For months, Mitt Romney has said repeatedly that Americans should vote for him because of his business record. In a startling turn of events, he told Chuck Todd he'd like his past to be excluded from the race altogether.
"[O]ur campaign would be helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon business or family or taxes or things of that nature, this is just a diversion," Romney said. He added, "I would love to have a setting where we only talk about issues."
He added, in reference to his attacks against President Obama, "We haven't gone after the personal things." That's not true.
Regardless, this is quite an unexpected turn. Romney, very quickly, has gone from "Vote for me because of my business background" to "My business background is just a diversion."
What was once presented as Romney's central qualification for the presidency is now an issue he wants off the table, free from all scrutiny. This is clearly evidence of a campaign unfolding in a direction the challenger isn't happy with -- confident candidates in a position of strength don't make "please stop hitting me" pleas through the media.
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Please oh please just leave me alone! Trust me, I know what to do as President! Yea, I'll bite...ROTFL....
LOL,Is Romney kidding?This guy is a charlan.
Romney wants to talk about issues,oh really?let's see
-He says he wants to fix our bizarre tax code,filled with tons of loop holes.
When we ask,him to show us his tax returns so we take a look whether he's taken advantage of those loop holes---just to make sure we can trust him to deliver to his promise,he says no--and rightly so,how can he close stuffs that him and his friends have benefited from.
-Romney says he knows how to fix the economy,that President Obama can't because he doesn't have a business background.Then we ask Romney to tell us how he will do differently.
Romney's answer:Cut taxes for the wealthy and jobs jobs,will flood America.
Ask how's that different from the crap that we've been hearing for 30+ years now from the conservative side,he throw's a fit.
One would hope that,somebody like Romney,who's considered by the lame stream media to be smart would bring some new ideas to the table.
-Romney says, he has a tax/Economy plan for the country.When the TPC offered a friendly analysis to his supposed plan,We realise that it is devasting for more than 95% of American families and for the Economy.Instead of Countering that analysis with his own,He cries fault and insult non-partisan experts as liberals and liars.
-The world faces a climate change problem.
His opponent is offering subsidies for "clean energy" development,Romney says it's a bad idea and can't say why.But he's for subsidies for big oil.
-Romney says he's a successful business man hence uniquely qualified to be POTUS, when we say OK--lets take a look his business career he cries fault.
So,What issue does this guy want to talk about ,that he wouldn't throw a fit and lie?
We want to see your Taxes Willard...
We gave Obama a try for 4 yrs. unfortunately it didn't workout. Now it's time to try Mitt Romney, if he fails like Obama did on his first term we'll boot him out....... It's just that simple.
That is one opinion.
Does this surprise anyone. Romney flip flopping yet again.
Cmon Twit, we weren't born yesterday.
Cindy: It didn't work out? How well off do you think we'd be if trickle-down policies had thrown us into a depression. That's the real question. Saying that Mitt deserves a chance (an entitlement?) because everything isn't fine now misses the point, at best (or is intentionally misleading, at worst). "If he fails like Obama did" not only assumes something that isn't true, but ignores (or conceals) the fact that Mitt's failure will leave most Americans much worse off than they (we) are now, and at the hands of the moneybags that bought Mitt's election.
Is this dude joking? I mean, is he "taking the piss" as our cousins in the UK might say? What the hell is wrong with Mitt? Seriously, what could possibly be going on in his head that he thinks this read as anything other than weak. It is literally and I do mean literally pathetic do see what ought to be a serious candidate for any office, let alone President, behave this way. If he weren't such a unbelievable fraud, I might actually be tempted to express some sympathy for this buffoon.
I believe- after spending time in the UK, and talking about 'special relationships',- he has taken primogeniture as his position on the American Presidency!
primogeniture: the feudal rule by which the whole real estate of an intestate passed to the eldest son.
That, or he embraces the Divine Right of Kings!
Both. "Me first!"
What Romney wants is for all subjects to be off limits to Obama and the Democrats, while EVERYTHING is on the table for the Republicans.
What worries me is that the dopey, compliant, kiss-up-to-conservatives MSM might just be dumb enough to accommodate him.
Basically, Romney is trying to have it that it's unseemly for Obama to be campaigning for re-election at all.
Look, this is deeply silly. I, and most other commenters here, have a lot of carefully constructed views on the issues of the day, and many of us would likely find those issues pretty popular if we could put them to a test with the voters in the abstract.
That doesn't mean millions of us are all qualified to be President in a few months.
As an executive promoting, overseeing, implementing, appointing in service of, fighting political battles for those issues, a lot of other skills and experiences are critically important. Romney has only two plausible arguments on that score: his experience as Governor or his business experience.
He has now thrown in the towel on both -- he doesn't want either one considered.
So if we don't consider either of those, how exactly is he even qualified to be a major party candidate for President? Absent those two things he doesn't want looked at, he is a slightly more elequent Sarah Palin without the potentially history-making fact of being a woman and with a half-term less executive experience.
This line of argument on his part seems completely disqualifying.
That Palin comparison is so astute! Although everyone claims Romney is 'smart' I've never really thought that was the case.
blackan anticolonialistaffirmative actionspecial treatment to get into HarvardBesides that, his we're-not-going-to-talk-about-that experience has made him:
And finally:
"it's his turn"
--Ann
I wonder if Sarah Palin is acting as an advisor to Romney... "if you don't like the question, evade... if they continue asking, blame them for being bullies." Worked for her... oh... yeah, it didn't work for her either!
btw -- isn't being anti-colonialist kinda how come there is an AMERICA ???
this particular pos attack has aggravated me since d'souza and gingrich started spitting it out
This isn't looking too promising. For awhile now, I have been a little worried that Mitt might crater before the convention. I don't know anything about the nominating process, but I have worried that he might create an opening for a more formidable candidate.
Romney needs a vacation. The stress has cracked him. I wonder what was the straw hat broke the camel's back. It must have been a combination of the Son of Boss ad and Harry Reid's persistent charges. He knows the jig is up.
Mitt wants the President to forget about what happened in the past, just like an athlete who has rumors of steroids in his past. They never want to rehash old rumors either.
Mittwit wants everyone to forget everything the way a serial abuser wants everyone to forget. Hey, that's standard Republican practice!
Mitt the Twit is having a bad month. He proved himself not ready for prime time abroad. He can't release his taxes because he didn't pay any. He can't talk about his time as Governor because Repukicons hate his record. He can't push his religion and his "special mormon underware" because the rightwing thinks he's in a cult. Polls show he is losing independents rapidly. His base doesn't like him either, they just hate President Obama more.
So what is the Liquidator to do in August? Use the welfare queen again to pull his base back to him. Yet, many of those who would vote for him are on foodstamps and unemployment because Repuks in the House & Senate won't help create jobs because they only know how to destroy jobs.
The GOP is in complete meltdown. The TEA flakes are eating them from the inside so their moderates are quitting. The far right is so extreme no one in their right mind can support them. Rove can't make a commercial that isn't immediately refuted as a total lie. The Koch Bros are becoming a household name and they are not liked at all on either side.
As a Democrat - I love it. Keep the pressure cooker on and let's watch them melt. Just don't get so comfortable that you stop donating and getting involved. Help those who need help getting proper Voter ID's.
Line up your family and friends for Election Day. Plan a day of vacation and make it a day of voting because Repuks are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. Afterwards throw a party and watch the returns. It's going to be close because Repuks are planning a whole lot of fraud.
All along, FUBARRomney has seemed bewildered as to why the presidency isn't just handed to him after a ritualistic bit of campaign theater. He is ready now. He's been ready, (in his own mind), for awhile, and it's time for folks to step aside after the symbolic bit of theater and let him have it.
The last week has seen a flurry of media attention focused on the bogus "historian", David Barton. Barton and FUBARRomney strike me as being very similar. They are true believers in their own sets of facts. They throw up a chafe of pseudo history, which falls apart as soon as it's scrutinized even lightly. They are both legends in their own minds but strangely shallow and very untrustworthy to the rest of the world. They both want to be acknowledged as the substantial and accomplished figures they see themselves as, but they are frauds.
FUBARRomney's plea for his detractors to grant him a free space to operate in is bizarre. He would see criticizing Obama as addressing issues and any attention paid to his qualifications and past actions as out of bounds. And he would believe that dynamic to be legitimate. Cognitive dissonance they name is Mitt. He's a strange, wires crossed kind of guy.
He is calling for Marquess of Queensberry Rules for a political campaign.
All the while sticking a horseshoe in his glove, metaphorically speaking, or after he's spent the past round punching below the belt and gouging eyes.
The Daily Beast had this article Aug 7, 2012: Brigham Young’s Great-Great-Granddaughter on Mormonism and Mitt Romney. In this article Ms. Emmett makes the following statement:
Obama's already using Marquess of Queensberry Rules. The problem is that the reason one wears boxing gloves is to keep from breaking one's hands on the other guy's face. Getting hit in the face by a gloved hand is still getting hit in the face.
No, Romney doesn't want Marquess of Queensbury Rules. He wants Cranbook School Rules. You know, the rules that say he gets to assemble a mob to hold down someone he doesn't like while he commits assault and battery against his hopeless adversary and then suffers no consequences for doing so.
That's how its been his whole life. Now he's in a fair fight for the first time in his whole life and it's just not fair, not cricket, totally improper, dontcha see.
Like all bullies, he turns into a WLB when someone fights back. But hey, it'll be fine if he wins because the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Iranians totally respect WLB's who ask for truces when they start losing.
@ Steve
What do you mean by WLB? I googled it and found nothing that fits.
I'd say it means Whining Loser Baby, except I'd hate to insult babies by the comparison.
When a bully finds himself "bullied" we see his true nature.
And he is a pussy.
He's always beebn daddy's little boy, not to be touched. Now he gets a bloody nose every time he goes outdoors, and he comes running back "they hitted me!" Poor little boob.
Romney vs. Obama has turned into Roberto Duran vs. Sugar Ray Leonard. It is another "No Mas" fight.
Joyce
That's exactly what I was thinking. No Mas!
Zeta511 . . . My cats are highly offended at the comparison. Felines are good people readers, and no self-respecting cat would have anything to do with him.
mpguy,
As the proud human of a cat myself, I apologize for making such a comparison, but I really did not wish to offend anyone of the feline graces. I've never known a cat to be a "pussy" per se.
The cat that I serve is glad this has been cleared up.
The cats I serve have been asking "Can't we just bite him?" (a cat bite being the most dangerous non-venomous bite there is - which all cat people should take very seriously if they get one, I speak from hard-earned experience as I spend a year with my right forefinger recovering from one not taken seriously for three days)
Mitt wants everyone to look at his resume, but not read it or ask questions. His campaign is getting sillier by the day.
"[O]ur campaign would be helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon business or family or taxes or things of that nature, this is just a diversion," Romney said. He added, "I would love to have a setting where we only talk about issues."
Your campaign would be helped immensely if anyone else was the candidate. Everything about you is a lie: what you say, what you do, what you've done in your life. All lies.
Welcome to the world of political hardball, little Willard, where the only thing you're entitled to is to not be physically assassinated.
Your business was being a cannibal, your wife is an entitled princess, your sons have no talent other than the luck of their birth, your taxes are toxic, and the things you say you believe in today you won't tomorrow. All of which is fair fame in figuring out if you are worth being President. So far you're a fail on all counts.
(I wonder when Pooper242 is going to come along to water the fire hydrant?)
And compounding this " where we only talk about issues." occurs in quiet rooms so we don't exactly find out what exactly Willards plans are for us.
He wouldn't want to scare us would he?
But when we do talk about the issues, like Romney's tax plan, he still cries unfair.
I'm beginning to think this is some bizarre attempt by the GOP to backdoor Chris Christie as the nominee... have Romney blow up his own campaign before the convention and then have all the delegates vote for Christie (I don't think it's legal to do that, but I don't think that would stop the GOP!).
You might be right, but my guess is black bunting is being put outside the offices of the Weekly Standard, and the fire department has been deployed with nets and grief counselors as a precaution.
Well, you too would want your 'business background' and 'Olympics background' and 'Massachusetts governorship background' off limits if they matched the reality of Mittens!
Instead, we should focus on what Mitt's chooses to define his backgrounds as without question and we should focus 'like a laser beam' on the economy (unless it shows signs of improving). Then we should have the only topic 'on limits' being Obama's blackness!
It seems more and more unlikely to me that his party is going to give Romney the nomination. I hope they do, but they'd be fools.
somebody's already at work on that (methinks a guy who thinks that gay men do something else with dogs besides torturing them on family vacations, but what do i know)
check out a thoroughly offensive site at jewsandchristianstogether.org
I have to say this might be the silliest thing I have ever heard.
If Chuck had been drinking there would have been a spit take. Chuck Todd was almost laughing out loud.
"Let's compromise: we'll only talk about what I want to talk about. What do you say? Deal?"
And to think there are people who don't believe Romney is really a Republican.
Re: #10.1
Remember that these are the people who think that "bi-partisan" means everyone has to agree with them!!
These are the people who think that "bi-partisan" means "y'all buy our partisanship, or else!"
;-)
Does anyone besides me remember when the Republican campaign doctrine was that elections were all about "character?"
Unfortunately those days are long gone and in particular with Pinocchio as their candidate there is not integrity or character.
Do'nt vote for Romney because he hate's dog's,that would be a personal attack.But to put focus on his business record that's an issue.To put focus on his tax return's, that's an issue.To put focus on his foreign bank account's, that's an issue.To put focus on his tax policy,that's an issue.Not to put focus on these issues would be an affront to the American people.Does he think if both campaigns made such an agreement that Foxnot New's and Rush Limpball's would suddenly become honorable?I do'nt think so.If Mitt ca'nt stand the heat get out of the kitchen.Take your ball and go home to one of your multi-million dollar mansion's you snotbubbling crybaby.
For Mitt to talk about the issues, he'd have to first take a stand on the issues.
When Mitt Speaks he warms up his sympathetic audience with regurgitated Obama smack-downs until they're cheering, fires them up with all his perfect pie-in-the-sky recession solutions and then sends those proud Americans home with a firm handshake and a couple pamphlets, one of 5 Easy Ways to Save Your Family from Socialism and Flesh Eating Bacteria and the other is Mormon Food Caches: Are You Ready for Armageddon. Pinning himself down on the issues just kinda don't work for Mitt.
but he doesn't want to talk about issues either ... he won't release details of his tax plan so it can't be scored and b/c people might not like it ... the details of spending cuts have to be worked out with congress (this might be his biggest delusion of all) ... he will have a comprehensive immigration plan ... he will talk to the generals about afghanistan ... bachmann's craziness is not part of his campaign ... etc., etc.
are we just supposed to look at pretty pictures????
are we just supposed to look at pretty pictures????
Well, Rafalca is a fine looking horse.
for all the millions spent, rafalca didn't do too well ... some ROI for the great businessman ... but, he doesn't know anything about that either ... it's Ann's sport
oh, and Sununu[ts] says the PRESIDENT is a "wuss"
Rafalca had to perform, but the result did not matter one whit. The performance justified the tax write-off.
Romney should revert to his former practice of NOT doing interviews. He's miserable at it. How can he believe his tenure at Bain should not be discussed in the campaign? For months he's insisted we should vote for him BECAUSE OF his business experience. Now he says we shouldn't talk about it? This is NUTS.
I think this is brilliant! If all those items are off limits, Willard has nothing to run on and nothing to talk about! He's out! He's cooked!
Uh oh. He's throwing in the towel? Does that mean we have a new contender? Christie? Ryan? Paul? Santorum?
This is a joke, right? He's probably saying that he will not be responsible for the nastiest and most racist ads ever run during a Presidential campaign that are sure to come. I'll bet he's just trying to get himself off the hook, but what a weird way of doing it.
I bet he pops his cork and yells "Ni**er" before mid-October.
Santorum already did... remember?
Another Santorum Slip
;-)
So what is he running on then... hope?
And change - the topic that is.
Hope you don't notice he's got nothing to run on.
I know how to run the country because I ran a business--but let us not dwell on my business record or my tax dodging or my anti-romneycare/obamacare stance or...
Dang it just swallow the swill like a good serf and let me give the country to private enterprise while I let the Church of the almighty bigotry rule over the masses!
Sheeesh why can't everyone be a FOX ditto head?
And notice how he reacts to Todd's question if he, Romney, was making a formal proposal. Mitt got all flustered as if he didn't expect the obvious followup. He just wanted to be able to speculate about it without actually having to propose anything.
It was worth watching just to see the smirk on Todd's face and him trying so hard not to laugh out loud. And I don't even like Todd.
Shorter Mitt:
"It would be immensely helpful to my campaign if no one said anything bad about me."
Geez. Does this remind anyone of Romney structuring the Bain deal so that he makes a profit and prearranges for a cover story to come out if it tanks, so he gets to keep his reputation?
He's gotten away with this crap his whole life, so he has NO idea how ridiculous he sounds.
I have come to really dislike chuck todd, but i did enjoy watching his reaction to Mitt.
"I can't put out my tax returns because the Democrats will use them to say something bad about me."
And even the most persistent Republitrolls just shake their heads and give this one a pass.
How will they spin it? Maybe they will talk about class, respect, honor, character, dignity, and all the virtues of an antebellum gentleman. If Robert E. Lee were running for President, that is how Mitt nows sees himself.
Sometimes, you've almost got to admire their dogged willingness to go onto liberal blogs and say absurd things in support of him, day after day, time after time, for a guy so worthy of the contempt they feel for him ans who they know they'd hate hate as much as we would if, by some misfortune for the Republic, he won.
The more I hear Mitt the less I like him. Am I the only person to feel this way?
I mean I know people who have worked with and for GW and they all say that in person he is very personable. As the story goes he truly is the kind of guy with whom you would like to drink a beer. I can sorta maybe understand where those folks are coming from. I just don't get that feeling with Romney. The more I see Mitt the creepier I feel.
The good news is you have lots of company.
The bad news is, much of your company is other Republican politicians.
Nope. Everyone has that reaction to him. Which is why I'm so looking forward to the debates.
Well, you can't drink a beer with Mittwit, it's against his sciencefictionology religion.
1. In seeking the VP slot, Mitt was silling to offer up 23 years of tax returns for review by John McCain. In running for the White House he says to the American people that one year and an incomplete are enough.
2. Does this mean that there are enough dark secrets in the tax returns that MItt might be vulnerable to blackmail if foreign entities were to access the information? If it's toooo secret for voters to know, doesn't that raise the spectre of foreign coercion at some point?
3. Does MItt seek to trap the President? If the President were to (foolishly) agree to this cockamamie notion, does it mean BO has darker secrets than Mitt's?
4. If this is an example of Mitt as a strategic thinker, a negotiator, or a planner, God help us all if he takes up residence at 1600 PA. What a numbskull move!!!
Good point.
Anderson (Gwen, Judy, Jim --- oh, whoever the hell you are) --
DA RULES!!! DA RULES!!!
Mitt got the nomination by carpet bombing his opponents. His general campaign has been to attack Obama with lies and more lies. When the Democrats (uncharacteristically) fight back he pitches a hissy fit? Pile it on Mr. President - destroy this lying sack of poop!
My sentiments exactly!