Romney Campaign Incompetence Will Lead To Obama Victory
September 17, 2012 25 Comments
There was a time just a few weeks ago where I would have suggested Mitt Romney had a 50% chance of winning. At this point it’s become abundantly clear he isn’t going to win. As usual the Republicans picked a wimp candidate, a moderate of course, who has no chance of winning. It seems we Republicans will never learn our lesson. The voting public will always pick an authentic liberal Democrat over a moderate Republican who pretends to be conservative. Ford, Bush 41 once we figured out he was a moderate, Dole, McCain and now Romney. The conservatives, Reagan and Bush, won.
Mitt Romney is a wimp. Oh yes, he tried to be forceful last week after the Muslims started attacking our Embassy’s. Then the Obama press went into overdrive attacking Romney while ignoring Obama’s foreign policy blunders. The result? We haven’t heard from Romney since. He’s been cowed into silence. He’s made no statements of any importance, is he even campaigning? Nearly a week has gone by and we’ve heard nothing from the Republican Presidential candidate. Mind you we’re only seven weeks before an election. To say nothing of Paul Ryan, who has all but disappeared since the GOP Convention. Where are these people? Are they doing anything?
Where was Romney last week when our credit rating was cut again? He issued a bland press release but did he say much of anything? If he said something the press ignored it and/or it was another throw away applause line in a mediocre speech. Romney needs to make forceful statements, he needs to be holding major speeches. You know, the kind where he puts on a tie and acts all Presidential. The middle east is falling apart and our credit rating is cut yet we hear nothing from Romney in nearly a week because the press attacked him last time he criticized Obama. How is this going to lead Romney to victory?
Unfortunately the Romney plan seems to be spending a fortune on ads and hoping they’ll do the trick. It seemed to work in the primary where he was able to define all of his opponents as a conservative heretic, which was always rich coming from the not conservative candidate. Obama however can’t be defined by Romney. He’s the President, we already know who he is and we have a good idea what his record is. Romney needs to make the case for himself both in speech and in advertisement. Yet he never does that. He never touts his own plans, he never offers his Obamacare alternative, he never explains in detail what he’ll do in the middle east. He never says anything about himself, other than his stellar Bain Capital and Olympic leadership a decade ago. That isn’t going to cut it.
Politico is reporting that there is all out war between Romney staffers. That comes as no surprise. From the Paul Ryan selection on this campaign has unraveled, it’s been all over the place. The final night of the GOP Convention should have signaled there was a problem. The Clint Eastwood speech was a mess and it took away from Romney’s speech. The candidate’s speech didn’t offer any substance. Put together and it should have been clear there was a problem. Whether it was infighting or incompetence, there was a problem and it was evident. Since the Convention all Romney has done is come out forcefully on the middle east last week before becoming silent thanks to a one sided, conspiring press corp. That is evidence of the infighting in action as we have two very different responses to the same issue and a very weak looking candidate.
If the GOP cannot win this election then they need to get out of the business of politics. We have a President who has presided over the worst economy since the Depression, we have 23 million unemployed, a national debt that has increased $5 trillion in four years, 47 million Americans on food stamps, taxmageddon staring us down on January 1st all while the middle east and Obama’s foreign policy blowing up in our faces. If the GOP can’t win against this President then they can’t win period. The establishment gave us Mitt Romney, just like they gave us John McCain in 2008. When Romney loses, and unless things change dramatically he will lose, it will be on the establishment to explain to us why they forced such a pathetic candidate on us.
About Steven
Wrong: It was Bush, the far-right Republican who brought the economy to a disaster. Look at the rest of the world and we are doing pretty well since Obama became President.
We have a taxmageddon because of fanatical far-right ideologues like you in congress who live in fantasy land and think compromise is the work of the devil. ( e.g. Aiken.)
If George Bush is far right I’d hate to think what Reagan must have been in your mind. The financial crisis was created by Carter and Clinton as well as the Democrat controlled Fannie and Freddie. It was also the result of a natural downturn in free markets. In any event, Carter passed a law forcing banks to loan to minorities who couldn’t afford to repay loans. Clinton started enforcing the law, which had largely been ignored by Reagan and Bush 41. When Clinton enforced the law it created the subprime mortgage industry. Financial institutions foolishly bundled these subprime mortgages and sold them as investments, which only made matters worse. The economic downturn really had nothing to do with Bush. We’re four years into Obama’s administration and we’re looking at the worst recovery since WWII. Only 300,000 net jobs have been gained since Obama took office.
As for taxmageddon, how you blame Republicans is beyond me. You know, Boehner had a deal in place during the debt ceiling negotiations last year that would have raised taxes by $400 billion. Obama ruined his opportunity by suddenly demanding more taxes, he got greedy. Couple that with a Democrat Congress which in 2010 passed only a two year extension of he Bush tax cuts (ie an extension of current rates) and you’ve got the upcoming taxmageddon. Obama could have avoided it, he chose to be greedy.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree that Mitt Romney is a pathetic candidate. Heretofore, he has ran a relatively successful campaign. I would agree that he has been beaten into silence by the media, after his statement about the events in the Middle East. He needs to come out much more forcefully on that, as well as on his economic theme. You could very well be right, the election may be over, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.
I think this election is over unless Romney has a dramatic turnaround, which would require an annihilation of Obama at the debates. Based on what we saw from Romney during the primaries, annihilation isn’t going to happen. Anytime a candidate allows the media to silence him it’s a disaster and a sign of extreme weakness. Who wants a President whose moves are dictated by what the media does or says? He’s losing the independent vote each day he remains silent.
Carter. Very funny! You should stand up Steve!
Correction
Carter? Very funny! You should do stand up Steve!
Why are you uninterested in following the consequences of laws that are passed?
I agreed with George:
We have a taxmageddon because of fanatical far-right ideologues like you in congress who live in fantasy land and think compromise is the work of the devil. ( e.g. Aiken.)
Sorry Benard but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Taxmageddon is happening because Obama got greedy in negotiations with Boehner during last year’s debt ceiling debate. The Speaker was willing to agree to $400 billion in new taxes, they had a deal until Obama suddenly demanded $200 billion more. Even liberals like Bill Woodward acknowledge this. The GOP was willing to compromise until Obama demanded more.
I have read some commentary that indicates this really could be the end of the Republican Party (at least as we know it). The party has long been dominated by old white guys, and consequently, it has enacted policies which serve its base. The dynamics of America will soon create a minority-majority, so the GOP is doomed unless it somehow figures out a way to diversify itself–something the old white guys want nothing to do with.
In my opinion, good riddance; however, I do not want to see Democrats running the country unchecked.
Maybe if Republicans could realize that legislating morality is unwise and un-American, they could realign with Libertarians and reinvent themselves. Of course Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman would need to be left behind, as they will never share a party with “smart people.”
Of course, anyone who opposes abortion isn’t smart. What an absurd argument. The notion that the GOP is nothing but an old white people party is nothing more than the figment of media imagination. Just look at the GOP and Dem Conventions. The GOP featured minorities every night while the Democrats were largely spoken at by white people. There are more elected Hispanics elected as Republicans than Democrats, particularly in statewide offices. It’s pure fantasy to believe the GOP is a white only party.
Did you see the delegates and the crowd at large in Tampa, Steven? A sea of white faces. Even Herman Cain commented on the party’s lack of diversity.
Just because the Republicans trotted out every minority they could wrangle up in order to give the party the appearance of diversity, it doesn’t make it so.
Even if your numbers regarding the representation of office-holding Hispanics is accurate, don’t you think the fact that Hispanics vote Democrat over Republican by a two to one margin speaks more to the make up of the parties.
Please, stop kidding yourself. You are only serving to prove the point that Republicans are delusional about their party, its interests, and its constituents.
Hispanics voted 2 to 1 for Obama, they voted in the majority for Bush. What that suggests is that they aren’t a one party group like blacks, which perhaps explaims why both parties like to trot out elected Hisanics.
The interests of conservatives do not lie in race or ethnicity. Race politics is the domain of the left not the right. We couldn’t care less about race or ethnicity, low taxes and limited government benefit everyone regardless of race.
Obama leads Romney in the Hispanic vote 66% to 26%.
Also, it is funny how Republicans can tout the benefits of lower taxes while at the same time demonizing the 47% of Americans who pay the lowest tax rate…0%. Very logical.
According to what poll?
The issue isn’t that 47% don’t pay taxes, it isn’t their fault the economy stinks to the point that they don’t have a job, enough employment or a job that pays enough. The attack isn’t on them, it’s on the conflict of interest the Democrats have. With nearly half the country not paying taxes and dependant on government, Obama has no incentive to put policies in place to improve the economy. He has a built in voting block that pays nothing into the system while also being dependant on government and thus on Obama. If the economy were stronger, at least half of those 47% would pay taxes because they’d either have a job or they would have a higher paying job which would put them in the ranks of taxpayer.
The latest Gallup poll:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154559/US-Presidential-Election-Center.aspx
Sorry for not including the link.
I accept your premise that Obama has a large voting bloc dependent on the government (and therefore him), but I prefer a President/Party who will provide for the poor rather than one who dismisses them.
Romney, by his own words, does not believe that the poor are “entitled” to food, shelter, and health care. In the wealthiest country in the world, I don’t think that providing the basic necessities of life is too much to expect.
I think you’re extending Romney’s comments beyond what he actually said. Romney is rightfully attacking the massive increase in food stamps and other forms of welfare which have occured under Obama. These increases have happened because Obama has failed to make the economy strong. That’s where Romney is going. He certainly hasn’t called for an elimination of food stamps and welfare, much to my chagrin.
So you would like to see an elimination of food stamps?
This is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. A program like food stamps gets abused–liberals like me say fix the program; conservatives like you say eliminate the program.
“Let them eat cake,” right? We know what happened when a government took your approach.
Don’t confuse me with the GOP, I’m well to the right of the average Republican. As far as I’m concerned, care for the poor isn’t the responsibility of the government at all. It’s the responsibility of the church and private charity.
Let them eat cake is the result of big government policies. It was government that mandated the price of bread and if the cheap stuff wasn’t available expensive bread (ie: cake) was supposed to be lowered in price to he cost of cheap bread. Thus when Marie Antoinette said (if she actually said it) ‘if the people don’t have bread, let them eat cake’ she was referring to French law. She legitimately wondered why the people couldn’t eat cake since it was supposed to cost the same as cheap bread if there was no bread. The problem of course is that the government policy created a shortage of all bread but that’s beside the point.
I have heard this argument many times before: “It should be the church’s job to care for the poor.”
Well, Steven, is the church doing that? Christian churches will unabashedly throw around statistics about the pitiful percentage of their congregations that tithe. The reported figures from the churches themselves is between 3% and 6%. So you expect the church to take care of the poor? I got news for you, if taking care of the poor becomes a voluntary thing, it ain’t gonna happen. People, in general, are far too greedy for that. Sadly, they prove it every Sunday. I hope that you are at least a person that puts his money where his collection plate is.
Caring for the poor is something Christian churches gladly did for 1900 years. It wasn’t until the era of socialism, with its high taxes, that the church got brushed aside by a government and a people who have largely left the faith. It still remains the job of the church to care for the poor, not government.
I do not understand your point. Are you implying that government welfare somehow prohibited the church from doing its job? If so how?
Maybe you are saying high taxes keep people from giving to the church (and therefore stop the church from doing its job of helping the poor)?
If that is your argument, it is easily refuted: Christians are supposed to give their FIRST 10% to the church…and they don’t, regardless of what the give unto Caesar.
What Christians do or don’t give to the church is a strawman and irrelevant to this debate.
The problem begins a century or so ago when many of the churches drifted away from the gospel and accepted progressive socialism. They pushed the government to become more involved in our lives in order to create “perfect” Christian society. These churches gave up their duty to care for the poor, which they had been doing all along and actively encouraged the government to take over.
Today we have a situation where we have a massive Federal government and massive taxation at all levels, something that didn’t exist 100 years ago. Despite this, Americans donate more money to charity than any other western people. It is my contention that if the government got out of the charity business and left it up to private organizations and churches to care for the poor that Americans, no longer shackled by obscene taxes, would donate in abundance to care for the poor. After all, prior to the progressive era the church took care of the poor on 10% tithes or less as you suggest. The government doesn’t even do a good job of it on 50% taxes.
It might appear that churches and charities were able to meet the needs of the poor before the progressive era, but this appearance is deceiving. America’s poverty levels were lower because until the end of the Civil War, millions of slaves were not considered “the poor!” The churches/charities were able to meet the needs of the rest of America’s less fortunate, but the truly poor, the ones whose free labor created a wealthy nation insulated for the most part from rampant poverty, were completely discounted. After the slaves were freed, and in conjunction with massive immigration waves from Europe, churches and charities could no longer meet the needs of America’s poor. This is what laid the foundation for Progressivism. Government intervention became necessary (see Coxey’s Army), and unfortunately, it still is.
I admire your faith in the goodness of Americans, I just don’t completely share it. The notion that churches would take better care of the poor (than the government) via the strictly voluntary donations of their congregations just doesn’t jive with my personal observations of churches or my more pragmatic worldview. In fact, basing policy on what should happen or what probably would happen, is pie-in-the-sky idealism at its finest (and I thought liberals were supposed to be the idealists). “Ideally,” people would divert some of their own income to the poor if their tax burdens were eased, but in reality, if you force the non-poor to pay taxes to provide food, shelter, and health care for the poor, it happens–maybe it works too well for your liking, but it works.
Based on the track record of systematic abuses and waste on the part of the American federal and state government, I can see why you do not have faith in its ability to provide assistance to the poor; however, to assume that Churches of any denomination would do a better job is wishful thinking. As you said above Churches can simply give up their duty to care for the poor. That does not say much about the type of system you are advocating. The government cannot give up on the poor unless/until it is willed by the people.
I’m not going to sit back and debate slavery and whether slaves were considered ‘poor.’ The fact is that we had a 50 year peroid between the end of slavery and WWI and other than blacks we didn’t have a huge problem with poor people unable to eat, clothe themselves etc. Blacks unfortunately present a different set of problems when looking at this period due to the outrageous racism that prevailed. But we should note that many white ethnic and religious groups faced persecution and discrimination during this time and somehow their churches or religious institutions found a way to protect the poor and care for them.