For about a month, we've been covering an interesting trend that Mitt Romney's presidential campaign finds problematic: some of his key gubernatorial allies keep telling voters the economy is getting better.
Many of the nation's key swing states -- Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania -- are led by Republican governors, each of whom are eager to tell their constituents that the economy is looking up. Romney is urging voters in these states to feel depressed and pessimistic, while Romney's gubernatorial allies are urging the opposite.
Getty Images
As other media outlets have picked up on this, the tension between Romney and the governors has grown more intense, as we saw last week with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R). Bloomberg News reports today the problem is even more dramatic in the Sunshine State.
Mitt Romney's presidential campaign asked Florida Governor Rick Scott to tone down his statements heralding improvements in the state's economy because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee's message that the nation is suffering under President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state's jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to the people, who asked not to be named.
The meta angle is itself interesting -- Scott's office is annoyed enough with the Romney campaign that it's willing to leak word of Romney's untoward requests to the media.
But on a more practical level, the significance of a story like this is pretty extraordinary. Mitt Romney wants Americans to believe the economy is in worse shape than it really is, and he expects his allies to "tone down" good economic news in order to deliberately encourage pessimism.
The reality is, the unemployment rates in a majority of the 2012 battleground states are "lower than the national average as those economies improve." In Florida, the rate is still above the national average, but it's dropped for 11 consecutive months.
It creates a challenge for Romney, which he's stumbling to address: telling voters in these key states not to believe their lying eyes while convincing his gubernatorial allies to help him sell the con.
There's some evidence that Romney's scheme is unnecessary -- voters are swayed more by national economics than state economics -- but as Rick Scott's office makes clear, the Republican apparently isn't taking any chances.
Leave a Comment:
No problem, all Mitt needs to do is extol the virtues of no state income tax in Florida's renaissance.
What Florida lacks in an income tax it makes up for in sales and real estate taxes. Floridians aren't stupid. They know that over all Florida's state taxes while lower than some aren't any grand bargain.
Refugees from California and New Jersey would disagree.
Shooter: Florida hides its tax collection in the myriad fees and charges to real estate developers who, if you have been tracking facts, are not doing much lately. There are huge tracts of would be time shares and resorts that have stopped developing, interrupting the state's cash flow. States run on cash flow and not ideology. Florida is over except for the frost bitten Canadians.
Always nice to have everyone's favorite moron troll show up to demonstrate what someone ignorant enough to flunk the IQ test low enough to become a Republican looks like.
Go be guest of honor at a single-car fatality, Shooter. Beautify America.
Fees ....ah yes the hidden taxes on those who can least afford it . My favorite here was when they tripled the vehicle registration fees.
And don't get me started about subsidizing coastal dwellers insurance on their mansions.
well, we gotta help out those poor job creators....wait a minute....is this some form of Welfare?
Say it aint so!!!!......Where is my stick?
The sky is falling can't you see it? Where's Jeb when you need him?
Will the real republican party please stand up while you still can.
The Vulture Capitalist is Chicken Little.
"...and he expects his allies "tone down" good economic news in order to deliberately encourage pessimism."
Typical when you have nothing except bulls&^%$ to sell to convince the public that they should vote against their own economic interests, you have to enlist "your buddies" to continue spreading the lies!
Vote the GOP out everywhere in November!
This is the saddest bunch of politics that has ever been pushed from the Bowels of Government. Our children are watching and they are opting to tune-out off this mess.
What's happening right now isn't "politics", it's messaging - there is no thought, no plans for going forward, and definitely NOT leadership! Years from now, our grandchildren will look back at this time and call it "the disgraceful fall" - from common sense, reason, education, decency, morality - well you get my meaning...
I wonder if anyone in the "liberal" media has the courage to ask Mitt directly whether he or his campaign have asked Rick Scott or any other Republican politician to lie to their constituents about the improving nature of the economy?
Romney doesn't give a straight answer to anything anyone asks him anyway. So what is the point?
"...and he expects his allies "tone down" good economic news in order to deliberately encourage pessimism."
And that is Romney's whole campaign "strategy". That and avoiding any utterance of the word morman.
Apparently he expects his allies to throw their politcal future under his bus. Hilarious!
This is funny on so many levels as our festering pus filled scumbag of a governor ran his campaign on creating jobs.
700,000 jobs he said ...." Lets get to work " was his slogan .
So now any incremental increase in jobs....seee it's working.
not Exactly my dear felonious Governor.
Try 1/10th
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/politifact-florida-unemployment-rate-is-down-but-jobs-numbers-look-bad-for/1219909
Nobody likes Mitt Romney, but his allies just hate him. It's hard out there for a
pimpsociopath.The demand to control messages so that they conform 'here' to saying one thing and 'there' to saying the opposite is the very heart and soul of Romney's electoral strategy.
He thinks people are all located either 'here' or 'there' and that these two imaginary worlds have no congress with each other. The faith in compartmentalization must come from the corporate mentality...
Romney claims that the jobless rate would improve faster with him at the helm, but there is no proof that would be the case. Nor does he explain why it would have improved at a faster rate or what he would have done differently. In essence what he is saying is "trust me". Yah, when hell freezes over.
Well it's much more simple than that...All Dog Whistles alert to the Sheeple...."I plan to do the same financial thing as Obama...I just can't say it". We just need to stand together to get "That Other" out of the White House.....Our Founding Fathers never meant for those kind of folk to lead this Country. America....your dark underside is showing.....(if I didn't think it would absolutely destroy our Country...I'd love to see Romney fumble his way around as President. He'd make Bush look like a Prince among Men)
Remember where we were as a country back on January 20, 2009? The country was on edge as many were talking about the real possibility of another Great Depression. The aftermath of Katrina was still fresh in our thoughts. A decade of politics of fear and politically convenient terror warnings had left us shell-shocked with constant terror on our minds. We remained in the midst of two wars, both of which were overextended and extraordinarily mismanaged.
The previous administration had left office with the country shedding 750,000 jobs a month, a massive deficit, a policy of torture, the American auto industry about to collapse, millions of homes foreclosed, tens of millions without access to health care, a politicized Department of Justice, FEMA in shambles, energy companies running the Interior Department with bribes of sex and cocain, an overextended military, Bin Laden on the run, and our reputation and moral leadership diminished. In every conceivable way, the country was driven into a ditch.
Even with all of the problems and challenges we continue to face, the country is in a much better place today than it was a few years ago. The notion that we are worse off than we were four years ago is another Romney lie.
For his part, Voldemort is trying to save his own job. His people could care less about what Mittens wants
I can imagine the conversation...
Romney: Help me now and I'll help you later.
Scott: How will you help me?
Romney: Heh heh heh. We'll have to look at that at the appropriate time.
seriously people. who will vote for this man. please, think! we may not like everything that obama has done, but really?
...because Rmoney doesn't grow on trees..
What an empty shirt, cue the Solyndra speech again.
isn't it time to arrest these guys for treason?