Tag: Mitt Romney

And Then There’s the One About the Factory Closing

Buck Banks

On the Mitt Romney Comedy Tour, er, presidential campaign, the candidate has earned a reputation for having a tin ear when it comes to what a rich white billionaire thinks is funny (firing people, acting like women he’s taking a photo with grab his ass, wearing mom jeans, etc.) and what average people who actually need a job think is funny.

Romney’s latest standup gig, er, campaign appearance, was in Wisconsin, where he told what he considered to be a real ripper:

Talking by conference call with thousands of Wisconsin voters Wednesday, Mitt Romney told them he had a humorous connection to their state.

But it didn’t take long for “funny anecdote” to become “campaign fodder.”

Romney’s story involved the time more than 50 years ago that his father, George, an American Motors executive, shut down a factory in Michigan and moved the work to Wisconsin.

“Now later he decided to run for governor of Michigan, and so you can imagine that having closed the factory and moved all the production to Wisconsin was a very sensitive issue to him, for his campaign,” explained Romney, who described a subsequent campaign parade in which the school band marching with his father knew how to play Wisconsin’s fight song, but not Michigan’s.

“Every time they would start playing ‘On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin,’ my dad’s political people would jump up and down and try to get them to stop, because they didn’t want people in Michigan to be reminded that my dad had moved production to Wisconsin,” said Romney, laughing.

Romney will probably be telling jokes at a venue near you sometime between now and November. If you are a Republican, please laugh politely.

Why Jim DeMint – or a White Evangelical Southern Male Like Him – Will Be Romney’s VP Nominee

Jon Ponder

It is all but a dead cinch now that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president this year, not because he accrued the delegates he needs — he hasn’t — but because the campaigns of his two closest rivals have imploded.

Newt Gingrich’s sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Venetian and Sands casinos in Las Vegas, recently announced he was pulling the plug on the Gingrich campaign. Gingrich is “at the end of his line,” Adelson said in informal remarks at a Jewish Federation of North America event in one of his casinos.

Rick Santorum inadvertently revealed that he knows his campaign is over — a revelation he has not shared with his donors or supporters — in an interview on Pat Robertson’s televangelical “news” network. Asked if he would be willing to be Romney’s running mate, Santorum said, “Of course. I mean, look. I would do in this race as I always say, this is the most important race in our country’s history. I’m going to do everything I can.”

Wrong answer. The correct answer would have been, “Fortunately, I’ll never have to make that decision, because I am going to be the nominee.” Thanks for playing.

The likelihood Romney would choose Santorum as his running mate is zilch — and not just because Santorum lost his last Senate race in Pennsylvania by double digits or because the Obama campaign would have a field day producing ads showing Romney’s running mate shaking an Etch-a-Sketch, describing Romney as “uniquely disqualified,” a “well-oiled weather vane,” “bland and boring” and a “bully.”

But that’s just one reason the Romney campaign won’t choose Santorum. The other reason is that Rick Santorum is a Catholic.

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Romney: I Don’t Care About Millions of Uninsured Americans with Preexisting Conditions

Jon Ponder

Everybody knows that when Mitt Romney said, “I don’t care about poor people,” the quote was taken out of context. What he actually said was that he wasn’t concerned about the poor because he believed the government’s social safety net would take care of them. (It’s tempting to quibble with that — after all, his party is doing its best to shred that safety net. See the Paul Ryan budgets for this year and last, for example. But that’s another matter.)

On the “Jay Leno Show” on NBC last night, Romney made a similar statement. about uninsured Americans who have preexisting conditions this time — and this time his apathy about their fates is clear, even when read in context:

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One-Word Impressions of the GOP Candidates

Buck Banks

Remember the old word-association game where I would say a word and you would say the first word that came to mind? Pew Research did much the same thing in a new poll that elicited “quick, off-the-cuff public impressions” of the GOP presidential candidates.

Predictably, they are mostly unflattering:

For Mitt Romney, the overall number of people citing money or wealth has soared since late last year, with mentions of his religion way down. His top five in the new poll are “no,” “rich,” “good,” “Mormon” and “moderate.”

The top five for Rick Santorum: “conservative,” “no,” “good,” “OK,” and “crazy.”

For Newt Gingrich: “old,” “no,” “idiot,” “untrustworthy” and “dislike.”

1,556% – How Much Etch A Sketch Sales Are Up in 24 Hours

Trish

Etch A Sketch

What’s all bad for Mitt Romney is all good for the makers of the Etch A Sketch. In the time since Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom opined the following on CNN, sales are through the roof.

“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s like Etch A Sketch; you can shake it up and we start all over again.”

Romney, of course, has been accused of doing a lot of starting over, so the Etch A Sketch reference might not have been the best one to make in discussing the candidate’s strategy. But knowing this guy is a Romney “adviser” explains a lot about why the Republican front runner can’t seem to go a whole week without some kind of whopper blooper. Lord help us if he wins and takes this talent global.

But some positive is coming from Ferhnstrom’s remarks.

Although the Etch A Sketch — available since 1960 — had the biggest percentage increase in the past day, it ranks just number 91 among all toys Thursday, up from number 1,507.

Sales figures aren’t the only numbers to elevate. Etch A Sketch makers Ohio Arts Company saw its stock triple Thursday morning, Bloomberg reports.

We suggest that Romney’s folks check the Amazon listing for the magic drawing machine. When we did, we found the image shown.

Romney Praises Bailing out ‘Too Big to Fail’ Banks, Credits Bush with Saving U.S Economy

Jon Ponder

The teavangelical base of the Republican Party are going to love this latest assertion from their party’s putative nominee:

Mitt Romney offered an unprompted defense of the 2008 Wall Street bailout on Wednesday, crediting President George W. Bush and the preceding administration for averting an economic depression.

Answering a question during a campaign event in Maryland, Romney both condemned the 2009 bailout of troubled automakers engineered by President Obama while praising the Troubled Asset Relief Program authorized in fall of 2008 to prop up the financial services industry.

“There was a fear that the whole economic system of America would collapse — that all of our banks, or virtually all, would go out of business,” Romney said. “In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said we’ve got to do something to show we’re not going to let the whole system go out of business. I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that.”

Romney: The Etch-A-Sketch Candidate

Jon Ponder

American Bridge PAC:

Today top Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom said of Romney’s transition into the general election campaign:

“It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.”

While the quote may have just been uttered today, Mitt Romney has “shook and erased” his views on the issues over and over again in Etch-A-Sketch fashion.

Dog on Car Roof Apparently Not an Issue

Buck Banks

68%

Of registered voters polled said they think that in general, it is inhumane to put the family dog on top of the car, compared with 14% who said it’s humane and 18% who weren’t sure, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey. However, when told by pollsters that Mitt Romney had done so, 55% said it didn’t affect which candidate they would support, while 35% said it made them less likely to support Romney and 7% said it made them more likely to support him.