Romney Doubles Down on Auto Industry Lies

October 30, 2012 RSS Feed Print—USNews & World Report, Jefferson Street Blog

Mitt Romney has tried to dodge, bob, weave, change the subject, and pretend it didn’t happen when it comes to his position on the automobile companies.

But obfuscation is not enough for Mitt Romney: Now he is resorting to an outright lie in his speeches and in his last minute, desperate advertising. In fact, two big lies.

Lie No. 1: Contrary to Romney’s claim, Detroit and Chrysler are not moving jobs and the making of Jeeps to China. In fact, they are selling Jeeps to China and they are adding $500 million and 1,100 workers to their Ohio Jeep plant. Chrysler smacked down Romney’s lie when he first said it and now Romney is up with an ad repeating the lie, ignoring Chrysler.

Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne was forced to send employees an E-mail Tuesday afternoon: “I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.”

Hello, Mitt? Apologize and take down your TV ad.

Instead, he is buying more air time and putting up radio ads with the same lie.

But it gets worse.

Lie No. 2: This is the one Romney has been repeating over and over about the American auto industry—he would have saved it with his “managed bankruptcy.” I worked for GM; there was no way the auto companies could have survived without Barack Obama’s rescue and with the decision to provide bridge loans and government help. Romney’s plan was not Obama’s plan—as he would try and make you believe. His plan was to get private capital, and as Steve Rattner, who ran the rescue team, and everyone else has stated, there was no private money. Even the conservative Detroit News praised President Obama and referred to Romney’s “wrong-headedness on the auto bailout…he was wrong in suggesting the automakers could have found operating capital in the private markets.”

When Romney called for letting Detroit go bankrupt, he meant it, because his view was the popular one at the time—no more bailouts, no more government money or intervention, enough already. Romney was playing politics. And he knew no one would buy a car from a bankrupt car company, unless the government stepped in to help

Now that the hard decision that President Obama made to provide government loans is popular, Romney is singing a different tune. He is not only trying to give voters the impression that he would have saved Detroit, which is absurd, he is implying that Obama is part of a plot to ship Jeep jobs to China.

Romney will lie and say anything to get elected. Let’s hope the people of Ohio and the United States see through it by next Tuesday.

Thomas Jefferson Street Blog–USNews & World Report

On Women’s Issues, Mitt Romney Has Binders Full of Nonsense

October 18, 2012 RSS Feed Print

In the summer of 1960 the Republican Party passed a platform at their convention calling for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. They also approved  a strong civil rights plank. My, how times change.

Now, we are faced with a political party and a nominee that seem to want to whisper sweet nothings in the ears of women while taking us back not 50 years but closer to 100. They seem to think they can talk their way out of their policy positions. Dream on.

In the debate, Mitt Romney took a detour from the question about equal pay for equal work to talk about “binders full of women.” The new Facebook page with that name had over 300,000 followers in a matter of hours, clearly indicating voters were not happy with his claims about appointing women.

Let’s deal with these issues one at a time. First, Mitt Romney did not ask his aides to put together these “binders.” A bipartisan group of women began to work in the summer before the election to assemble women who could serve in the next gubernatorial administration. These names were to be given to whoever won the election in November. Second, Romney’s number of women appointed decreased in every year of his administration and it was Gov. Deval Patrick who upped the number of women appointees. Third, the women got the lower level appointments not the plum jobs under Mitt Romney. So enough long stories about “binders.”

Next, Romney wanted to leave the impression that “I support contraceptives” when, in fact, he won’t support health coverage for them. Viagra, no problem, but gee whiz we shouldn’t require companies and organizations to have health insurance that covers contraceptives if they have a “religious objection.”  His lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey, told Andrea Mitchell this was a “peripheral issue”—but it’s not peripheral to those who have to pay for it.

But, of course, the crowning glory for Romney in the debate and afterwards was his effort to duck the equal pay for equal work legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ed Gillespie, his senior adviser, stated that Romney opposed this bill but that, as the governor has said, he would not try and repeal it as president. Oops, then slippery Ed tried to walk it back saying Romney did not take a position on it. Hooey.

This bill passed in January 2009 in the House of Representatives with only three Republicans supporting it. It passed the Senate with only five Republican Senators in favor. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009.  It is now a very popular piece of legislation.

Of course, Romney didn’t support it then; the question to ask is whether he supports it now. He will not answer that question. Mitt Romney should stop his dance with women voters and be honest, truthful, up-front. Mitt Romney might want to take a page from the 1960 party platform but then he would have to disavow this year’s platform which does not even have an exception for rape, incest, and life of the mother when it comes to a woman’s right to choose.

Mitt Romney’s record for women is disgraceful, despite his rhetoric.

Even the 1950s look good compared to Mitt Romney.

THE HILL PUNDITS BLOG

The debate aftermath: Mitt Romney doesn’t get it

By Peter Fenn – 10/17/12 03:17 PM ET

In September, as authorized leaks from the campaign would have it, the Romney family intervened in the campaign. Let Romney be Romney. As we Washington Caps fans would say, “Unleash the fury!”
Well, what we are seeing in these debates is really the same Romney we have seen since he first started running for public office — a Romney who is not comfortable being a candidate, someone who has little in common with everyday Americans.

Maybe he is comfortable in boardrooms with his PowerPoints, or huddled with his lawyers and accountants figuring out how to avoid taxes and make deals that make him fabulously rich. Maybe he is comfortable with thinking about “zingers” or attack lines or trying to manipulate people.
But he has never been comfortable with “the public” and taking stands on issues that require passion, commitment and leadership. He cannot discuss issues in any kind of consistent way, even after being a public figure for decades. He still has trouble on the abortion issue, not to mention immigration, gun control, women’s rights, energy, education, you name it. He is the ultimate weathervane in a hurricane.

He seems to see everything through a very crass political lens tied to his ambition.

I have come to the conclusion that Mitt Romney is not genuine; he simply doesn’t understand that voters want to see and hear someone who is real, authentic, has core beliefs. We don’t elect robots who repeat what they are told to say; we prefer people who are not mere vessels. In short, and this is harsh, Mitt Romney is phony.

Mitt Romney is content to be the attack dog and not bother to explain his flips and flops on gay rights, on choice, on assault weapons, on equal pay for woman, on coal plants, on education funding, on $5 trillion tax cuts, on healthcare, on Pell grants, on saving the auto industry. Every day the list gets longer.

In the space of 90 minutes last night Romney tried to make us believe he won’t give millionaires a tax cut, that he won’t cut education funding, that he won’t be deporting Hispanics, that he and Obama had the same plan to save GM and Chrysler, and that he supported contraceptives for women.

He believes he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants to whomever he wants and it will not come back to haunt him. Mitt Romney doesn’t get it, but the voters do.

October 17, 2012 Post Debate analysis with Jordan Lieberman

http://www.myfoxdc.com/video?clipId=7850072&autostart=true

10/11/2012 Thomas Jefferson Street Blog

Has the Electoral College Outlived Its Usefulness?

October 11, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Has the Electoral College outlived its usefulness? Are we in danger of having presidential campaigns ignore 80 percent of the states because they are not in play in the Electoral College? This year we have certainly gone to extremes to write off nearly all the states and most of the American people.

Let’s look back at the past three elections. In 2000, as we all know, Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes yet, because of the Florida fiasco, lost the electoral vote by four votes. In 2004, a change of 60,000 votes in Ohio would have given John Kerry that state’s electoral votes and the presidency, even though George Bush won the popular vote by over 3,000,000 votes.

After these two elections you can say one thing—campaigns know how to target!

This year, polls are extremely close at the national level yet still show President Barack Obama leading in key states with the key electoral vote swings. It is not inconceivable that Romney could win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote. Not likely, maybe, but not by any stretch an impossibility.

What we do promise in this country is a very close election every four years, at least potentially very close. More and more the “hard red” and “hard blue” states have emerged very clearly. This year, it appears that only nine states are in play: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and New Hampshire.

The vast bulk of the advertising dollars, organizational heft, candidate time, and overall attention have focused on those states. The states of California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, etc. have been used as ATM machines—stop-overs to raise the needed campaign cash to air ads in the nine targeted states.

With both campaigns and independent groups spending in excess of $2 billion, probably $3 billion, this is a Mercedes-protection program for TV station managers in those nine states. Not to mention a boon to the local economy in general.

Does anyone remember Richard Nixon’s convention pledge to visit all 50 states before the end of the campaign? Not a politically wise move back then, either, but we have come to the point where we have nearly 40 of the 50 states that don’t matter in the campaign, because the outcome is predetermined.

We will never return to a candidate who visits every state but are we going down the path of future campaigns that won’t spend any effort whatsoever on 75-80 percent of America? Is this truly a healthy development? My guess is that we need another crisis like 2000 before people begin to truly move the country away from the Electoral College. But we should be asking ourselves the question: Has this process of electing a president outlived its usefulness?  Shouldn’t we truly examine going to a strict popular vote?

Now may be the time we should consider whether we are locked into a campaign system that makes a mockery of “representing all Americans” and whether it is getting worse.

Will the Presidential Debates Make a Difference?

USNews & World Report, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog

October 1, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Many recent studies and commentaries have maintained that past debates have not had a decisive impact on the election. A lot of memorable moments, one liners, post-debate analysis of winners-losers, but not much in the way of “game-changing” moments. Very little that altered the outcome of the race, according to many experts.

Certainly the John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon debates were key to getting JFK the exposure he needed and the new TV format was a game changer. One could argue that the Jimmy Carter Carter-Ronald Reagan debate solidified Reagan’s victory and helped grow his margin.

But many of the debates have simply reinforced viewer’s opinions and changed few minds. Viewership, of course, is another issue. And, this year, there are three debates plus the vice presidential debate. So there are more opportunities for a mistake or miscalculation.

The reason these debates may matter is pretty simple: There is high interest in this election, voters are laser focused on the economy and their personal situations, and want to know who can best stand up for them. There is a bit of desperation—more than usual—and the candidates will have a chance to transcend the plethora of political ads and the heated rhetoric that have gone on for so many months.

In short, the audience could well be higher for this first debate—over 70 million—and may contain more leaning or undecided voters.

In addition, the role of social media in analyzing the debates, more commentary, greater “chatter” could add to the impact. I wouldn’t predict any actions by the candidates that result in a “moment” that changes the trajectory of the race but I could see the debate influencing that small number of undecided voters.

Maybe that is why both candidates are spending so much time in rehearsal mode!

 

http://www.myfoxdc.com/video?clipId=7715401&autostart=true

The Hill’s Pundits Blog September 14, 2012