Author Topic: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run  (Read 5102 times)

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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #50 on: May 10, 2011, 06:52:18 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #51 on: May 11, 2011, 07:55:23 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #52 on: May 12, 2011, 08:45:41 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #53 on: May 13, 2011, 02:36:15 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #54 on: May 14, 2011, 09:39:00 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #55 on: May 14, 2011, 09:53:00 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #56 on: May 14, 2011, 09:59:25 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #57 on: May 14, 2011, 11:06:42 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #58 on: May 14, 2011, 11:51:14 AM »
 :D

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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #59 on: May 26, 2011, 03:37:38 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #60 on: May 31, 2011, 02:20:46 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #61 on: May 31, 2011, 02:54:37 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #62 on: May 31, 2011, 03:02:33 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #63 on: May 31, 2011, 03:34:36 PM »
Its called bankruptcy - didnt they teach ou anything about it in your MBA course?

Word. 

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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #64 on: May 31, 2011, 03:45:22 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #65 on: May 31, 2011, 03:47:42 PM »
 ::)  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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #66 on: May 31, 2011, 05:24:48 PM »
::)  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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #67 on: May 31, 2011, 05:53:01 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #68 on: May 31, 2011, 06:53:47 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #69 on: May 31, 2011, 09:04:04 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #70 on: June 02, 2011, 04:35:52 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #71 on: June 02, 2011, 05:40:45 AM »
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.
I hate the State.

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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #72 on: June 02, 2011, 01:21:09 PM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #73 on: June 08, 2011, 09:52:29 AM »
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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Re: A whole new Romney for 2012 presidential run
« Reply #74 on: June 08, 2011, 09:55:30 AM »
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.