In a classic move on Tuesday night, Democrats used a tribute video for Senator Ted Kennedy and slam Mitt Romney, highlighting who Romney really is… a flip flopper. In one of their debates for the Senate election in 1994, Mr. Kennedy listened as Romney tried to describe himself as pro-choice. When given his chance to respond, Ted Kennedy summed up Romney’s views on the issue not as pro-choice, but as “multiple choice.”
Later in speech to his supporters, Mr. Kennedy continued pointing out how efficient Romney was at changing positions, saying, “now he’s for family leave, now it looks like he’s for minimum wage. Now he’s for education reform. If we give him two more weeks, he may even vote for me, because those are the things I’m for.”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech before last week’s Republican National Convention generated the lowest approval rating among surveyed adults since Gallup began polling this question in 1996.
38 percent of respondents in Gallup’s poll rated Romney’s speech as “excellent” or “good.” 10 percent of respondents rated Romney’s speech as being “terrible.”
In contrast, 47 percent said the same of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his 2008 GOP convention acceptance speech. Only 5 percent said McCain’s speech was “terrible.”
President Barack Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech in Denver, Colorado, was the most well received of all speeches since 1996. 58 percent of respondents rated his speech as “excellent” or “good” while only 7 percent found it to be “poor” or “terrible.”
Gallup’s telephone survey was taken between August 31 and September 1, 2012, of 1,045 adults. The survey has a +/- 4.0 percent margin of error.
Did you hear the one about the Republican presidential candidate who told someone who lost her home to a storm, “go home and call 211.!?” No, you didn’t hear about that? Well it actually happened.
Over the weekend after accepting his Republican party’s nomination, Mitt Romney boarded a brand new plane and flew off to meet Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The cameras were on, people were watching to see how this potential president (God forbids) would handle a natural disasters, (no, his campaign cannot be considered a natural disaster).
Mr. Romney met with 42 year old Jodie Chiarello, who lost her home to flooding from Tropical Storm Isaac. Jodie had this to say of her meeting with Mr. Romney, “He just told me to, um, there’s assistance out there,” Chiarello said of her conversation with Romney. “He said, go home and call 211.”
Steve Benen puts it this way;
Of course, if someone has lost their home, telling them to “go home and call 211” isn’t exactly a compelling suggestion since most of us don’t have multiple homes. Then again, given Romney’s general worldview, what Chiarello should have done is pick wealthier parents.
They’re all politicians, regardless of what Mitt Romney wants to call himself. But what does it say of the Romney campaign and the Republican leaders when they chose three major lies to base an entire convention on?
Lie Number 1. – “You Didn’t Build That.”
Those were the words President Obama used at a campaign event. The President was talking about all the different factors that contribute to all successful businesses. But Republicans are only focusing on the you didn’t build that phrase and they are telling their followers that President Obama is against businesses.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you have a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Anyone with a hint of common sense can look at that quote and conclude that the President was correct. Somewhere along the line, somebody gave entrepreneurs some help. Yes, business owners formulate a business plan, some invested every dollar they had and put in the long hours. But doing that alone does not make a successful business. It helps to have a proper education and good teachers. It helps when customer have access to a business whether it be through roads, public transportation or the internet. And yes, it helps when there is a system already in place that facilitates the business plan and allows that plan to be successful.
So Republicans can focus on the “you didn’t build it” part of the President’s speech all they want. The facts… the simple facts show that the president is correct.
Lie Number 2. – “Obama increased the deficit by $5 Trillion”
This lie is another example of what Republicans and the Romney campaign is famous for – placing a laser focus on one part of a political argument and enlarging that argument to a point where it becomes the whole story.
Yes, $5 Trillion dollars were added to the deficit under the Obama administration, but that’s not the whole story. For anyone who is genuine and want to know more, the full story is about where this $5 trillion comes from.
Here are the facts on the $5 trillion:
The George Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were conducted on a credit card. In his infinite wisdom, George Bush did not include these wars in any budget. Mr. Obama on the other hand chose to bring this information to the American people and $853 billion – the price of both Bush wars – were added to the deficit.
The George Bush Tax Cuts – Another Bush policy that the Bush administration chose not to add to the deficit. In an effort to be transparent President Obama budgeted this cost and $2.2 trillion appeared on the deficit, thanks to Bush.
Other Bush Credit Card Policies – The costs of these Bush policies were also hidden from the American people, and these cost were finally budgeted by the Obama administration:
Defense – $616 Billion
Non Defense – $608 Billion
Entitlements – $293 Billion
Troubled Assets – $294 Billion
Prescription Drug costs – $180 Billion
And there you have it. The whole story on the $5 trillion deficit increase, all items from the George Bush-era.
How much did Obama’s policies add to the deficit? According to the chart below, when the expenses and revenues are taken into consideration, the Obama policies adds just about $983 billion. It breaks down like this:
And the Republican’s claim in itself makes no sense. A recent article by MarketWatch details that spending under President Obama is at a 60 year low. How can he “increased the deficit by $5 trillion if he’s not spending? The graph below explains:
In addition to the study by MarketWatch, PolitiFact did their research and agrees – spending is less under Obama. From PolitiFact:
Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention.
Lie Number 3 – “Obama removed the work requirement in Welfare.”
This particular lie was told (and will be told again and again) by the Republican Vice President candidate Paul Ryan. This lie was, like I’m sure you all know by now, debunked by every respectable fact-checker in the field. But the fact that this lie is already debunked did not stop the vice president candidate and he mentioned it in the biggest speech of his career – his speech to the nation.
The lie is based on a memo from the Obama administration to the states, where the states are granted a waiver from the federal program if they (the states) can show better more effective way to transfer welfare recipients from welfare to better training and work. But unfortunately, many in the Republican base choose fiction over facts and the Romney campaign is feeding this lie to these people.
And now that we’ve come to the end of the Republican convention, what can we really say we’ve learned?
Although a tad more of the Republican candidate was revealed to the American people, it was hard to believe what I was seeing and what I was hearing from the Convention podium. How can we believe anything coming from these Republicans when the very foundation of their Convention was based on lies?
So we all know that the Republican Delegates are the ones who picked and solidify Mitt Romney’s position as their Nominee. And we all know that in their Platform, the Republicans have included language making no exceptions for abortions. But Mitt Romney recently changed his position on abortions, saying he would allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest, or if the mother’s life depends on it.
Which brings us to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Sent out to interview these Delegates, Samantha Bee asks how they plan to support Romney when he doesn’t agree with the Republican Platform. And in the process, these Delegates – who are trying to take away a woman’s right to choose – reveals something very interesting. Their hypocrisy.
“You can’t force Mitt Romney to choose,” said one Delegate.
“He is allow to choose. This man is not a robot,” said another.
And another, “we live in a free society, we live in America. It is up to any human being to choose. To decide what’s best for themselves.”
On and on, the Delegates continues to proclaim Romney’s right to choose. But when Samantha Bee shows the hypocrisy of their position when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, it seems that’s where the choice stops. When it comes to a woman’s right to choose, Government (a Republican government) has to step in and make that decision for a woman.
Samantha sums it up by telling one Delegate, ““Say hello to my uterus,” she said. “You own a little piece of it. ‘Hello! I belong to everybody!’”
Appearing on Fox News’ Your World on Tuesday afternoon, Congressman Ron Paulreiterated to host Neil Cavuto the reasons why he has not officially endorsed the Mitt Romney / Paul Ryanpresidential ticket and why he does not view vice presidential candidate Ryan as a serious budget cutter.
Cavuto began the conversation asking the outgoing Texas congressman: “You are backing but not wholeheartedly enthusiastic?”
“I have not endorsed the ticket,” Rep. Paul clarified. “I endorsed the principles I have been talking about … I endorse peace, prosperity, individual liberty and the Constitution. I am more intent on that than on the politics.
Asked whether he could leave the Republican National Convention without officially endorsing the Romney ticket, Paul said, “I am not intending to endorse anybody.” Cavuto pressed him on whether he has any “dog in the fight” between Romney and Obama, to which the libertarian congressman replied that he has no intention to endorse, and to put him down as “undecided.”
If you haven’t seen or heard about this one yet, then have no fear! We have the video below.
Chris Mathews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball sat down with the hosts of Morning Joe and Republican Chairman Reince Preibus for a ‘friendly’ conversation. But anyone who’ve seen Chris Mathews’ show knows that when he gets going, there’s almost no stopping him. And having the Republican Chairman just a few feet away was enough to get Mr. Mathews going.
The ‘friendly’ discussion started with Mathews asking Preibus about some of the “questionable” ads the Romney campaign has run. Ads that many independent sources have called misleading or straight out lies. But what really got Chris going was a recent statement by Mitt Romney at a recent campaign event, where Romney said that no one had to ask for his birth certificate because everyone knows he was born here. To Chris and many others (including me), this statement from Romney was not “just a joke” as Romney and his supporters are calling it. Mr. Mathews saw Romney’s statement and the racial undertones it carried.
The conversation that started out fairly calm ended with the word “garbage” being thrown around, and in once instance, garbage was used to describe the Republican Chairman.
Mitt Romney has tried everything. He’s taken two, sometimes three positions on every issue in the hopes of always appeasing the masses. But everything Mitt Romney has tried has failed, and his name is now synonymous with the term “Flip-Flopper.”
And now Mitt Romney and his Republican allies are at it again. This time, they’re using their Convention in Tampa Florida this upcoming week to reinvent Mitt Romney. Mother Nature is already against this convention, but Republicans are a determined bunch.
The Etch-A-Sketch is already in the stadium. Let the shaking begin!
Mitt Romney has now officially covered every aspect of the political spectrum. He once said he was more liberal than Ted Kennedy, then he later called himself a Republican. When he decided to run for President, Romney magically became “severely conservative” and now, Mitt Romney is as far right as right could go… a birther.
Appearing before a crowed of supporters, Romney engaged in the nonsense that has caused the rest of the world to laugh at America. He questioned the birthplace of President Obama and officially joined the nut-jobs on the extreme right who have made up and propagated a story about the President’s birth to satisfy their foolish racist ideology.
You see, the ideology of a Birther has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with a racist mentality that suggests that a black man or woman cannot achieve what Barack Obama has done. Being the President of the United States is supposed to be reserved for a white man only. So having this particular man in the White House has twisted the feeble minds of some and the Birther belief was created to discredit Obama’s presidency. Their masterful plan involves a conspiracy that took place some 50 years ago.
According to the Birthers, Ann Dunham (Obama’s mother) give birth to little Obama in Kenya. But she knew that someday her son would be the 44th President of the United States, so she began a grand conspiracy setting the path make that happened. She somehow convinced newspapers in Hawaii to print stories about the birth and she got the registrar’s office in Honolulu to go along with her lie. It was 1961, and everyone knew back then that this baby, son of Ann Dunham, would one day be president.
And their plan back in 1961 to fool Americans in 2008 almost worked. What Ann Dunham, the newspapers, the hospital in Honolulu and the registrar’s office didn’t count on was the infinite wisdom of the Birthers, and now, thanks to this group, Mitt Romney has seen the truth!
Jumping into the ocean of Birtherism headfirst, Romney told the audience of the place of his and his wife, Ann’s birth. He then added that no one ever questioned the place of his birth and the Birthers in his audience applauded.
Mitt Romney’s claim that President Obama has removed the work requirement for welfare recipients and is now issuing free checks, has been debunked by everyone who knows how to use google. And now, even Mitt Romney is debunking Mitt Romney.
Romney’s lie stems from a memo the Obama Administration issued to states, inviting them to apply for waivers from the Federal welfare program. These waivers allow the states more flexibility to “help their poorest citizens transition from welfare to employment—in return, the states would face tougher federal standards that ensure 20% more people move into work.”
Seems like a straightforward memo. But if your name is Mitt Romney, you are again blinded by politics and you see a need to say anything and do anything to win the presidency. And that’s exactly what Romney did. He created lie stating that President Obama was giving away money to welfare recipients.
All the Fact checkers called Romney’s lie a lie and based on this 2005 letter signed by Mitt Romney, even Mitt Romney is debunking his lie.
The letter below was asking then President George Bush to do the same thing Obama did in his memo. And Romney was one of the originators of the letter.
Appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio program for the second time in as many days, Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin attacked the GOP’s presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, for joining a chorus of Republicans asking him to withdraw from the race. Akin said that Romney had blown the controversy out of proportion and implied that he had done so for his own political gain.
Hannity asked Akin, given the number of prominent Republican politicians asking Akin to drop out including Romney, if he is even pausing to consider leaving the Senate race in Missouri.
“Let me ask you this,” Akin began. “If you were in Romney’s position, don’t you think that he may have bid this thing up and made a bigger deal about it than he needed to?”
“Why couldn’t he run his race and I run mine,” asked Akin. “If things really look like they’re getting in trouble in Missouri than maybe — but he has just assumed.”
Akin went on to cite a Public Policy Polling flash poll from last night which showed him still leading Sen. Clair McCaskill even amid this controversy. Hannity pointed out that that particular poll sampled 9 points more Republicans than Democrats and it was a poor indicator.
Later in the interview, Akin said that he was contacted by Republican vice presidential candidatePaul Ryan who, according to reports, also asked Akin to consider dropping out.
It’s been more than a week since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, which is enough time to determine the extent of any bounce in the polls. At this point, the answer is that Ryan has helped in part, but it remains to be seen if he provides a more lasting upward movement in Romney’s numbers.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, says the task for Romney is to put the “pieces of the puzzle” together: the Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Washington suburbs and exurbs, along with the rural regions of southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and Southside. “The rural areas are still 20 percent of the vote in Virginia,” Sabato says, and the people there are conservative. The difference this year is that Republicans in these parts of the state are more motivated than they were in 2008. Maximum turnout among rural Virginians could make all the difference.
If those results stood up until November, Romney would win the presidency and the Republicans would probably take the Senate.
There were a pair of Wisconsin polls, with Romney ahead in the Rasmussen survey and Obama ahead in a CNN poll. The big difference is that Rasmussen polled likely voters and CNN found registered voters, so in this case I would say that the addition of Paul Ryan has probably affected the race. The president is ahead according to a Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania (registered voters) by 47-42%, but that margin represents a reduction from 11 points the last time F & M polled, so the Romney campaign will probably look to put more resources into that state.
The national tracking polls don’t really show a sustained bounce for the GOP. Gallup now has Romney with a 2 point lead, which is up from a tie late last week, but the Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama leading by 2. That represents a 6 point swing for the president who was down by 4 as late as last Wednesday.
In the end, the polling after Romney made the Ryan announcement has been mixed with some good news on the state front for Romney and a continued national lead for Obama. The Republican Convention provides our next opportunity to gauge the race and I would say that this is Romney’s biggest and best opportunity to introduce himself to the American people. If he does it well, he could see a 10 point bounce in the polls. Anything more would be gravy, but anything less would be seen as disappointing. In addition, unemployment figures will be released not long after the Democrats close their convention, and we know how both campaigns will use those numbers.
Enjoy the August doldrums. The excitement lies ahead.
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