Tag: Mitt Romney

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Obama campaign: “The Choice”

The Obama campaign released a new ad yesterday which points out the choice voters must make, the NYT reports:

Rather than use flashy graphics, ominous-sounding narrators or clever editing, the ad shows Mr. Obama arguing that the election comes down to a choice.

“Not just between two political parties or even two people. It’s a choice between two very different plans for our country,” Mr. Obama says. “Sometimes politics can seem very small. But the choice you face, it couldn’t be bigger.”

Meanwhile, the President was back on the offensive on the campaign trail, Politico reports, discussing another kind of ‘choice’:

“Frankly, the other side can’t sell their ideas so what they’re going to do is distort my vision. Earlier today, Gov. Romney was at it again,” Obama said as the crowd booed. “Knowingly twisting my words to suggest I don’t value small business. In politics, we all tolerate a certain amount of spin. I understand those are the games that get played in political campaigns. Although, when folks like omit entire sentences of what you said, they start kind of splicing and dicing, you may have gone a little over the edge there. But there’s actually a real choice there.”

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Romney ad features business owner who took hundreds of thousands in government help – while he criticizes that help

In the Mitt Romney campaign web and television ads that received national attention last week, a blunt Jack Gilchrist of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson tells President Barack Obama that he, his father and his son _ and not the government _ built his company.

But as it turns out, Gilchrist did receive some government help for his business.

In 1999, Gilchrist Metal received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority “to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment,” according to a New Hampshire Union Leader report at the time.

Last year, Gilchrist Metal also received two U.S. Navy sub-contracts totaling about $83,000 and a smaller, $5,600 Coast Guard contract in 2008, according to a government web site that tracks spending.

Jack Gilchrist said today his message is not “compromised” by the fact that he received the proceeds of tax-exempt bonds made possible by the federal government.

But he did not shy away from the fact that he has utilized government programs.

He also said his company received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling “somewhere south of” $500,000 in the late 1980s.

“I’m not stupid, I’m not going to say ‘no.’ Shame on me if I didn’t use what’s available,” he said. “As a matter of fact, right now, I’m driving on a road.

“So, no,” said Gilchrist, “I don’t feel as though I’ve compromised anything or misled anybody.”

Via Unionleader.com

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Romney agrees with President Obama – “a lot of people help you in a business”

Mitt Romney and the conservative blogosphere are pushing a selectively edited Obama campaign speech to suggest that the president believes that the government is solely responsible for the successes of small businesses.

Obama’s full remarks, which pointed out that taxpayer-funded infrastructure and services (like public roads) enable businesses to prosper, are true and represent a sentiment shared by Republican leaders. For instance, Mitt Romney himself made an almost identical point during his speech at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, crediting the community for helping individuals achieve the pinnacle of success:

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ROMNEY: You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.

Obama echoed this sentiment in his misquoted campaign speech on July 13: “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together,” he said.

Romney agreed with Obama as recently as last week, saying in a campaign appearance, “I know that you recognize a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the bank, the investors. There is no question your mom and dad, your school teachers. The people who provide roads, the fire, the police. A lot of people help.”

From ThinkProgress

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Mitt Romney – buying Twitter followers?

Check out this graph of Twitter followers for Mitt Romney and President Obama.

President Obama has been averaging a steady 16,000 – 30,000 new followers a day.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has been averaging about 1,000 – 6,000 new followers a day.  Until now.  Take a look at the graph.  Out of nowhere, Mitt Romney gained over 100,000 new followers in one day.  Nothing in his past history  shows anything like this.

I know for a fact it is possible to “buy” new Twitter followers to improve how interesting you look to the Twitter universe.  Could that be the story here?

Things that make you go “hmm…”

More at ThinkProgress.

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Ann Romney: No more tax returns

Note the condescending “you people” turn of phrase…

Interesting how she deflects to “we are so generous” from the question of why not release tax returns as both President Bushs, President Obama, etc…?

Theory seems to be he’s releasing the two years of tax returns he could “manage” knowing he was going to be running for President. He gave John McCain several years worth of returns.

Could it be that the earlier returns show he paid little to no taxes and therefore could seem “unrelatable” to the average American?

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Romney surrogate: “I wish this president would learn how to be an American.”

The Romney campaign ratcheted up its language on Tuesday in a conference call on which former New Hampshire governor and White House chief of staff John Sununu said he wished President Obama “would learn how to be an American.”

“The president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the American economy functions. The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world — it is the American way,” Sununu said in his opening remarks of the conference call.

He added: “I wish this president would learn how to be an American.”

The first question to Sununu later in the call was about that comment, which exploded quickly on Twitter for its stark claim about Obama.

“What I thought I said, but I guess I didn’t say, is that the president has to learn the American formula for creating business,” he said. “If I didn’t give all that detail I apologize.”

The Obama campaign’s Lis Smith said that Sununu’s rhetoric represented that the Romney campaign had grown desperate.

“The Romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end,” she said. “The question is what else they’ll pull to avoid answering serious questions about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital and investments in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts. This meltdown and over-the-top rhetoric won’t make things better — it only calls attention to how desperate they are to change the conversation.”

Regardless of the walk-back, the tone of the call was consistently negative — and harshly so — with Sununu and the four small businesspeople on the call ripping the president’s policies, background and campaign tactics.

More at MSNBC.com

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Romney campaign mad new ad points out Mitt’s hypocrisy

The Romney campaign has an unusual spin on this ad: they say President Obama is mocking “America the Beautiful.”

Every day, President Obama hits a new low. It is sad and shameful that President Obama would mock America The Beautiful. But sadly it’s not surprising for the man who launched his presidency with an apology tour. The ‘Uncle Jims’ of our country – as he condescendingly calls middle-class Americans – don’t believe in mocking America The Beautiful and don’t believe in apologizing for America. – Romney for President.

Watch the ad and share how you feel. I see the Obama campaign pointing out the irony of Mitt Romney singing about his love for a country as his Bain Capital “outsourcing” statistics scroll on the screen. Clearly an effective ad.

And clearly the President is not mocking “America the Beautiful.”

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Mitt Romney “retired retroactively” from Bain Capital

Mitt Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said Sunday that the candidate “retired retroactively” from his job at Bain Capital, which Romney maintains that he left in 1999 despite evidence suggesting he remained involved with the company until 2002.

Gillespie said Romney may have been listed as “part-time” after 1999, but that he had no role in the firm’s day-to-day affairs, a point the campaign has attempted to make repeatedly in order to separate him from Bain’s activity related to outsourcing during that period. Romney has said he left the company completely in 1999 when he started working to plan the 2002 Winter Olympics.

“There may have been a thought at the time that [Romney’s Bain work] could be part-time. It was not part-time. The Olympics was in a shambles,” Gillespie told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“He took a leave of absence and in fact, Candy, ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February 1999 as a result,” Gillespie said.

Romney’s involvement at Bain came under renewed scrutiny last week after additional reports surfaced revealing that he was listed as the CEO, president and chairman of the firm long after he had previously stated. He has insisted that he had nothing to do with Bain after 1999 in response to questions about its activities at the time, including investing in companies that sent jobs overseas.

Via Huffington Post