Tag: Mitt Romney

Paul Ryan’s ‘Biggest Boosters’ and ‘Senior Republicans’ Send Signal That They Expect Romney to Lose

Jon Ponder

Professor Ryan?
Professor Ryan?
On her MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow reported that off-the-record comments by sources close to Paul Ryan and high in the GOP ranks appear to signal that Republicans in high places are anticipating that Mitt Romney will lose the presidential election on Tuesday.

Maddow suggested that the anonymous comments from the Ryan camp this week were ominously similar to anonymous comments made to the media as the presidential campaign was drawing to a close four years ago by pro-Sarah Palin conservatives — comments that, according to Maddow, citing an anonymous senior official from the McCain campaign leadership team, caused a rift between Palin and John McCain in the last week before the 2008 election. (McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, is an MSNBC contributor and McCain senior advisor Nicolle Wallace is a frequent guest on the network.)

Here is the statement about Palin to the New York Times from a supporter that created agita for McCain and his senior management team at the end of October 2008:

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CNNMoney: Obama is Now Officially a Job Creator

Trish

Newly released employment numbers show two things.

1. Pres. Obama is a job creator.

2. Mitt Romney needs a new strategy.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The U.S. economy now has more jobs than it did when the president took office in January of 2009.

Economist: ‘The stimulus did what it was expected to do. We are on a path to recovery.’

With the addition of Friday’s fairly strong jobs report, plus upward revisions over the last couple of months, there are now 194,000 more jobs than there were in January of 2009, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And the number could be even higher once more expected revisions are released. Last month, the Labor Department released a statement saying it likely under-counted jobs created in much of 2011 by around 386,000. Those are preliminary figures that could still change when the final data is released in February.

But by either measure, Obama can now be called a job creator.

“The stimulus did what it was expected to do,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, referring to the $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts pushed through by the president in early 2009. “We are on a path to recovery.”

Not Invited to Romney’s Convention in Tampa, George W. Bush Gives Speech in Mitt’s Cayman Islands Off-Shore Tax Haven Five Days Before Election

Jon Ponder

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Passive-aggressive, much? Having been disinvited from Mitt Romney’s convention in Tampa earlier this year, George W. Bush opted to go to the Cayman Islands — a locale made infamous during the presidential campaign as one of Mitt Romney’s tax havens — to give a speech yesterday.

The fact that Bush chose to go to the Caymans, of all places, five days before his would-be predecessor faces election, is a majorly unreported story, primarily because Bush’s staff imposed a news blackout onto coverage of Bush’s speech:

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Romney Ends His Television Ad Campaign As He Began It – With a Brazen and Cynical Lie

Jon Ponder

What we have learned about Mitt Romney as a person during this election cycle is that he embodies the cliche of a politician who will do or say anything, no matter how vile, false or degrading, in order to win.

Nothing is more emblematic of Romney’s Nixonian corruption than the fact that he has chosen to open and close his general election advertising campaign with a pair of ads based on spurious lies.

The intentionally deceptive ad that launched Romney’s television campaign showed then Sen. Barack Obama in a video clip from four years ago quoting a statement from the campaign of his 2008 Republican opponent John McCain: “If we talk about the economy, we’ll lose.” In the 2012 Romney ad, the quote was deliberately taken out of context to make it appear the president was speaking during the current cycle and referring to his own campaign.

It’s hard to imagine a more cynical abuse of the public trust in presidential campaign advertising — except for the ad the Romney campaign is running now.

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So Much for the Rumors — Bloomberg Endorsed Obama

Trish

bloomberg

You heard the speculation this week that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to let Obama assess places destroyed by Hurricane Sandy because he is rooting for Mitt Romney and didn’t want to give the president any photo ops. Looks like the rumors were wrong.

Bloomberg, who had previously said that he would not make a public endorsement in the 2012 race, apparently changed his mind after New York was pummeled by Hurricane Sandy…

Bloomberg’s endorsement comes as momentum for Obama seems to be building as the race ends

“The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief,” Bloomberg wrote.

“We need leadership from the White House — and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks,” the mayor continued. “His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants…which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.”

He then went on to praise President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education initative, his defense of a woman’s right to choose, and his support for marriage equality, noting that “I want our president to be on the right side of history.”

But, Bloomberg added, it’s not just that he likes Obama. It’s also that he doesn’t like Romney.

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Huckabee, Who Once Called Romney’s Church a ‘Satanic Cult,’ Now Puts Out Ad That Says, Vote for Mitt Or You Will Go to Hell

Jon Ponder

In 2007, when he was running against Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries, Mike Huckabee, the evangelical Baptist preacher and former governor of Arkansas, suggested that Mormonism was a “satanic cult,” based on an assertion that it is part of the cult’s dogma that Jesus and Satan were brothers.

Now Huckabee is out with a pro-Romney ad that warns voters that if they do not vote for Romney, they are bound for hell.

Partial transcript:

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GM Joins Chrysler in Calling Romney’s Jeep Ad a Lie

Jon Ponder

logo-gmCBS News:

For the third time in a week, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the auto industry are at loggerheads, this time over a Romney radio ad implying that GM and Chrysler are expanding production in China at the cost of American jobs.

The ad claimed that “Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they are planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China.”

The accusation drew a dismissive response from a GM spokesman, who explained, “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.”

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Blind Obedience and Mitt Romney

Helen Radkey
photos-joseph-smith-mitt-romney
Joseph Smith and Mitt Romney

Mormon blind obedience

Since the days of the founding “prophet” of Mormonism, Joseph Smith Jr., presiding officers of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) have mandated obedience to Church officials. The LDS Church is a patriarchal religion rooted in the traditions of the Old Testament. Unquestioning loyalty to LDS leaders is an immutable demand placed on Church members — and a fundamental characteristic of Mormonism.

LDS authorities believe they have a divine right to impose their will upon others.

Mormon culture emphasizes the need for members to be obedient to the authoritarian control of Church leadership. LDS authorities believe they have a divine right to impose their will upon others. A member cannot be considered a good Mormon unless he or she is subservient to LDS leaders and demonstrates compliance with Mormon teachings. Mormons may insist they sustain Church officials on a voluntary basis, but if they do not conform to the directives of their leaders, they may be judged to be in a state of apostasy.

Blind obedience compels the subordination of individual LDS Church members to the hierarchical superstructure. It is the invisible glue that binds the LDS Church and the principal ingredient that fuels the wealthy and powerful Mormon machine. Questioning the edicts of LDS authorities is viewed as subversive behavior that undermines religious faith. Blind obedience keeps Church members in check, via an uncomplicated, orderly world, where dissent is largely prohibited and Mormons obediently do as they are told — a psychological pattern generally valued above critical thinking by faithful Mormons.

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Romney Campaign Treats Mitt Like McCain Campaign Dealt with Palin – No More Interviews before Election Day

Jon Ponder

photo-mitt-disheveledIn 2008, the McCain campaign figured out early on that their vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was incapable of giving an interview to actual journalists, as opposed to the pretend ones on Fox, and so canceled all her prospective interviews in the run-up to the election.

There is a similar dynamic at play in the 2012 election. The Romney campaign has learned from experience that when Mitt does not have a teleprompter in front of him or a long stream of memorized talking points — in other words, when he speaks extemporaneously — disaster ensues. They spent all of August and September cleaning up messes he had made.

So now, with less than two weeks before the election, they have quietly announced that they are treating Mitt the way the McCain campaign dealt with Palin — other than reading speeches off teleprompters at campaign rallies, Romney is going dark … until after he’s elected?

How will this work if Mitt becomes president? He is even more gaffe-tastic than Bush, but even worse, he won’t have anyone remotely similar to Bush’s “brain,” Karl Rove, guiding his every political move in the White House.

For now, Pres. Obama and the First Lady have a heavy schedule of interviews lined up with the network anchors, MTV and others.