New Hampshire.
Mr. Romney made no mention of his potential rivals. Instead, he painted a picture of a country in crisis. He said that he “believes in America,” but said it is suffering under the current administration.
“We look at our country and we know in our hearts that things aren’t right, and they’re not getting better,” he said.
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Mitt Romney Reasserts His Pro-Life Position on Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
The year on the calendar may be different but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney faces some of the same questions on the issue of abortion that hounded him during the 2008 version of his Republican presidential campaign.
Romney campaigned for and won election to the highest office in the liberal New England state by saying he supported abortion and that he would not change the law on abortion as the state’s governor. However, when confronted with legislation state legislators passed that would have promoted embryonic stem cell research and the destruction of human life for scientific research, Romney has said he was forced to reevaluate his position and that he ultimately came down on the side of protecting human life.
In an interview last night with Piers Morgan on CNN, Romney reiterated that story of how he became pro-life.
“When I ran for governor, I believed I could keep the law as it was. And I said I’d keep the law as it was,” he explained. “Then when I became governor, a piece of legislation came to my desk which would have led to the creation of new life for the purposes of destroying it. And I simply couldn’t sign it.”
“And I — I met with my staff and said, look, I’ve got to write why I have changed my view in this regard. It was one thing to talk about it philosophically, it’s another thing, as governor, to sign a piece of legislation that will take human life. I wrote that op-ed while I was governor and became pro-life and I continue to be pro- life,” Romney added.
Romney originally articulated his change of heart on abortion to Kathryn Lopez of the pro-life conservative news outlet National Review in December 2006.
Lopez: In a 1994 debate with Senator Kennedy, you said “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” Further confusing matters, the Boston Globe reported in 1994 that “as a Mormon lay leader [you] counseled Mormon women not to have abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or where the mother’s life was at risk.” Governor: What is your position on abortion today? On Roe? How do you account for what is obviously a change — certainly publicly — on the issue?
Gov. Romney: My position has changed and I have acknowledged that. How that came about is that several years ago, in the course of the stem-cell-research debate I met with a pair of experts from Harvard. At one point the experts pointed out that embryonic-stem-cell research should not be a moral issue because the embryos were destroyed at 14 days. After the meeting I looked over at Beth Myers, my chief of staff, and we both had exactly the same reaction — it just hit us hard just how much the sanctity of life had been cheapened by virtue of the Roe v. Wade mentality. And from that point forward, I said to the people of Massachusetts, “I will continue to honor what I pledged to you, but I prefer to call myself pro-life.” The state of Massachusetts is a pro-choice state and when I campaigned for governor I said that I would not change the law on abortion. But I do believe that the one-size-fits-all, abortion-on-demand-for-all-nine-months decision in Roe v. Wade does not serve the country well and is another example of judges making the law instead of interpreting the Constitution. What I would like to see is the Court return the issue to the people to decide. The Republican party is and should remain the pro-life party and work to change hearts and minds and create a culture of life where every child is welcomed and protected by law and the weakest among us are protected. I understand there are people of good faith on both sides of the issue. They should be able to make and advance their case in democratic forums with civility, mutual respect, and confidence that our democratic process is the best place to handle these issues.
Although pro-life advocates are normally jubilant over abortion advocates converting to the pro-life position, Romney’s shift is seen by some pro-life advocates as political in nature — occurring around the time he started moving nationally towards a presidential run.
Depending on whether pro-life voters accept the change in position or see it skeptically, Romney has either remained committed to his pro-life views or has used the issue to get in good stead with pro-life voters.
Following the shift, Romney did veto the pro-embryonic research bill but skeptics say the legislature had the votes to override it and ultimately did so. Skeptics also point out that his state-run health care plan provides for taxpayer funded abortions, but those who say Romney is now genuinely pro-life point out that a state Supreme Court decision forced their inclusion over anyone’s objections.
Romney spoke to pro-life advocates over the weekend at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, D.C, and told the values voters in attendance that, “We’re united in our belief in the sanctity of human life.” The question will be whether voters in places like Iowa and South Carolina believe him.
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What a president should do is speak the truth.
Disagree.
President's job is NOT to speak the truth.
President's job is to cheerlead the US position in the world. President's job is to instill confidence even when shit looks bad.
"To spreak the truth"? Really? When the hell in history has ANY president told the truth? They tell the masses what they need to hear, and they greenlight a ton of shady shit behind the scenes. THAT is the presiden't job.
You're living in a fairy tale world when you say:
What a president should do is speak the truth.
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Disagree.
President's job is NOT to speak the truth.
President's job is to cheerlead the US position in the world. President's job is to instill confidence even when shit looks bad.
"To spreak the truth"? Really? When the hell in history has ANY president told the truth? They tell the masses what they need to hear, and they greenlight a ton of shady shit behind the scenes. THAT is the presiden't job.
You're living in a fairy tale world when you say:
::)
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Romney again mixes messages about Obama and the economy
He says Obama has made the recession deeper but at the same time speaks of an 'anemic recovery.'
By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Amherst, N.H.— Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has struggled to craft a consistent economic message in recent weeks — first blaming President Obama for driving the country deeper into recession and then backing off that charge during a visit to Pennsylvania. On Monday in southern New Hampshire, he appeared to offer those conflicting messages within one sentence.
The former Massachusetts governor's remarks about the economy came at the end of a Fourth of July parade in Amherst, a heavily Republican town southwest of Manchester, during a pep talk with volunteers. He asked them to keep working for him all the way through New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary next year.
"Don't forget what this is all about," he told the group that crowded around him after he stepped onto a wooden replica of a soapbox in the town green. "We love this country; it's the greatest country in the history of the Earth, and we face extraordinary challenges right now. Our president has failed us.
"The recession is deeper because of our president; it's seen an anemic recovery because of our president. The people who want the status quo can vote for him, but people who want real change and jobs for Americans are going to vote for us."
Those statements — that the president had driven the economy deeper into recession but also that an "anemic" recovery had occurred — not only seemed to be contradictory, but also at odds with what Romney has previously argued.
In a June debate in New Hampshire, Romney said Obama "didn't create the recession, but he made it worse and longer."
Later, during a New Hampshire visit, he was quoted by NBC as saying the state's voters "want to see an economy that's growing again, and the president's failed. He did not cause this recession, but he made it worse."
But when asked to elaborate on those statements in a visit to a closed factory in Allentown, Pa., he backtracked: "I didn't say things are worse."
On Monday in Amherst, he combined both messages.
The differing statements address an issue that Romney and his backers see as the former businessman's strongest suit, both against his Republican primary opponents and, were he to win the nomination, against Obama in the general election.
They also pose a risk to Romney if they reinforce earlier criticism of him for shifting positions on issues like abortion rights, which he once supported.
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What exactly is Romney gonna do different than Obama?
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What exactly is Romney gonna do different than Obama?
No NLRB craziness
No EPA madness
No insane regulatory insanity
No trashing business 24/7
Doe romney suck? Yes, but for business compared to obama he wouldbe a major improvement. 4 more years of Obama = 4 more years or worsening debt, worse unemployment, worse economy, depression, and more commie bullshit.
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Romney's jobs record a little shaky
The contender for the Republican presidential nomination says he is the man to get Americans back to work. But during the years he was governor of Massachusetts, the state ranked among the last in the nation in job creation.
By Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times
Mitt Romney stood before a shuttered steel factory in Pennsylvania the other day, using the iconic backdrop to underscore what has become the most forceful theme of his presidential campaign: the need for more jobs.
"He has done everything wrong," Romney said of President Obama as a breeze tousled overgrown weeds around the locked main gate of Allentown Metal Works. Then, as the Republican has done time and again, he touted himself as the chief executive America needs to get the country back to work.
But Romney's tenure as a government CEO — the four years he served as governor of Massachusetts — may not buttress his claim to be the candidate who, as he put it recently, "has what it takes to create and grow jobs."
During the years he was governor, the state ranked among the last in the nation in job creation. The percentage increase in jobs — about 1% — was lower than in all but three states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In worse straits were Ohio, suffering the ongoing deterioration of its manufacturing infrastructure; Michigan, beset then by the decline of the auto industry; and Louisiana, devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Many factors contribute to the economics of any given state, and a governor can sometimes have only limited influence. But Romney's performance in the job represents his argument for election. He and his backers say he is responsible for demonstrable progress for the state, which faced a series of economic challenges, including a fiscal crisis that mushroomed shortly after Romney's election.
"I'm very pleased that Massachusetts had a lower unemployment rate than the nation for three of the four years I was governor," he told reporters last week, citing another way to measure a state's employment record. "The governor before me lost jobs; the governor after me has lost jobs; we actually created jobs."
Leading economists and business advocates in Massachusetts say Romney is correct — but only to a point.
"Romney's record of economic stewardship fell short of expectations," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed group that provides research on fiscal and economic matters. In remarks echoed by others, Widmer said Romney fell particularly short in his promise to recruit employers to the state.
The top finance advisor to two prior Republican governors said Romney was distracted by political ambition in the final years of his term.
"The real tragedy of Romney's governorship is that he did not utilize his full capacity as governor," said Stephen P. Crosby, who served in the Cabinet of two previous Republican governors and advised the transition of Romney's Democratic successor. Crosby, dean of the University of Massachusetts' McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, praised Romney's leadership and business acumen but said he never delivered on promises to lure jobs to the state.
"He took his eye off the ball," Crosby said.
Romney and his backers make the case that he instituted historic bureaucratic reforms, promoted business development and expanded jobs even though he inherited a dire situation from his Republican predecessor, Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift.
Romney came into office after the state's once-vital technology sector had cratered, reducing both jobs and state revenue. Between 2001 and December 2003, the end of Romney's first year in office, the state lost 205,100 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce, according to the Boston Globe.
His supporters, and even some of his detractors, credit Romney for handling a $2-billion-plus budget shortfall the year he came into office. They applaud efforts he led to streamline government, save money and find new revenue sources. And they applaud some systematic changes including elimination of hurdles in processing permits for new and expanding businesses. But even some of Romney's most loyal supporters frown when the subject of job creation comes up.
In December 2002, as Romney prepared for his swearing in, the unemployment rate was 5.6%. When he left office it was 4.7%. But a team at Boston's Northeastern University found that the unemployment rate was influenced by a steady out-migration of working-age adults during the Romney years.
Between July 2002 and July 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 222,000 more residents left Massachusetts than arrived in the state, one of the highest population losses in the country. The out-migration was a significant contributor to the state's declining unemployment rate, said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
Ranch C. Kimball, who became Romney's point man on jobs issues, described the governor as "determined to make businesses feel more comfortable in Massachusetts," instructing Kimball to meet with executives to find out what they needed to expand in the state.
Romney jumped in personally to keep several large employers in the state, he said. When Gillette Co. was purchased by Proctor & Gamble, there was concern that Gillette might leave the state. Romney met with leaders of both companies, and Gillette agreed to stay.
He and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy worked to prevent the closing of Hanscom Air Force Base and other facilities in the state when proposed base closings threatened more than 30,000 jobs in 2005.
One former military base, in Devens, Mass., became a magnet for an expansion by Bristol-Myers Squibb. It moved to the 89-acre site after reaching a deal with the governor and the Legislature granting the company a $34-million infrastructure bond.
Kimball said Romney's efforts paid off beyond such high-profile examples. The number of companies in the newly organized Massachusetts Business Resource Team, designed to encourage employer expansion, grew from 13 to 288 in three years, he said. Romney left office before the jobs were fully realized.
"I give him very high grades for budget leadership and for [bureaucratic] reform," said Jim Stergios, who worked in the Romney administration and now directs the Pioneer Institute, a free-market think tank in Boston. "But I give him lower grades for job creation and for changing the state's overall business climate, a problem that would take two consecutive gubernatorial terms to accomplish."
As he campaigns, Romney has claimed credit for Massachusetts' comparatively small jobs gains, while sometimes acknowledging that his tenure was less than perfect.
"There are lots of things that I would have liked to have been able to do in Massachusetts," he said during a news conference with reporters outside Lincoln Financial Group in Concord, N.H. "I'd like to make Massachusetts a right-to-work state. I'd like to lower the corporate tax rate. I'd like to lower taxes even further. I'd probably like to have the weather a little warmer, but that wasn't under my control."
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But Romney's tenure as a government CEO — the four years he served as governor of Massachusetts — may not buttress his claim to be the candidate who, as he put it recently, "has what it takes to create and grow jobs."
During the years he was governor, the state ranked among the last in the nation in job creation. The percentage increase in jobs — about 1% — was lower than in all but three states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We know that Mitt sucked at job creation as governor.
What about the private sector? Didn't he make a company very profitable by shipping jobs overseas.
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Romney= NWO puppet