Mitt Romney is the master of his own campaign mess. He built it, and now he owns it.
The recent spate of bad news began and ended in Florida. According to The New York Times, Romney personally recruited and signed off on actor Clint Eastwood, whose empty chair routine dominated a night that should have belonged to the GOP nominee and his big convention speech in Tampa.
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To which I respond..."so what"? Pure "gotcha" journalism at its worst. So...Mitt has (heaven forbid!) changed his position on certain issues or points...and that indicates what, exactly? That his ideas can evolve? That when someone raises a valid criticism of a policy position, he is able to incorporate new strategies? Is this bad? Is it your theory that politicians must emerge from the womb fully formed, intellectually complete, and unchangeable? Or that no mistakes are permitted, ever, in a candidate's off-the-cuff remarks at fund raisers? If so, you have set a barrier so high that no candidate, not even your sacred Obama, can reach the threshold, and all will fall on their faces at certain points. Surprise, surprise! Politicians are mortal!
Rombo is 65--old enough to be "fully formed," ya' think? Problem is that he is totally changeable--a man without core values, willing to say anything needed to accomplish his goal.
What you regard as flexibility is no such thing. The person who leads this country must stand for something. Governor Romney appears to have no core values in the areas of policy and governance. He may be a great husband and father, and he certainly knows how to obtain and retain money, but he doesn't seem to believe in anything but himself.
I understand folks defending Mitt after all it is the nature of the political beast. Romeny folks defend Romney, Obama folks do the same. The sad part is when folks can't bring themselves to see what is right before their eyes. Why does Mitt want to be President? I don't mean policy, but what is in his heart what he believes in. Let's face it Mitt believes in money and in power and I suppose his place in history. Does anyone truly believe that Mitt cares about the poor or the middle=class. Nothing he says or does reflects that idea. I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I'm simply saying he doesn't care. And that is Mitt's problem.
It is this lack of any real purpose except winning that creates this what some derisively call flp-flopping. Mitt doesn't really believe in anything but Mitt. Everything else is sugar coating a way to accomplish the goal. I don't fear a Mitt Presidency there is nothing he really wants to do. I don't fear conservatives I have been on their side many times. No, what I fear is that Mitt can't stand up to the religious right and the Tea Party crazies and will end up taking this country backwards undoing every civilizing action that has been taken over the past seventy years. I do not want my daughters controlled by men. I do not want a nation that let's the old starve, the poor do without while the wealthy eat caviar. I do not want an endless war with the rest of the world.
No I don't vote against Mitt because of Mitt. I'll vote against Mitt because of the Republican Party.
did Pres. Obama keep any of his promises? Added $6 trillion to the deficit and he promised to cut it in half. Gutted our space program how sad it is to watch the USA hitching a ride with Russia & China's space journey's and taking $716 billion from medicare and giving it to medicaid (so much for helping the elderly) and the death panels which Sarah Palin was right...15 non-medical people will decide how your doctor will treat you. And he promised if the economy was not better he would not seek a 2nd term, I guess he & Michelle like riding around on Air Force One to give that up. It was so unpatriotic when Pres. Bush raised the deficit and he did it in 4yrs which took 8yrs on Pres. Bush's time. The one promise he made he should keep...not to seek a 2nd term...we are in more of a mess then when he started and he had full control of congress & the white house.
beantown - your comments would be a lot more compelling if they weren't just a random list of (easily disproved) talking points. Question one: who sets NASA's budget...
It would be a mistake to attribute too much of Romney's style to habits developed in a business career. The patterns of his self destructive choices are reflections of his character. His business career was aided by the same character that has been increasingly evident over the campaign. That character is defined by a massive blind spot when it comes to seeing and understanding feelings, both his own and other people's. There are undoubtedly facts that supporters will invoke, such as giving to charity, or nice gestures in one place or another, to refute that premise. Given the evidence to the contrary, those moments of generosity are more easily characterized as a very smart person "doing the right thing" because it is understood that is what to do. They do not offer evidence of a man able to empathize and respond to the human condition. While I agree that the Republicans do not offer a platform which reflects the type of society which I value, I also have come to the conviction that Romney represents a type of person who is inappropriate for the job. The fact that the system left us with a person like this as the final choice is a poor reflection on the process.
Here is more "evidence to the contrary" to support some of your points. This is great article an tends to give the reader some pause because it contradicts much of what we were led to believe about Romney' signature attribute: his managerial ability to do business and improve people's lives:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
He certainly does not deserve a vote for president .
what type do you value? The one that writes bills and sign them without knowing what's in them...Nancy Pelosi and friends done behind close doors (21 new taxes). Promising freebies and amnesty for votes and how do we pay for them...print the money and cause inflation? Bows to the environmentalists (butterflies have influence are more important then jobs). The best one is "you didn't build your business" Of course it was Pres. Obama working the 80hrs aweek and mortgaging your house to start it up and if successful...he wants the unions to control it and tax you to oblivian. After all Elizabeth Warren says that also, but then she makes $375 thousand per year to teach one course...and they wonder why there are high college costs...Two clueless people both had everything handed to them...affirmative action is great.
Your description of Romney compared to a consultant is so accurate. I worked for a prestigious consulting company for 27 years and their clients hire them for the purpose of direction (management) and "product" winning sales (engineering) which can vary many times before getting to the right ones. It's an exciting world but certainly not appropriate for the direction of a country which needs consistent stability by being on the right track with a solid foundation. Romney flip-flops so much, it's difficult to keep up with him, and observing his support staff is comical based on the direction(s) they continue to travel. I cannot imagine this kind of varied decision-making applied to world-wide applicatons of running a country and the consequences.
and you think Pres. Obama is running the country, with high unemployment and more on food stamps and the middle-east is burning. I think Mitt Romney would have more sense then to run off to a fund raiser in Las Vegas while our consulates are burning and ambassador & others are murdered...talk about who is clueless or money hungry Pres. Obama wins hands down. I haven't heard Joe Biden bragging Osama is dead and GM is alive (but owes taxpayers $24 billion and shareholders were stiff for union payback) lately.
Mrs. Vennochi is a nice lady. Her pen, however, is filled with poison ink. I cite the following. "Campaign mess - bad news - petty and political - super rich - consultant mindset and the last canon shot, multiple choice and supposedly business experience! May I suggest the writer was just having a really bad day? In recent weeks Mrs. Vennochi has given readers good reason to question her own judgement and rationality? Reading her assessment of Romney and her total disconnect with the facts of 4 years of Obama foreign and domestic policy disasters suggests she needs a very long vacation. She may next descend into that shallow pit of morass filled with writers who repeatedly use playground name calling like "Tea Party crazies" and "neocon right wing nutsies". Alarming ideas such as starving the poor while the "RICH" eat caviar are thrown out like a poisonous cloud to frighten the masses into voting for a megolith government. May I suggest that writers who believe 4 more years of the same old thing will change the jobless economy and tragi-comic foreign policy of Obama are doomed to grave disappointment? Why keep on driving on that flat tire that is destroying the vehicle America's future is riding on?
I would like to see one critical review of the past week for Obama. Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, Fast and Furious, jobs, housing, manufacturing. Obama has a bad week every week and all you look at is Romney. No wonder 60% of people do not trust the MSSM (Gallup)
I'd like to see you write a comment explaining Romney's position and defending it. Just once.
Dear Joan, the $6,000,000,000,000 ($6 trillion with a T) Obama wants to spend over 10 years, minus $700 billion Obama wants to tax rich people at the expense of crushing new jobs, equals an 'additional' ten-year deficit of $5,300,000,000,000 ($5.3 trillion with a T). Dear Joan, guess who gets to pay the $5.3 trillion that Obama is not making rich people pay: The middle class pays it! YOU pay it! Enough of your pathetic propaganda and outright lies. Anyone who can do 4th grade math can figure out Obama brings a world of hurt. No union in this country can protect you from what is coming if Obama gets back in. But thanks for the misinformation and propaganda, as always.
Mr User, perhaps it's useful to consider another 4th grade math problem. Do you honestly believe that taxing the wealthiest Americans at a rate of 40% is "job-crushing?" During the 1960's, a golden economic era for this country, the maximum rate was closer to 70%. Mitt paid 14% on about $14 million in income during 2011 only because he didn't take the maximum charitable deduction (doing so, he could have gotten closer to 10%). Do you think that was an accounting oversight or a more political decision to maximize job creation (for Mitt, at least)?
Dear Occasional writer. Critical budget authorities agree that taking every penny every "rick" person has will not pay our debt nor will it create the Utopian society existed in those sixties. Perhaps your history lessons omitted that little blossum called the Vietnam War. Dollars to donuts you aren't old enough to know anything first hand about the sixties. Believe me, there wasn't anything remotely golden about them.
Occasional- I would suggest that you don't understand the historical statistics as easy as you can reference them. For starters, hint: no one paid the printed rates due to the loopholes!! Reagan reduced the rates and killed the loopholes. Tax rates went down, but tax revenues went up. You either understand this or you don't. There is plenty more...
Really? I'm also dull enough have missed the fact that Mitt and his crowd aren't paying a 30-40% rate, either. Couldn't be because the vast majority of their income is from investments, which are already taxed at a significantly lower rate, could it? But that's not a "loophole," it's an "incentive." Uh huh...
Those, like the author, who question whether the president should have focused on health care reform clearly have no understanding of how difficult it is outside the Commonwealth. For shame.
as usual fair and balanced Joan send me a note when she can relate to the con man we have now for pres.Hope and change on that Joan
Did it ever occur to some of you we may not love Obama, we may not even dislike Romney. We however do not like the conservative agenda, the religious right, the anti SS, Medicare, Veterans Benefits drift of your proposals. Perhaps it is merely a question of not being willing to allow the crazy right to run the country. Mitt might be fine but unless the nutty house goes I'd never vote a Republican President.
Why????? Remember no salary as governor or president of Olympics and gives millions to charities. You would have voted for tax cheater John Kerry who tried to stiff his own state. You would have voted for Ted Kennedy who left a girl to drown and did not report the accident for 10 hrs later...you would vote for him? I thought you would vote for the best person like JFK said, not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country....too many want the government to do for them...bring back JFK he had that one right.
That's your reason, He's charitable. What does Kerry or Kennedy have to do with this election. You quote JFK well I spent my time in the Nam where did you hide out. What have you done for your country. You probably don't even want to pay your taxes. These types of comments are nothing but vindictive and add nothing to the discussion. What does Romney propose that I should support. This comment is your idea in talking me into voting for Romney. This is exactly why I despise today's Republican Party. I left it after RR brought in the religious right and the crazies and Iwon't go back until I get my Republican Party back. The one with a brain.
Pres. Obama received 95% of the black vote and lets face it, they will still vote for Pres. Obama and Mitt Romney is not counting on their votes. So what is wrong saying so. Plus the hispanic vote Pres. Obama received and lets also face that fact most will still be voting for Pres. Obama, after all he granted amnesty for 2 million illegal children and their families...it is just a matter of time that they will go ahead of the line where people have waited many years legally to come to this country. Romney was not lying about where 47% of the vote is going. And all the freebies promised (remember the stash one of his voters was looking for, no more mortgage or car payments) & free contraceptives for women, they cannot afford the $10.00 Wal-Mart charges, but like Sandra Fluke can afford to go to Europe with her boyfriend.
Fluke paid for the health insurance so the contraceptives aren't free. Keep insulting minorities they'll be the majority in four to eight years then how do you win an election. You had a great list of things you don't like about Obama. Now why should I vote for Romney.