Mitt Romney's failure to create jobs in Massachusetts during his one term is becoming an increasingly important point in the 2012 campaign, with the Republican campaign struggling to think of an excuse, and President Obama's re-election team eager to shine a spotlight on Romney's record.
Indeed, Obama's campaign released this new ad this morning, slamming the former governor's failures on what's supposed to be his top issue.
This is not, by the way, just some web video -- the ad will run in Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as part of a "significant" ad buy.
And what does Team Romney have to say in response? Well, it's a funny story, actually.
Romney has been running for president pretty much non-stop for six years. He and his aides have, in other words, had a very long time to come up with compelling explanations for all of the shortcomings in Romney's record.
With that in mind, Romney's staffers had to know that when they appeared on the Sunday shows yesterday, they'd hear questions about Massachusetts being 47th out of 50 states in job creation during Romney's tenure. And what was their explanation? Romney inherited a bad situation, and when he left, things were marginally better.
Seriously, that's their defense.
Eric Fehrnstrom told ABC, "Can I just say, on the jobs question, because this comes up repeatedly that Massachusetts was 47 out of 50 in terms of jobs growth. Actually, when Mitt Romney arrived, Massachusetts was an economic basket house." Kevin Madden, naturally, took the same line on "Meet the Press." On Fox News, Ed Gillespie went so far as to suggest the job losses in Romney's first year shouldn't be held against him.
This comes on the heels of Fehrnstrom arguing 10 days ago that Romney inherited a "recession" and an economy that was "losing thousands of jobs every month" in 2002, and a Romney campaign press release last week that argued, in all seriousness, "Governor Romney inherited an economy that was losing jobs each month and left office with an economy that was adding jobs each month."
David Axelrod's response seemed wholly appropriate given the circumstances: "They're kidding, right?"
Look, this isn't complicated. Romney is trying to create a standard for success that only he's allowed to use. After all, what's President Obama's defense on the economy? He inherited a disaster but helped turn things around. After one term, conditions weren't excellent, but they showed clear improvement after four years. An economy that was losing jobs was, finally, adding jobs.
And what's Romney's defense of his jobs record in Massachusetts? He inherited a mess but helped turn things around. After one term, conditions weren't excellent, but they showed clear improvement after four years. An economy that was losing jobs was, finally, adding jobs.
Can Romney have it both ways? If Romney's to be congratulated for inheriting an economy that was struggling but then turning things around a little, by that identical standard, he ought to be patting Obama on the back for a job well done. Indeed, the Romney campaign talking points practically sound like an Obama endorsement.
What's more, this isn't some tangential point in 2012 -- it's the central argument of the entire presidential campaign.
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Romney is setting a trap. He is parroting Obama's defense so that he can use the attacks on it against him. By attacking Romney you are attacking Obama.
I am always baffled at how Reactionaries(CONSERVATIVES),would willingly dip their
heads into the sand to pretend that,they can't see what con artists and frauds their "leaders" are.
How is it a trap to point at Romney's Ridiculous job record in MA?
In their defense to the mediocre record,they'll say "We inherited a recession" yet they ignore the depression Obama inherited,with an even better job record than Gov.Romney.
The day Reactionaries,will learn Public sector(the "Will"/"passion" to serve the society) experience is by far superior to any private sector(pursuit of personal wealth,and self gratification ),then i think,things will start to change for the better.
The question become... People who are in tune to these lies by the R-money campaign.... How will they respond? Are they going stand-by and accept the double standard lie? Are they going hold R-money and lies accountable?
They might have both inherited a recession, but the President did a better job, and within a national scale.
There goes that argument.
What's more is the policies Romney wants to put in place will make the recession/depression worse while Obama's will keep the economy recovering from these Romneyesque Bush tried policies. If Obama's plan is successful how can doing the opposite also be successful?
Stupid is as stupid talks!
Yesterday's 'talking points' were so transparent it was amazing they could say them with a straight face.
Not to me. Apart from their basic hypocritical self-righteousness, highly-authoritarian personalities (such as the average Republican nowadays) have a limited ability to hold two thoughts in their minds at a time. With that comes an inability to spot contradictions or conflicts between ideas, even when pointed out by others. So, judging from what I've read on the subject of right-wing psychology, I doubt that the Romney camp is even aware that their defense of Romney's economic record as governor undermines their criticism of Obama. Romney himself actually might be aware of that, but he's clearly something of a sociopath and so doesn't care (and can't care).
Has anyone noticed whether Mitt has shared an original idea with the American people? He is asking Americans to take, on faith, that he has any concrete plans to improve anything.
Most politicians do this. Remember the term "Hope and change"? Sounds good, but no "concrete plans" to go with it. I don't hold this against any politician since this is how they get elected. If the majority of the voting public were engaged and vastly more informed on the issues then catch phrases and pie in the sky promises would fall on deaf ears. But in our 30 second sound bite/reality TV/celebrity worship world a catchy phrase trumps mundane facts and figures and graphs and actual plans.
I think,it would be disingenuous to say Obama,didn't lay down any plan and talked to public what his [plans] were.
-He talked about Healthcare with "precision"
-He talked about "stimulus" plan with precision
- he talked about student loan reform with precision
ETC.ETC.ETC
Just Google Obama Plans. And then i challenge you to lay-down just three of the Romney's big ideas.
Now did follow through his plans as we have liked him to?Nope!
But to say he didn't lay down any plan is frankly ludicrous.And i am sure you'd call yourself informed.LOL
khayyam,
I do/did understand his "plans" and to be fair you can easily find Mitt Romney's "precise" (using your term) plans on a variety of topics just like candidate/now President Obama's. Now as nomoremagicalthinking says - that Romney has no original ideas (which may be true)- but he does have some kind of ideas and in my informed opinion :) his plans are just as "precise" as any other candidates in the past or future. But the cynic in me does not believe most candidate's promises since they usually do not pan out:
Now did follow through his plans as we have liked him to?Nope!
Any and all candidates promise the world. But they are mostly just promises. Again as I stated above, most people don't have the time and/or inclination for the details - a catchy slogan or a simple lawn sign is what sways them unfortunately. What I find truly amusing is when a candidate suddenly develops the local accent or cultural slang of the group they are in front of. My favorite was the southern drawl that Hillary Clinton had for a day or two while campaigning somewhere in the south back in 2008. It was laughable, but it probably worked. :)
He did follow through in most cases. Many of us are not satisfied in the manner or timing of the follow through--or with the results of the politics involved.
Just wanted that to be a bit clearer.
Romney's three "big ideas":
-Eliminate corporate taxes
-Eliminate Medicare
-Make poor people pay income taxes
And, voila, deficit eliminated!
skip hoffman
I think you're correct in your reasoning,all i wanted from you was to lay down some of his ideas,just for the of debate.
If i said 'Nope' to the question "Now did he follow through his plans as we have liked him to?"
I was just echoing what his adversaries would say.
It is true that All Candidates do say a lot stuff and then don't follow through completely.
I think,it's up to the electorate to educate itself so as to decipher the sensible practicability to the nonsensical practicability
"They're kidding, right?"
Of course they're not kidding. Romney & the GOP are attempting to suggest that both he and the President inherited a mess, so I'll give them that that statement is "partly true". THE salient point is that Mittens was Governor of a STATE, not a nation in economic free-fall, that was hemorrhaging jobs, 2 wars (along with those numerous skirmishes), an imploding housing crisis, along with an obstinate legislature. My question to Romney is, if you're saying that this President deserves an "F" after all that's been left on his plate that he's cleaning up - then what grade do you think you deserved as Governor of A STATE that had far less issues than what this President inherited, and why do you think that you should be rewarded by becoming the President because your "private sector" experience surely didn't help you in running Massachusetts?
Good one! Also, did Romney have half of his state government taken over by The Borg who said No to everything he asked for?
Who knew that Star Trek show was based on reality? I can't recall - who played Grover Norquist on that show?.....
Grover is played by "the Farengi". Cheap, cheats, and greedy..... :>)
Zora
You forgot lame. Norquist like the Ferengi are lame a@@ douche bags.
The Borg? No, you have to invoke the Daleks to explain today's Republican Party.
and how many times has Mutt said what's "good for the goose is good for the gander"? Of course he was useing it making false equivalencies...
Actually he said "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," which makes his statement just that much more idiotic.
sauce me once,, shame on you,, sauce me twice,,,, errr,,,
Mitt was so proud of his accomplishments in Mass. that he did not even try to run for a second term. Why, did he choose not to finish the 'great' work he had begun while governor? Perhaps it did not fit into his time line. Hmmm, governor, then president, that's the ticket.
Despite Romneys's many ironies , contractions and outright lies I feel the reality based community has missed an important point. The voters that Romney is counting on are thus far unmoved or untroubled by this candidate's assertions. They simply want to show President Obama the door, for no other reasons than contempt and prejudice. Therefore , Romneys's inconsistencies are merely a sound byte they simply compartmentalize away into the nether regions of their consciousness. With the enormous arsenal of money being thrown into the campaign. It is likely they assume the voters will accept or mistake the great din being created as the truth. Perhaps this is a variation of the Karl Rove strategy. Anecdotally speaking , my experience is that those supporting the left are the most informed persons politically. Maybe Romneys's people think those whom care enough to be informed can be made to look like the one's who are the crackpots, thus serving as some twisted conduit to validate the ignorance of his supporters.
I think you have hit on a very important point in this upcoming election. Facts don't matter, Romney's record or proposals don't matter, Obama's accomplishments don't matter. All that matters to a large number of people in this country is that things feel bad and they want someone different in the White House because they think that when things feel bad any change is good. While a large number of people who feel this way are drinking the Faux "News" Kool-Aid, many others are just too ignorant to bother trying to understand the underlying issues or mechanisms to deal with the issues. Unfortunately there is a real difference in the policies proposed by Romney and those the President has been trying to enact (although most have been blocked by the republican house or Senate filibusters). These people don't care that Romney would raise taxes on everybody to enable him to cut taxes for the wealthy in a move that would further increase the deficit and force the cutting back on or elimination of critical safety net programs.
Mitt Romney's vision for America: cut taxes for the rich, deregulate everything, bust up unions, and then *A MIRACLE HAPPENS" and jobs start being created
Obviously Romney can't have it both ways--give a defense for his own performance that he doesn't allow for Obama--but think the key point is that both defenses are kinda sorta valid, and both attacks on job creation performance--Romney's on Obama and Obama's on Romney--are largely invalid, but the difference to stress is that Obama faced a much much worse situation than Romney--2008/2009 makes the downturn of 2001 look like peanuts; that GOP in Congress was much more destructive than cooperative Dems in Massachusetts, and so Obama has done much better with a much worse situation.
Only to the extent that they are truthy!
"... an economic basket house."
So was Massachusetts selling baskets, or making baskets, or what? And was the basket industry in recession? More on this basket story, please.
"And what's Romney's defense of his jobs record in Massachusetts? He inherited a mess but helped turn things around. After one term, conditions weren't excellent, but they showed clear improvement after four years. An economy that was losing jobs was, finally, adding jobs."
But Willard didn't have a congress that was actually working against him , who are actually hoping the economy will fail . He didn't have someone who's first objective ahead of improving the economy was to remove him from office. He didn't have a bunch of idiots passing social legislation instead of job legislation.
You can bite me with your false equivalency Willard.
I still believe Obama is in a tight spot on the economy. He hasn't been able to implement many of his policies because of the No-No-No party. That's Congress's fault. Or is it Obama's fault for not wooing them or negotiating better? I blame him for not seeing this coming, a little. I blame the Conservative movement and Norquist. Did people not know what Norquist was up to?
It's really true that Obama can blame Congress, but that's not a great talking point.
We need to convince the general public that cutting taxes and making CEOs and investment managers richer does not grow the economy. Individuals do not hire people, companies do. A multi-millionaire with a tax cut is not going to hire more people.
I think Rachel's got a good line when she says that we tried cutting taxes and regulations under Bush, and look what it got us. Let's finish that thought and equate Romney with the Bush presidency.
Someone working for OFA and the DNC ought to go back into the archives of successful Republican Presidential candidates' ads and look for those who either blamed Congress or their predecessors for the "mess" they faced. Then ask, if it was true during their time, why doesn't it apply now to this president when he says "If..." Of course, we need the President and others to talk about what the economy might look like today AND what the President wants to accomplish in the next four years.
It may be fair for Romney and his staff to make the argument that they inherited a bad situation in MA and turned it around to some degree, but when you consider that the entire US was in that same recession with MA, and Romney's job creation ranked 47th of 50, the point becomes (or at least should become) clear that Romney's level of success (and therefore his ability) was not on par with most other governors during that time.
So Obama's "turnaround," on a national basis, is arguably more of an accomplishment than Romney's "turnaround" at the state level.
Benen,
did you note that Senator Turtle from Kentucky just straight up LIED yesterday, saying that Willard went from 50 to 47. The newsperson did correct him THREE TIMES that he went from 36 - 47th, but he kept on saying Willard went from 50-47
One little difference that I don't think has been mentioned (NB chrisjl)? Romney managed to turn a "basket house" (?) into marginal growth in the middle of a huge, national economic boom. Obama's doing it in the middle of a global bust. It's the difference between being tossed into a desert and just managing to not starve and being tossed into a grocery store and just managing to not starve.
Brilliant post. thx!