“Mitt Romney Is Still Mitt Romney”: Mitt Romney’s Problem Isn’t Obama—It’s Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney has a problem. And it isn’t his campaign strategy or strategists. It isn’t President Obama’s campaign strategy or strategists. Mitt Romney’s problem is Mitt Romney.
The current rash of polls clearly show that with more exposure, more time on the campaign trail, more time traveling abroad to “highlight” his foreign policy credentials, and the more he hides his tax returns, the worse Romney does with voters.
While President Barack Obama’s blackboard is pretty much completely written on, Romney’s blackboard is getting filled with information about the former Massachusetts governor that is hurting him, especially among independents. Sure, some of it is due to Obama ads and the national dialogue, but most of it is due to Romney himself.
This is all about who Mitt Romney really is; this is about his background, his judgment.
Both the new CNN and Fox polls show the public is beginning to get Romney’s number. Over the summer, his favorable rating dropped six points to 48 percent; his negative has risen five points. It is worse with independents, with favorable ratings dropping eight points. These numbers are according to Fox, which has Obama leading Romney by 49-40 percent.
CNN has Obama leading by 52-45 percent, with similar drops in Romney’s favorable and increases in his unfavorable ratings. With the crucial swing voters who identify themselves as independents, Romney has seen his unfavorable go from 40 percent to 52 percent.
The key question asked by CNN was whether or not Romney favors the rich over the middle class. Basically, two thirds of all Americans see Romney as a creature of the super wealthy who fights for the super wealthy. Now, 64 percent of all Americans believe Romney favors the rich over the middle class and 68 percent of independents have that belief. Even 67 percent of independents say he should release more tax returns.
Bottom line: Voters are not comfortable with who Mitt Romney is. They weren’t comfortable during the primaries and they aren’t comfortable now. The more they learn about Mitt Romney, the less they like him.
Do they believe he changes his positions on key issues on a dime to get elected? Sure. Do they believe he has a tin ear and can’t seem to get it right, as with his foreign travels or liking to “fire people?” Sure. Do they feel nervous about his time at Bain Capital, his foreign bank accounts, and shell corporations? Absolutely.
Fundamentally, this is personal. They know that Romney has worked the system to his advantage, paid little or no taxes, hidden his operations behind a phalanx of accountants and lawyers. He might even get away with being a “master of the universe” if he supported policies that helped the middle class. He might be able to convince voters that he cared about them if he denounced loopholes like Swiss bank accounts, Bermuda dummy corporations, even something as fundamental to his wealth as the carried interest deduction. “Yes, I took advantage of things that were legal, but I am going to close these loopholes when I am president.”
But Mitt Romney stays with his fundamental belief system—stays with policies that give even more tax breaks to the super wealthy and leave the middle class paying the bill. This may be his Bain background, it may be what he really believes, but it is not what the American people believe or need right now when they are hurting. This is back to the future economics and it shows a lack of sensitivity to middle class families.
After all the ads, after all the polls, after all the back and forth, Mitt Romney is still Mitt Romney. And that dog won’t hunt.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, August 10, 2012
“Romney Throws A Hail Mary Pass”: Mitt’s Final Capitulation To The Right Wing
In a move somewhat reminiscent of Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, Governor Mitt Romney has put up his own Hail Mary pass in the effort to turn around a presidential campaign in decline and in need of a new storyline.
Romney has found that fresh storyline by confounding the experts and choosing Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be the Republican nominee for Vice President —a choice that is causing both liberal and conservative pundits, along with partisans on both sides of the political divide, to awaken to a very happy Saturday morning.
Reports had been circulating for days that conservative groups were pushing hard for the Wisconsin Congressman to be added to the ticket, despite concerns that Ryan’s views on such key issues as Medicare could cause the GOP to hemorrhage voters in some important, swing states.
Certainly, states like Florida and Pennsylvania, with their large population of senior citizens, will now become more difficult for the GOP nominees.
For committed conservatives, Ryan represents the best expression of their beliefs, values and the direction in which they would like to see the country go.
The choice also reveals Governor Romney’s final capitulation to the right-wing of his party and erases any hope that the GOP presidential candidate will attempt to move towards the center in the final days of the campaign. It’s an ‘all-in’ bet on the part of the Romney campaign—an effort to re-define their top-of-the-ticket candidate by hitching to the star of a number two with credentials far better defined than the boss.
History shows that such an approach is a risky gambit, rarely resulting in capturing the ultimate prize.
While conservatives will widely applaud the selection, Democrats have also expressed glee over the possible nomination of Paul Ryan, believing that he would put a right-wing, extremist face on the GOP ticket—thereby handing the Obama campaign an opportunity to paint the GOP as dangerous to the American middle-class and the poor.
While Ryan’s selection is reminiscent of McCain’s decision to do something dramatic as he saw his own prospects dimming, Paul Ryan is, to be sure, no Sarah Palin. There is little chance that Katie Couric is going to trip up the knowledgeable and intellectual Ryan with questions about the Congressman’s reading habits as you will likely find no better informed candidate than Mr. Ryan when it comes to matters of domestic policy.
The controversy that will likely arise from Ryan’s literary choices will come not from whether he is sufficiently well read but rather the choices he makes in reading material.
Paul Ryan is a known—and until recently—an avowed devotee of author Ayn Rand, the Russian-American moral philosopher and confirmed atheist who viewed government compassion and assistance for the poor as evil and destructive. Indeed, Ms. Rand is considered by the Cato Institute as one of the founders of American Libertarianism.
Ryan’s devotion to Rand’s perspective on government has been expressed in the Congressman’s own political philosophy—a philosophy that has made him a hero with American conservatives and libertarians. His commitment to Rand’s ‘greed is good’ outlook on life played a starring role in Ryan’s “Road Map For America”—a budget that converts Medicare into a voucher system that would result in senior citizens taking on a much larger portion of their health care costs and takes a hatchet to the social safety-net system upon which our poorest citizens rely so that taxes for the wealthy can be cut on the way to Ryan’s promise of getting our financial affairs in order in the year 2035 (a generation away).
Speaking at an event honoring the author in 2005, Ryan said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” Ryan would also use that occasion to call Social Security a “collectivist system” that fails to allow the laborer in America to become a capitalist.
Adding spice to what is sure to be a liberal onslaught on the issue of Ryan’s philosophical underpinnings is the fact that, earlier this year, Ryan was forced to flip-flop on his commitment to the Rand view of what America should look like when the Catholic Church took issue with the impact Ryan’s budgetary plans would have on the poor.
This past April, despite Ryan’s long held practice of giving away Ayn Rand’s books as Christmas presents and strongly suggested that incoming staffers in his employ read “Atlas Shrugged” and despite his remarks in 2005, Ryan announced:
I reject her philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas, who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. Don’t give me Ayn Rand.
Governor Romney’s decision to put Ryan on the ticket reveals his campaign’s deep concern that the election may be slipping away. Polls this week show Romney losing ground to President Obama, placing his campaign in a position where they had to do something and do it quickly.
Not unlike the dynamic that ensued following the choice of Sarah Palin, the anointing of Paul Ryan likely means that that Governor Romney will be forced to take a step back in prominence as Congressman Ryan—a rock star in his party—steps up to take on the substantive issues that will now become the focus of the battle.
And we all know how that worked out.
By: Rick Ungar, Contributor, The Policy Page, Forbes, August 11, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 