Tag: Campaign 2012
Caught on Tape: Romney Says Half of Americans Are Lazy Free Loaders
Mother Jones has obtained secretly recorded audio of Mitt Romney at a fundraiser earlier this year with other 1 percenters in which he describes half the U.S. electorate as government dependents:
MITT ROMNEY: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
He also said, “[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Paul Ryan Is Pushing Romney to Shift Campaign Focus from Economy to War on Women
The fact that the weak employment report for August did not notably depress support for Pres. Obama has spooked Mitt Romney’s campaign about its all-in “it’s the economy, stupid,” strategy for the 2012 election. According to a report from Buzzfeed Politics, Romney’s teavangelical vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is urging the campaign to pivot to social issues, including the GOP’s efforts to put government in charge of women’s reproductive decisions:
Hate Group Spokesman for GOP Base: Romney Has Put a ‘Bag Over Ryan’s Head’ and a ‘Sock in His Mouth’
The fringe dwellers that comprise the Republican base met in Washington this week for the Values Voters Summit, which is sponsored by the Family Research Center, which is on the hate-group list maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At the conclave, FRC spokesman Bryan Fischer launched the campaign to pre-blame a Romney-Ryan loss in November on Mitt Romney’s insufficient ideological purity — but note how he uses analogies based on kidnapping and violence (or, more aptly perhaps in Fischer’s case, BD-SM):
Wrong, Mitt, George W. Bush, Not Pres. Obama, Was America’s ‘Apologizer-in-Chief’
With his poll numbers sinking, Mitt Romney took desperation action earlier this week by falsely claiming that the U.S. Embassy in Cairo had issued a statement expressing sympathy for protesters who were agitated by a YouTube video allegedly produced by right-wing anti-Islamic activists in the suburbs of Los Angeles that besmirched the Prophet Mohammed.
The lie that Pres. Obama went on some sort of “apology tour” has been debunked multiple times.
The embassy issued the statement at 6 a.m., East Coast time, before the protests in Cairo had turned violent. After 10 p.m. in the East Coast, fully 16 hours after the Cairo embassy’s initial statement — during which Team Romney had plenty of time to deliberate and discuss what to do — they issued a statement condemning the embassy for expressing sympathy with “those who waged the attacks,” even though they knew the attacks had not begun when the embassy released its statement.
In a subsequent press availability, Romney deliberately used the word “apology” or variations of it five times to describe the embassy’s statement — which did not include the word “apology” or any variation or sentiment thereof. During the news conference, Romney also made it clear that he held Pres. Obama accountable, not only for the embassy’s “apology,” but for anything and everything anyone who worked for administration said:
Sullivan: Romney’s Mishandling of Murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Is More Proof He Is ‘Unfit for Government’
The obvious responsible thing to do when American citizens and public officials are under physical threat abroad and when the details are unknown, and events spiraling, is to stay silent. If the event happens on the day of September 11 and you are a candidate for president and have observed a political truce, all the more reason to wait to allow the facts to emerge. After all, country before party, right? American lives are at stake, yes? An easy call, no?
But that’s not what the Romney camp did. What they did was seize on a tweet issued by someone in the US Embassy before the attacks in order to indict the president for “sympathizing” with those who murdered a US ambassador after the attacks. Unfuckingbelievable.
Religious Right Voters in N.C. and Virginia Are Uneasy about Romney’s Money and the Mormon Church
North Carolina and Virginia are both large swing states — the tenth and twelfth most populous states, respectively — where the political polarity between left and right could not be more extreme. Both states are home to millions of multiethnic white-collar liberals and moderates, most of whom live in the urban enclaves, as well as roughly the same numbers of rural, white evangelical voters who hold extreme, often fantastical right-wing views.
Thirty-five percent of voters overall, and the same proportion of lower- and middle-income white Bible Belt voters, say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon.
Pres. Obama won both states in 2008, but in the current campaign, it has become conventional wisdom that he will likely lose North Carolina and win Virginia — although these predictions are not supported in the most recent polls. A PPP survey released on Monday found the president up by 1 point — 49 percent to 48 percent — in North Carolina, while a local poll in Virgina found that Romney was up by 4 points there, 49 percent to 45 percent.
In most states where polling is close, the race will be decided by moderate swing voters, and while that is true for the most part in North Carolina and Virginia, the Romney campaign has an additional worry: an evangelical base with a generations-deep suspicion of outsiders, especially those of different faiths, including Jews and Muslims, of course, but also Catholics and Mormons.
Reuters has been in the field in Virginia talking with white Bible Belt voters and found that many of the say they are concerned about Mitt Romney’s wealth and his religion:
