Mar 21 2012
Romney Campaign Admits To Being All Snake Oil
Flim-flam artists are gifted in telling people what they want to hear in order to gain their trust – and then steal that trust. Usually it is in the form of money, but in politics it is in the form of votes. Team Romney has come out of the closet and admitted they are the penultimate ‘say anything to get elected’ type we on Main Street have come to loathe:
He defended Romney’s appeal to a broad base when asked if he’s concerned that, under pressure from Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the candidate is tacking too “far to the right” in his positions and therefore alienating moderates.
“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes,” Fehrnstrom said, and compared the change to an Etch A Sketch.
I warned Team Romney they would lose if they ever created the impression they were not able or willing to support some basic ‘keep out’ promises. And here we are less than 4 weeks later and they step into it up to their eyeballs.
All this means is Romney’s commitments don’t last beyond the sunset on the day he gave them. His team is prepared to say anything to win. And Team Romney wonders why no one is rallying to support him? I have said it many times – if he is just a faint version of slick talking, no meaning Obama he will lose and lose big.
More of an idiot you become. Typo
Tea Party, dbostan. Tea Party. And if you don’t think that we will light up the congressional phone lines like a bonfire you underestimate the power of those who mean business regarding the state of affairs now.
It is up to US to keep the congress and the president in line….
And really, aren’t we all tired of the EYEORES aka nattering nabobs of negativity bashing everything republican? The survival of Western Civilization LITERALLY depends on Romney winning in November. Honor Andrew and jump on the train to victory! As he said he did not care WHO the republican candidate is, just win in November.
A mitt supporter must either be a willful dupe or seriously deluded. End of discussion. Snake oil indeed.
Layman I have no clue what happened and I am sorry it took me so long to get back to it
MarkN
Really?
Defending the indefensible?
Or, is it more defending the reprehensible miscasting that is going on towards Romney by people, like yourself, who are robotic ABR enthusiasts?
Vividly stupid and stupidly vivid. Random act of honesty. Even Etch-A-Sketch issued a press release. The DNC had powerful web ads within hours. Barry baby said Mitt is just “pretending” that Romneycare is different from Obamacare. Mitt is completely unelectable. Put a fork in him, he’s done. Only the blindly loyal GOP crap weasel establishment types will vote for him now.
Snake oil indeed.
I like this site because of the intelligent analysis. Even if I disagree with someone I can at least appreciate the cogent points they make (Hi RT).
However, it seems that a few self proclaimed conservatives have become name callers. They’ve have forgotten that thoughtful expression of ideas is one of the distinguishing attributes of conservatism. Name calling and adhominem attacks are ususally the realm of liberals because they “feel” their way through arguments.
Forget Rick and Newt: next time someone in their campaigns says something stupid I’ll attach it to them and play like I’m in 3rd grade – calling anyone who disagrees with me an idiot.
Layman, I had problems with moderation when I used the word s-o-c—i-a-l-i-s- t without the dashes, but I notice you didn’t use that word, I didn’t see any words that should have triggered moderation. I agree with your first paragraph above. Most of the commenters on this site do state some good opinions, some of which I even agree with. I don’t see much name calling. I try to use humor to tease some of the people I don’t really agree with and they usually take it well.
Why oh why do all these talking heads keep pushing Rubio for VP?
People, there are actually some natural born citizens that are available for the job. As in born in the USA with two citizen parents. O’Reilly, Hannity, now Jeb Bush. Can’t these people read or do they now think that just because one got in, it’s now ok to open the door?
What is this country coming to?
Another blast from the past for our “anointed”and “severely conservative” candidate-Romney:
“Shocker: As Governor, Romney was fine with high gas prices
As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney apparently wasn’t all that concerned about rising gas prices. In fact, he viewed them as a net positive that would encourage conservation and get people to abandon their automobiles in favor of biking or walking. Naturally, he was also on the climate change bandwagon and he even predicted in 2005 that so-called clean energy was poised for “explosive growth” over the next decade.”
http://www.therightscoop.com/shocker-as-governor-romney-was-fine-with-high-gas-prices/
Gee, what a surprise.
This is how the Romney-Obama campaign will go down:
TRENDING: Obama says Romney’s ‘pretending’
(CNN) – Mitt Romney is “pretending” the health care plan he instituted in Massachusetts is different than the national plan, President Barack Obama said.
In an interview with Public Radio International that aired Thursday, Obama pointed to the similarities between the two plans, without mentioning the Republican frontrunner by name.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/22/obama-says-romneys-pretending/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_politicalticker+%28Blog%3A+Political+Ticker%29
Why can’t people be truthful when trying to make a point? Here’s a quote from Ann Coulter’s most recent column “Mitt Romney was governor of a state so blue, it’s North Korea with more Irish people, and he balanced the budget without raising taxes. ”
That is just flat out a lie. Let’s assume that she wanted to say something ‘similar’ but wanted to do it without ‘lying’ She could have said: ” and he balanced the budget without raising taxes, instead electing to raise all residents ‘fees’ by 5%, thereby keeping his promise to not raise taxes, just call it fees. ”
Income that residents of a state pay to the government are normally referred to as taxes, changing terminology does not change the facts. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc.
Coulter has really destroyed any credibility she had. I used to be a fan, but when anyone starts deliberately lying just to push a point of view, is just a little too much.
dbostan: “and he even predicted in 2005 that so-called clean energy was poised for “explosive growth” over the next decade.”
So? he’s got 3 years left to have this ‘explosive growth’ . you skeptical or something?
The green power group has just got to figure out how to make the wind blow when the sun is not shining.
The question is why so many intelligent people can not keep their objectivity when they become invested in a candidate.
That’s why I am not emotionally involved with any of them.
We had enough of the rah-rah GOP uber-alles during the Bush years, and look where we ended up…
I want to ask everyone a question here.
If you come into governance of a state having a deficit in place, with an even larger one on the horizon, how do you balance the budget?
Now there are a few obstacles in place in this scenario: you have an 85% legislature who want no cuts to their programs; you have a health care policy in place that is wrecking fiscal havoc on the state; and you’ve promised not to raise any taxes.
So, what does a person do, in light of all this inherent opposition to any fiscally conservative ideas? How do you work around such limited perimeters in bringing a state back into fiscal balance?
In thinking through this problem, this is what Romney had to deal with in MA. The odds there were mind-numbing, at least for me. But, some of you guys are on a relentless treadmill, degrading him for not pulling down a miracle of balancing the budget with no negative side effects (such as higher fees) for anyone….as if you could have done any better!
The man worked with the hand he was dealt. And, I, for one think he did an admirable job!
As for that quote floating around about gas prices…Romney felt that cutting out taxes to address the gas price hikes was window dressing for the problem at hand, and that it was better to just watch your gas consumption. It’s the same trick being pulled today, in dealing with the economy, to put little bandaids on big problems: i.e. suggesting we go into the gas reserves for lowering prices; extending UE benefits to “help” the unemployed stay afloat; have tax holidays on collecting for SS in order to increase take-home pay. They are all little gimmicks which offer no long range solutions.
That was the point Romney was making. But, per the norm, it is being distorted and used to dovetail into our current gas price increases. Cheap shots, but apparently effective with the crowd who already has an ax to grind with Romney.
jan, good question. First answer that comes to mind is; be honest.
If you have promised not to raise taxes and you know that you have to, then you just say to the people. “look, I said I was not going to raise taxes, but I need a lot of income to balance the budget so I’m gonna raise your taxes, but I’m going to say that I’m only raising ‘fees’. True it’s an exercise in smoke blowing, but at least I can claim I’m not raising taxes but we’ll get the money and call it by a different name”. Then when I run for president down the road, I can ‘claim’ I didn’t raise taxes and I will fool some of the people some of the time.
I really don’t care if Romney did a good job in Mass or not, it’s up to the people of Mass to make that judgment. If they were happy with the results and really don’t mind paying all those increase in ‘fees’ then I sure don’t care if they pay the increased fees.
I guess my real issue with Romney is that he is just a plain average run of the mill politician saying what he thinks the people want to hear and hoping that it advances his cause. If and when he gets elected, he will then do what he thinks will make him popular and keep him in office. That’s what a politician does and that’s what Romney is. Yes, a lot of people want to ‘think’ he’s a business man and he has been, but that was a long time ago, he has been politicing basically non stop since about 1992, that’s about 20 years.
It’s looking more and more as if Romney is going to be the nominee and I will support him but I don’t expect much along conservative lines, I fully expect him to be a big spender and attempt to get his brand of Romneycare into the federal system. Of course he’ll pretend that he really feels like it’s what is best for the country and we really need to do it just this one time. Big thinker, big spender.
I beg to differ, red. In the private sector where he had control, from what I have read, Romney slashed budgets in order to save the companies from bankruptcy. Some didn’t make it. Many did, as far as I can tell. Why would he not do the same as President, if we give him the power, ie, senate and congress?
Jan, excellent points. The RNC needs to read your post.
And, I am DISGUSTED by Santorum’s remarks yesterday. Typical, imho. The man comes from a place of negativity, imho.
The Mittbots are getting desperate with their etch-a-sketch candidate. They are trying to spin the IL 12 point win as closing out the primary with Jeb and DeMint coming aboard. But the IL primary just matched the demographics of the race. It change NOTHING.
The LA primary tomorrow IS a game changer. The polls suggest that Santorum is gaining on Romney’s demographics in the suburban, urban and non-evangelical areas as well as the somewhat conservative demographic. Romney has owned the somewhat conservative voters and if Santorum wins those tomorrow and keeps Romney under 25%, it could change the race in ways that the elected political class does not want to deal with.
Both the MS and AL races followed the established demographics of the race with Santorum outperforming in AL but not changing those demograhpics. Tomorrow in LA, Santorum has a chance to change the demographics of the race, and see if he can carry that result to WI on April 3rd.
AJ: your clocks are still set for standard time. I know that daylight savings starts way too early…..bureaucrats.
Romney’s response was desperate. The MSNBC story is journalistic malpractice at its worst and you Mittbots fall for it at your own peril.
Rick was talking about independents and democrats who voted for Obama in 2008 and are looking for a change. His point was that he is doing better against Obama than Mr. Etch-A-Sketch because he offers a contrast, a difference that Mr. Etch-A-Sketch does not. So these independents and democrats would think that why take the risk switching to Mr. Etch-A-Sketch when I could just stick with Obama. Romney will lose the General Election big time and Santourm has a chance to sway the soft Obama voters by offering a stark contrast in vision and programs.
Don’t believe MSNBC or NBC. Anyway, if you read the whole NBC story they contradict their headline near the end.