Posted on 10/18/2011 1:55:48 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
I think it's safe to say the Romney campaign is going for the kill with its latest attack on Rick Perry. The former Massachusetts Governor has already gotten a fair amount of mileage out of attacking his Texan rival from the left on Social Security, and from the right on immigration, but this new spot strikes at the heart of the Perry campaign's raison detre -- jobs, jobs, jobs:
The Facts --Mitt Romney's political ad
[snip]
The spot's most striking image is a tumbleweed blowing along a deserted Texas highway. That's rich. It's intended to create the impression that Rick Perry's Texas is something of a depressed ghost town. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since the recession began, desperate job seekers have flocked to Texas at a clip of roughly 1,000 people per day. And they're finding work, too. Despite a huge population influx and a bruising national recession, Texas' unemployment rate remains below the national average. How remarkable has the Lone Star State's economic performance been? Read this Political Math analysis (written by a self-professed non Perry supporter), and marvel. One telling data point:
This chart depicts what Texas' unemployment rate would be if three-quarters of a million people -- many of whom were jobless -- hadn't barged into the state looking for jobs during this recession. Texas absorbed all of those folks, and still has an unemployment rate nearly a full point below Obama's national average. The data presented also dismantles other challenges to the "Texas Miracle," including the claims that most of state's new jobs are very low-paying, and that Texas' "luck" is predominantly due to a florishing oil industry.
But what about George Stephanopolous' assertion that nearly two-thirds of Texas job gains were in the public sector? First, that statistic cherry-picks certain years out of Perry's tenure as Governor. Fine. Second, the fact remains that over the last full decade, Texas has netted more private sector jobs than the other 49 states combined. In the last five years, Texas was responsible for 73 percent of all job growth in America. During that same period, the similarly-situated state of California lost over a million jobs:
And what to make of the ad's eye-opening statistic regarding illegal immigrants? Have illegals really accounted for almost half of Texas' job growth since 2007? The Texas Public Policy Foundation examined that figure, and found it badly wanting (The rest of the piece picks apart the CIC study in even greater detail):
[CIS used faulty methodology to make its main point. It compared a net increase in jobs in Texas over a four-year period with a gross increase in employed newly arrived immigrants in Texas. This is truly an apples-to-oranges comparison; it is as if a report claimed that Google is a larger company than Apple because its market capitalization of $162 billion exceeds Apple’s annual revenues of $100 billion.]
In short, Romney's new ad is dubious on the details, and laughable in its overall narrative. Perry's biggest problem, frankly, is that he seems incapable of consistently, specifically, and succinctly pushing back against these misleading numbers when he's confronted with them -- both in interviews and debates. That's not a minor shortcoming, it's a monumental weakness -- especially since the Democrats are preparing a vituperative and relentless smear campaign against the eventual nominee. If Perry's support were holding steady, and if he'd proven adept at fluently defending his record, running this sort of ad might make more sense. Instead, it comes off as an borderline desperate attempt to bury a candidate who seems to be in the process of burying himself. Not the Romney campaign's finest moment, I'd say.
[snip]
Romney’s Troubling Appointments (Mitt's environmental policy team now works for Obama) ......."Significantly, two of Romney’s appointments have how found a home in the Obama White House.....Gina McCarthy, the chief EPA clean air regulator,.......Another Romney environmental adviser in the effort to regulate “greenhouse gases” is now Obama’s Director of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren."........
Romney’s Advisers Met With Obama to Help Craft ‘Obamacare’ “Three of Mitt Romney’s advisers went to the White House at least a dozen times in 2009 to consult on the former Massachusetts governor’s health care plan that President Obama used as a model for his initiative -- now a federal law that all the Republican presidential candidates want to repeal."....
......"It's a "pattern time and time again," said senior campaign strategist David Axelrod. "It’s consistent with a guy who ran for the governorship and the Senate in Massachusetts as a pro-choice moderate who supported civil unions and environmental protections to the guy you see today hard after the Tea Party vote who has thrown all his positions over.” If "you are willing to change positions on fundamental issues of principle, how can we know what you would do as president?" asked Axelrod.
The Democratic National Committee has already established a YouTube channel called "Which Mitt" which highlights his Mitt-flops."..................Source
1 minute Perry campaign video: Carbon Copies Romney: "That plant kills people!"
...according to his standards, Romney himself used to be a “radical” environmentalist who supported clean energy policy and opposed a pollution-backed economy. Back in 2005, Romney told the Boston Globe he was “convinced” that cap and trade was “good business.” It was his administration, in fact, that helped guide the development of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap and trade system in the Northeastern U.S. that has raised $860 million for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
In 2003, Romney fought to protect public health by supporting environmental controls on a Massachusetts coal plant that was responsible for dozens of premature deaths and 14,400 asthma attacks each year, according the Harvard School of Public Health. Announcing new regulations on the coal pollution, Romney said that he would “not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people”:
I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people. And that plant kills people and PG&E has been given a notice to have it cleaned up by 2004 and they have thumbed their nose at the people of Massachusetts and Salem Harbor by not cleaning it up on time. So we’re saying, clean it up on time, do the job in the community, invest in cleaning technology.
One has to wonder where the old Romney went. According to Seth Kaplan of the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, the old Romney disappeared while he was still governor of Massachusetts, posturing for the presidential election in 2007.
“You could see the flip starting to happen then – whether it was directly related to his running for president, you can’t say for sure. But they happened at the exact same time,”... Source
Mitt sucks.
Bump!
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Tonight is Perry's night.
What’ll you do if Milt gets the nomination and picks Ricardo as his running mate?
I KNEW there was a sense of humor in there somewhere.
It won’t happen.
Texas will be exactly like California within five years. Did you see the Generals taken to the woodshed by the Commie Hispanic congressmen from Texas yesterday, for reporting the truth about the border?
He’s already said he’d consider him. You need to catch up.
Now you want an standing O for your humor.
Not gonna get one.
But I appreciate your trying.
So if the illegal job comparison is “off” then you ought to provide the REAL numbers. What are they? Tell us. How many of those “jobs” account for illegals if it’s not 50%?? I, for one, can tell you that I can leave my house in Houston, go shopping all day at several different places (not even including Fiesta) and never here ONE FREAKIN’ WORD OF ENGLISH..... Stopped to get my kiddo a Happy Meal the other day and the cashier asked the little black (not hispanic) boy in front of us if he wanted “pappas” with his burger. The boys was like “huh”? I had to bite my tongue really hard.... THANK YOU RICK PERRY! Get ready, you keep kissing that punk’s rear and you’ll be just as much to blame if he’s elected and turns us into Mexico. YES, HE IS TO BLAME because he WANTS illegals here and takes money from businesses who HIRE THEM ...
It is amazing why Romney is still obsessed attacking Perry even with lies such as this ad, when according to the polls, most pundits, and many others Perry campaign is finished. Why does not Romney attack Cain the front runner and his main rival? Also why does not Cain attack Romney? Very interesting indeed but many of us know the answer to these questions.
Riccardo Perry, who led last month, dropped to 6th with a whopping 5%. Another state (along with Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida) where the $17 Million Man is running behind Michele Bachmann.
But, let's see if I have this right: Rick Perry is the only Republican that can stop Romney and beat Obama. I guess if you tell yourself enough, you believe it.
There are some very LIBERAL politicians in Texas that are carrying Obama's and Napolatano's water on this. And will lie in the face of the evidence under their noses.
btw - California is going to be asking US to bail them out because they won't do what Perry says.
This is how you "create" jobs -- you create an environment that is friendly to employers!
Rick Perry:
FIRST: "Don't spend all the money!"
SECOND: "Have a fair and predictable tax and regulatory policy!"
THIRD: "Have a legal system that doesn't allow for over suing and make loser pay!"
In Campaign 2012, Web sites are the new real estate
"On Aug. 15, two days after Perry launched his campaign, Obama’s campaign spent $3,958 at GoDaddy.com. At least 70 domains containing Perry’s name were bought on the same date."
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The Left always lets you know who they fear the most.
Herman Cain today:
"The biggest problem I have with Governor Romney, who I respect, is him trying to say that he is the non-politician, business candidate," Cain said. "I am the true non-politician, business candidate in this race. He was a Wall Street executive. I was a main street executive. Because I dealt with individual businesses."When asked if Romney was a Christian, Cain refused to answer, saying he was focusing instead on his opponent's platform.
"I want to basically defeat Mitt Romney based upon the strength of my ideas versus his," Cain said. "I think I've got a strong plan relative to his, as well as strong ideas about the other issues we face."
Good enough for me. Of course, if you mean by "attack" that Cain should insult him personally (and I suspect you might), it won't happen -- and shouldn't.
..............Every month, about 4 million jobs turn over in the United States because of workers’ leaving to take a better job, retiring, being laid off, and because of corporate restructuring, bankruptcies, etc. Texas’s share of this natural churn is about 320,000 jobs every month. During the last four years, this meant that more than 15 million jobs have been filled. Additionally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that during this time Texas created 5,627,328 new jobs while shedding 5,348,238 existing jobs. If an immigrant changed jobs four or five times during that four-year period, filled four or five of those 15 million jobs. That doesn’t mean he was holding four or five jobs at once, or that every job filled by an immigrant represents a new immigrant in a new permanent job. The number of jobs filled is much larger than the number of new jobs created.
TPPF’s detailed response can be seen here. We point out that trying to draw conclusions about immigration and employment in Texas in isolation from other factors is problematic at best. Texas has a strong job-creation record as compared with the nation as a whole. This record is not only affected by immigration, but also by domestic migration (781,542 Americans moved to Texas in the past decade while 1.5 million moved out of New York and 328,695 moved out of Massachusetts, artificially holding the latter states’ unemployment rate down while increasing it for Texas), the effect of extended unemployment insurance on workers’ willingness to accept new employment or move in search of work, and by the dynamics of business creation.
TPPF contends that Texas’s record of job creation is due to low state spending and taxes, a predictable, low level of regulation, and strong property-rights protection, a sound civil-justice system, and minimal dependence on — or interference from — the federal government. These policies benefit Texans, as well as people who decide to move to Texas from other states and from other countries.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279607/cis-and-texas-immigrant-job-myth-chuck-devore
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