The Romney campaign, apparently aware of the fact that it's currently losing, is still trying to find a winning message. As of this morning, Team Romney will now shift its attention to Asia.
"I think it's clear that the message on China has resonated not only with the voters, but you can tell with the response from the Obama campaign," Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said. "They went up with an ad in response to it on China and on top of that, the administration filed a case."
To that end, Romney unveiled this new spot this morning, focusing on China.
For the record, Gillespie may be having some delusions of grandeur about the administration's actions -- it's true that officials filed a WTO complaint against China after Romney launched an attack ad, but the timing appears entirely coincidental given that the Obama administration filed a series of similar WTO complaints against China, over the course of four years, that had nothing to do Romney rhetoric. Indeed, as Rachel recently explained, the Obama administration has been "confrontational toward China in a way that no modern administration has ever been."
But if this is really going to be a driving focus of the Romney message going forward, let's dig a little deeper.
It's worth noting, for example, that just three years ago, Romney found Romney's new line of attack to be wrong, if not ridiculous. Alec MacGillis reported today on 2009 comments Romney made to the Foreign Policy Initiative, during which he condemned the Obama administration's efforts to retaliate against unfair Chinese business practices. In other words, Obama was getting "tough," and Romney found it counter-productive and misguided.
A year later, in his No Apology book, Romney said, "President Obama's action to defend American tire companies from foreign competition may make good politics by repaying unions for their support of his campaign, but it is decidedly bad for the nation and our workers. Protectionism stifles productivity." In other words, Romney thought Obama was too tough in pushing back against China's trade policies -- the opposite of what he's saying now.
This is the same Romney who, according to his 2011 tax returns, invested more than $75,000 in China's state-owned oil company. He also invested in Chinese manufacturing companies.
If this is the issue that's supposed to rescue Romney, he's in trouble.
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His campaign is being run by a bunch of blindfolded drunks playing darts.
Hear about the new Ben & Jerry Flavor:
Mighty Righty Mitt Foot - So good you never want it out of your mouth.
I was going to point out to the Romney campaign that they should avoid 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacies as it makes them look stupid but then realized, they're unlikely to understand the point.
if the right wing trolls are indicitave of the Romney campaign(and i tend to think they are), every time i bring up 'informal fallacy' they(the trolls) think i'm talking about a penis...
Gol durn fernickity recording machines... catch me every time .
Hey Mitt , Why are 4 of the names on the richest in the US named Walton. Didn't they get rich by forcing suppliers to shift production to China.
Here's a couple
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=laborunions
http://www.demos.org/publication/not-made-america-top-10-ways-walmart-destroys-us-manufacturing-jobs
While we're at it didn't you specialize in outsourcing? just askin
They got rich by being mentioned in Sam Walton's Last Will and Testament!
they started little rich when Sam died but thanks to China they are now, each as rich as Sam was
Mitt's not sure what he wrote,but whatever he wrote, he stand's by what he wrote.The plastic man is just amazing.
Or this like his Mass vs Utah tax returns ? He didn't write it, he just put his name on it with out reading it first ?
that's a plus as far as grover norquist is concerned. he just wants the signature by someone with enough digits.
For the life of me I don't understand why Romney would even say the word"China." He and other business execs. have been sending jobs to China for years to the detriment of the American worker. This is just bizarre, now that he's running for president he wants the jobs to go the other direction.
Exactly! It's not "bizarre", hypocrisy typical GOP response pure hypocrisy! Forget that he sent bankrupted companies and sent American jobs to China - let's not talk about that "ancient history", let's look at what the President is doing...
I don't know if I have all the facts, but I think I have heard that there is a trend for jobs returning from China due to lack of quality and worker unrest, pushing up wages. One situation where capitalism is working.
Ever since a reported 900 dogs were poisoned by Chinese-made dog treats in May, we've only been buying Made in USA ones. They're very hard to find, but I suspect it'll become easier. The shoddy and dangerous reputation of Chinese goods is coming out to haunt them. Free market at work.
It's probably also the increase in transportation costs. For cheap goods to remain cheap, the transportation needs to be similarly inexpensive.
Why am I reminded of a certain episode of MASH here? "Finally, they top out at an Army Generals Press conference where the General when confronted about the incubator says to the press "I called this press conference but the last thing I want to do is answer a bunch of questions"" (thanks to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0638435/reviews for having this)
That China state oil company investment is a lot worse than Steve made it sound when he mentioned it in passing at the end. There is a Financial Times article behind a registration wall that points out:
"Mitt Romney’s trust invested in Cnooc [China’s state-owned oil company] at a time when the US was growing concerned about the Chinese oil company’s multibillion-dollar dealings with Tehran, according to the 2011 tax return released by the Republican nominee for president. . .
But Mr Romney’s investment in Cnooc also raises questions about Mr Romney’s tough stance against Iran, and is further evidence of how the former Bain Capital chief executive’s vast global share holdings have posed a challenge to his bid for the White House. . .
The first investment by Mr Romney’s trust in Cnooc Limited, in October of 2009, was made about seven months after the group’s state-owned parent company was widely reported to have signed a deal with Iran to develop the huge North Pars gasfield for an LNG export project. In the US, the deal was viewed as part of a worrying effort by China to secure energy interests. According to a report by the International Gas Report in February of 2009, Beijing gave Cnooc the green light to sign a deal with Tehran immediately after the US agreed to sell arms to Taiwan. The agreement, which was on and off for years before the deal was signed, even prompted interest from the US State Department in 2007, which examined whether it violated the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act."
Ugh. Once again Romney is sitting on both sides of the fence.
Oh, is that how he got that stick up his butt?
Mitt Romney has probably led to more layoffs of working Americans than any man in this country. His entire tax policy platform is designed to give rich guys like himself as many tax cuts and government giveaways as possible. He is the very embodiment of an "outsourcer-in-chief," representing the executives of corporate America who have decimated the nation's jobs and the economy for their own personal profits. Romney says he would run the country like he ran Bain -- and we should all take him at his word. Mitt will outsource every last job and turn America into a playground for the rich and powerful. - progressive
If Romney has to memorize all this stuff that possibly make sense, then what good is he? Romney cannot even answer any questions right, except how he can hoard his money and hide it to avoid paying taxes. This is such nonsense with this Romney guy even with Ryan who claims to know math and can’t balance crap. Where do these Republicans get these people, because they sure don’t know anything? Must be just more dime a dozen bozos for the extreme wealthy. Trained puppets or robots that have no real mind of their own, but line their pockets as cheap bastards that really take care of nothing, except themselves. These men show so clearly how they would be so literally irresponsible in this world, especially when it comes to world affairs. And Republicans, extremists of hatred, abd the extreme wealthy want to talk about good old days, in what universe have they been living in fantasyland. I am too aware of how things can be real bad and that was no good old days to me. That was looking to get out of that hellhole crap.
This is the guy who invested in the Chinese factory where workers live 12 to a room in a barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers (to keep the many job-seekers out). Of course he doesn't want to get tough on China - he wants to follow their example here.
I would add to the desperation of this move the delusion that a foreign-policy issue is going to turn the election around, even if it was remotely true.
I would sum up the Romney campaign as "Hey, voters! Why aren't you being stupid? We were counting on you being stupid enough to buy this crap!"
I could not have said it better. Hey Amercia, let's get busy being stupid!
Rmoney is so done and we've got way more than 15 minutes left..
It's one of those things that are so obvious, you kind of overlook 'em. It occurred to me this morning is that the way Romney keeps flailing around, spewing out a dozen different contradictory messages a week and pulling random sentences of Obama's out of context and then trying to fluff them up into campaign changing gaffes is basically the tell that Obama's actually been a pretty damn fine president and good presidents don't give their opponents anything real to work with.
Romney is actually like a Scrooge, except this Scrooge never learns a thing as the 3 ghosts come to visit. Romney keeps his wealth a tightly hidden secret and tells you nothing. The 3 ghosts keep telling Romney you must get better or go to hell, but Romney says oh no I need all that wealth, it is worth more than God. Romney says but I am a religious man see how I told people to get a job and stop whining because your dirt poor and starving.
So as Mitts campaign enters into it's China Syndrome point of meltdown...(I had to dooed it)
The problem with saying anything and everything to anybody to get a vote is that you always manage to say something that angers every one else. LBJ and Nixon at least had the sense to tell the middle class and the poor a good story, while telling their money it was baloney. Keep selling to the 1% Mitch !
What about Romney's book (not too long ago) arguing AGAINST trade sanctions China? Now he thinks that Obama hasn't been tough enough on them.
That poor Etch-A-Sketch is going to get broken, it is getting shaken back and forth so much :-)
Excellent investigating. Now we hope other news networks pick up on it.. At least the moderators can ask him about it.
Gillespie's claims put me in mind of the joke whose punchline goes "raise the drawbridge, raise the drawbridge!"
China has always treated economic development as a strategic process of national importance while the US approach to trade with China is usually carried on by private enterprises that are focused primarily on near term profits for the investor. This is willful blindness to US security needs. Romney needs to disclose his investments rather than his birth certificate to prove he is really an American.