When Mitt Romney launched an attack ad about President Obama and Israel, the commercial included a curious four-word phrase at the very beginning: "Who Shares Your Values?"
The ad was followed a day later by Romney's breathtakingly dishonest ad about welfare, which also obviously intended to emphasize values.
This morning, the Romney campaign unveiled another false attack ad, and it too begins with the four-word phrase: "Who Shares Your Values?"
This spot harkens back to the Republican primaries, when GOP candidates pretended to be all worked up about contraception access, and levies the ridiculous charge that Obama is waging a "war on religion."
As a matter of policy, making birth control available as preventive health care is not a "war" on anything. As a matter of hypocrisy, it'd be awfully nice if the Romney campaign can explain why contraception access in Obamacare is outrageous, but contraception access in Romneycare is not.
But the first thing I noticed after watching this ridiculous attack ad is what it didn't mention: jobs and the economy. What we're seeing this week appears to be a rather deliberate shift -- for a year, Romney proudly boasted he was focused exclusively on economic issues, and wouldn't allow himself to be thrown off-message by various "distractions." Other candidates and politicians could chase the political story of the day, but all Mitt Romney cared about, he said, was getting people back to work and strengthening the recovery.
But he's not saying that anymore. Now Romney wants to know which candidate shares your values. As job growth improves the recovery slowly gets stronger, the Republican suddenly believes trips to Israel, welfare, and contraception access are what really deserve attention.
I'm not privy to the internal debates at Romney HQ, but my suspicion is that Republicans believe the candidates' credibility on the economy has been severely damaged by coverage of Bain Capital and Romney's plan to raise taxes on the middle class, and questions about his secret tax returns just aren't going away quickly enough.
So Romney has apparently felt the need to pivot away from the nation's top issue -- the issue the Republican felt he'd ride directly into the Oval Office -- and towards a culture war. It's a startling development that was very hard to predict.
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When has Mitt Romney stated what his values are, he states what Obama’s aren’t. We have inferences about Mitt Romney’s values and no, 99% of the fabulously unwealthy will never have the means to share them.
Romney's values are in his tax returns, and he's not disclosing them.
Romney's "values" are "Me first!"
Romney's values are not "me first" but "ONLY me"
No one knows Mitt's real values (thanks, DC Sessions) but what may be more important is that this might bite him in the ass with those everyone courts the most, the true indies. Those who want religious values to permeate government are already on Mitt's side, if only as Obama-haters. Folks who are still indies aren't theocrats, and may recoil at the images and the (not so) hidden messages in this ad (see below). Catholic indies might find this particularly repugnant.
What are your values...
Hugely rich Mormon?
uh.... no. (does he really want to go there?)
You read my mind AlbertCat, talk about a slippery slope. I don't think Obama would ever go there but many others would. I keep hearing that Romney is really very smart. I've wondered about that for a long time.
Romney's values are whatever he thinks they need to be at a particular moment to please the audience he is talking to. But at least he's very firm in his belief in saying whatever he thinks people want to hear. He is totally committed to that.
Romney using Pope John Paul II in a campaign ad? That gives me a cringe index of 10.
Well, you know, Pope = Mormonism = Israel = Catholicism = Christianity, all one big God-worshipping family and Mitt, in one ad or anther, represents them all.
Willard will represent them all after he makes sure they are all baptised Mormon. Especially all those previous Popes.
For these campaign ads, does a candidate not have to get "image" clearance from the individual? If not, that definitely needs to be changed. So far he as used both Clintons against Obama and now the POPE!! Are we to assume the Roman Catholic Church wants a morom in office? I'm thinking that is not the case and I hope the Catholic Church asks him to remove the image!
= Romneyocracy
The hidden messages are not really that well hidden:
>I praised the power of a charismatic Pope's words, so I stand for religion, while Obama is against religion. (Thus his war on religion).
>I'm virtuous because I invoke religion in my ads. (Between Bain, taxes, constant self repudiation and outright lying, he needs to assert his virtuousness.)
>Mormonism and Catholcism are all the same Christianities, so don't be wary of me because I'm mormon. (There are apparently some on the right who view Mormonism as a cult, or as not genuinely Christian.)
Pope John Paul is dead, and the Clintons are public figures (all by their own intentional efforts) so I don't think they can be forced to remove the ads. But both Clintos are alive and very articulate.
Second person possessive without an antecedent is the confused message Romney wishes to make.
Seems the Southern Strategy is alive and ugly as hell in the Romney camp as of last week! -Kevo
Hmmmm ... my values? Like these?
Un-American, I know. But then I'm a sharecropper's grandson.
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."
-Groucho Marx
"If you think this country's bad off now, just wait 'til I get through with it."
-Groucho as Rufus T. Firefly, President of Freedonia
Words that fit Romney just as well. Unfortunately, he's serious, while Groucho was doing comedy.
Don't forget "Whatever it is, I'm against it." Although in Romney's case it's "Whatever it is, I'm both for and against it."
OK, now I have to get out my DVD of Duck Soup again...
And Horse Feathers. That's where Stephen's quote comes from.
Not everyone can use lack of personality as birth control like Mitt can!
Apparently Romney has been advised the economy is going to strengthen over the next few months despite Mitch McConnell and John Boehner's best efforts. That is the only reason he is shifting gears.
Romney had better hope that this election doesn't hinge on the "which candidate shares your values" theme. If it does, he's toast. Mitt would get about 1% of the vote. Or 1/10 of 1%.
Wait until the Mormon card has been thoroughly played by an "outside" group.
Then see who "Shares" Mittington's "Values"...
My wife already wants to vote for Pres. Obama because Mitt's a Mormon..
Romney has lost the election if he is making birth control a central focus of his campaign. It's over. Republicans are going to kill their chances with independents and moderate voters by simply going along for the ride on the Tea Party's extreme agenda in Congress. Access to birth control and insurance coverage for women's health are not controversial issues. There is no "debate" over contraception among ordinary Americans. they simply support it and are disgusted by the GOP's efforts to legislate a culture war on the country. There will be a mounting backlash among moderate Republicans against the extreme right-wing ideology that has vaulted birth control to the top of the GOP's agenda. Principled Progressive
There is a disturbing trend happening in the U.S. where extreme narrative of magnifying something to the most "warlike" comparison.
That is noticeable even in the Olympics. U.S. team against U.S. team commentator says Walsh-May team wants to CRUSH team Kessy-Ross. I am sure each team really, really, really wanted to win and played to WIN. But CRUSH them, no.
Rmoney and Republicans wants to win and if it takes CRUSHING fellow Americans. This is evident when people want to believe lies about Obama.
I am well aware that people have their leanings and I openly admit that I view things a certain way. But when someone wants keep certain people FROM VOTING in order to win, I draw the line.
When someone wants to twist things up and broadcast a certain slant and media is compliant, for profit and selling either newspapers, ads or political agenda has become priority over reporting the news. The political agenda benefits them. They are forgetting about the consumers, their customers. The customers drive their business. Employees are so very important to success of business.
But we are once again being misdirected from what is important. Magic tricks are illusions, misdirection and concealment causes audience to believe in magic. Rmoney and Republicans selling magic and people buy it?
Values vary over the country, it's true. But there is no Constitutional power to legislate this, but there IS Constitutional power to regulate commerce and government has a role right now to promote a more domestically friendly economical policies. But there is pandering to religious right, but we are not supposed to insert religion into our laws. So, they avoid and obstruct what government is empowered to do to promote what it is not empowered to do.
The worst of it is the chipping away at democracy with suppression of voting and appointing unelected "emergency managers".
And of course the morons of the white male working class have been screwing themselves for the past 40 years, voting their "values" instead of their interests.
This ad is proof Rawmoney is still worried about whether he has the "values voters" of Duh Base (which in Arabic is "al qaeda") supporting him. He's never going to be able to pivot away from them, and when the poison in his tax returns finally oozes out, even these idiots will drop him like a hot potato.
What values does this man have? He says yes to everyone, as one poster said, he is Mormon and they are against gambling but he takes Adelson's money and promises him what in return?
There is an article posted on The Daily Beast Aug 7, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
"Exclusive: Brigham Young's Great-Great-Granddaughter on Mormonism and Mitt Romney"
The article gives some possible insight into Mitt Romney and his ability to lie so easily, because the Mormon Church seems to encourage that if you can achieve your goal. In the article Ms. Emmitt talks about his change from pro-life to pro-choice and the implication is he got permission from the Mormon Church to change so he could get elected as Governor of Massachusetts. Ms. Emmitt the Great-Great Granddaughter of Bringum Young stated "As for what pundits say is Romney's difficulty connecting
with people, Emmett blames it largely on what she calls "the entitled Mormon male
syndrome, where the leadership professes compassion and concern but leaves the
manifestations of that to the drones."
Ms. Emmett talks about a White Horse Prophecy which Evangelicals might be interested in learning more about.
The article also talks about Ken Clark, who worked as a teacher for the LDS Church Education System (CES) for 27 years and also served as a bishop before leaving the church in 2003, tells The Daily Beast, "Lying has become an institutionalized method of administrative control with the church." "Every Mormon grows up with the idea that it's OK to lie if it's for a higher cause,"
No character - no intergrity that is Mitt Romney
"Who Shares Your Values?"
With all due respect, Mitt Romney, if you believe that corporations are people, then YOU clearly have no values.
I don't think creating a bogus "war on religion" is the best idea for Romney at this point. That only invites focus on his Mormonism, which is viewed with suspicion by many of the other Christian denominations. This can't, ultimately, be a winning strategy.
The GOP appears to be getting pretty desperate here.
Desperate… yes, because Latino/Hispanic people are not so much with Rmoney, they think values and using the Pope/contraception/ FALSE "war on religion" will sway Latino/Hispanic voters.
The Rmoney folks believe a lie that values are being against the Democrats who they PAINT godless. Democrats are just as devout as they are and no, they are far from morally superior.
The nuns on the bus are a prime example. The nuns were told not to use "those" values and instead push these. Well, having a true heart, they cannot abandon the very basic values of helping needy, poor, hungry, sick in order to go for the Republican values of "lazy people" that want to stay on welfare forever. Well, the jobs aren't there and they want to cut MORE jobs so the rich won't to pay more in taxes.
This is pretty disgusting to watch and yes, looks desperate and sounds like we are entitled because we say we are morally superior, when that is a lie.
Mormonism may be viewed with suspicion, viewed as cult-like in non-election years, but the religious right would rather vote for a semi-cultish Republican than a Christian Democrat, proving beyond a doubt that all the right's "values" are expendable except for that R on one's voter card.
I wasn't speaking just of the religious right, though. They're not going to vote for anyone other than the Republican candidate, no matter who it is. There are many Christians who aren't evangelicals. Some of us are even *gasp* liberals.
Back during George W. Bush's presidency, NPR put out a story on hard right Republicans who continued to back Bush, despite misgivings about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story said that because of their hard core, conservative beliefs, these voters supported Bush even if they knew his policies went against their economic interests. They even actively prayed for Bush even if they didn't believe in him.
The main thing for these voters was values.
To some extent, we all want to believe that our values mean more than money. It's too bad though, that you can't do a parody of the ad and say "Who shares your values? Like lying..."
This election had me worried up until this week.
I'm still worried. Things really seem to be heading in Obama's direction, but I think the voter ID/voter suppression laws are going to be the real deciding factor in this election.
Don't forget the lovely trick of redistricting and electronic voting machines with no impartial 3rd party verification in key states.
And if the election counts are too close, the Supreme Court justices will vote a second time - once as a citizen, then again as a government entity to decide the race.
He wants to focus on jobs and the economy? He has not said anything about how he plans to do it..are we supposed to wait with bated breath? Or be so enthralled with him like teenagers waiting for the rock star to come out? Please..give me a break!!
Watching this campaign has been like watching Bobby Fischer play chess with Daffy Duck. And Mittens is decidedly NOT Bobby Fischer!
This "culture war" crap was inevitable. Religious conservatives in Romney's base, including tea-baggers, have been itching for a fight on these issues since Pat Buchanan ran for President.
Republicans really don't have anything on the economy. Their claim that lower taxes for the "job creators" will spur the economy and stimulate job growth is demonstrably false. They have no credible plan to reduce the deficit. They have no credible plan to improve the healthcare situation - and the only plan that might have been credible has been stolen from them. They have no credible plan on the environment. They have no credible plan on infrastructure. They have no real plan on energy independence. And Romney's tenure at Bain Capital and the Olympics was never going to resonate after the Perry/Gingrich attacks.
What, indeed does he have left?
The base will love it. Women (and men who stand with them) will not.
I have watched this commercial 4 times, each time trying to make out what Mitt's point is. First he states that the President is waging war on Religion, lost me there. Then Mitt staking hands with a leader that is no longer in power, makes that no better than shaking hands with someone you meet on the streets. I do not understand what this all has to do with ................well , anything.
I'm Mitt Rmoney and I want to keep my money, I will use religion/God as a wedge or whatever it takes to do just that.
I will continue to post my predictions for November on as many sites as I read:
Obama will win every state except Alaska.
For Romney going all fake culture war on Obama is merely icing on the electoral cake.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree... Mitt will, unfortunately, win Idaho and Utah. People here are voting for him just because He's Mormon.... sad but true.
There is just too much hate & bigotry out there, especially by the people using their so called religion as the reason. If Obama did do very well it just might make some of them able to rethink all the nonsense they've been fed.
Mitt will get at least 175 electoral votes. Mickey Mouse or Daffy Duck would win enough states to get at least 150, as long as they ran with an "R" after their name. The stupid runs deep in the red states.
There's a reason why the states that always vote Republican are at or near the bottom of the educational achievement rankings.
Everyone needs to stop mispelling ROMNEY...It's RMONEY and he wants it all!
Why does Mr. Romney keep using Senator McCain to support his decision not to release his tax returns? Someone in the Romney campaign should remind Mr. Romney that McCain/Palin was a dismal failure. The first rule of success is to only associate with successful people, not losers.
I find it interesting that the tea baggers and the extreme far right- will always turn back to "values" when they see they are on the losing side of an issue. They talk as if they are the only ones who have them- that if you are not a republican or a tea bagger, then you are either Godless, have no morals, or no values what so ever. Only a closed mind and a small heart believes that- all people can have a sense of values, morals, and whom ever or what ever they may believe as God. Republicans do not have a lock on morals, do not have a secret way to values, and sadly, believe if you do not worship the way they do, then everyone but them is Godless. Funny- didn't Jesus tell the elders of the temple that the poor and downtrodden would get into heaven before they did?
The far right republicans and the tea baggers should remember that the world is a vast place- God in His wisdom put people of many cultures, faiths, languages, values, and morals on this planet. It is up to all of us to live up to His example. And in the states, well, I would suggest that the republicans remember that this is the country of E Pluribus Unum- Out of many, One. The republicans have not learned that lesson, yet.
The values ad is just like Mitt, fluid and undefined. The word "values" is a registered trademark of the GOP platform, I heard. They don't want the left using it.
That's fine. Who needs their bottom feeding fake values?
When explaining why he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act Republican senator Barry
Goldwater of Arizona remarked, "You can't legislate morality." But that is exactly what Republicans feel they can do, is legislate morality and religion. Why are religious entities still entitled to being tax exempt since they are dictating our policies now. The Catholic Church and the Mormon Church would not like to pay taxes on that income!!!!
More importantly the Affordable Care Act only impacts those Religious entities that hire individuals of all denominations such as a Hospital, College, Retail Store etc.