Posted on 08/01/2012 1:50:42 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - Former governor Mitt Romney returns from his overseas trip this week to resume talking about a four-letter word that's been missing from Barack Obama's vocabulary: jobs.
His mid-election trip abroad hit some bumps in the road but nothing of any consequence that's going to become an issue in a campaign year that is totally fixated on Obama's recession-teetering economy.
While Romney was gone, the nation's barely breathing economic growth rate slowed to virtually comatose levels -- 1.5 percent in the second quarter with bleaker forecasts for the next three months in the 1 percent range.
Life in Obama's economy, now in its fourth year, is going to get worse. The Labor Department's report this Friday is expected to continue an unbroken string of puny monthly jobs numbers that will keep unemployment rates above 8 percent for the rest of the year and next.
While the nightly network news shows devote their air time to the occasional gaffe or irrelevant stories about the ups and downs of the marathon race, voters were worried about more important things: finding a full-time job, talk of impending layoffs by year's end, struggling with declining incomes.
This week, the Gallup Poll released a revealing survey of which issues concern Americans the most. Incredibly, none of them draw much attention on the nightly news or from Obama's campaign.
At the top of the voters' list of priorities: creating jobs, reducing corruption in the federal government, and four straight years of $1 trillion-plus budget deficits. Make that 5 years. It was announced this week that Obama's budget deficit will be over $1 trillion in 2013.
What are the issues at the bottom of the voters' list of that elicited their least support? Global climate change and raising taxes on wealthier Americans. The two issues that the network news shows and Obama's campaign spend a lot of time talking about.
But the American people know better and must shake their heads in dismay at the often nebulous network news menu that is dished up each night -- carefully avoiding any issues that might make Obama look bad.
Tens of millions of Americans are suffering from Obama's economy. The Gallup poll proved that in a new nationwide survey Tuesday that delivered another dose of bad news to the White House.
"Americans' economic confidence declined last week to -29, erasing all improvements from the previous week and matching levels not seen since early January," Gallup said. "Republicans' and independents' confidence is at its lowest levels of 2012."
The economy is now clearly in a nose dive and all Mitt Romney has to do is convince a majority of Americans -- especially in the battleground states -- that he knows how to put America on a faster growth track to begin making jobs plentiful again at all income levels.
This means strengthening his campaign -- now in a dead heat with Obama -- in several strategic areas that remain weak. Among them:
-- Romney's career accomplishments still remain largely unknown. He needs to run TV ads that tell his story which is a compelling one that is just right for our times.
He was governor of a state with a hostile, big spending Democratic legislature that had driven itself deeply into debt when the dot-com bubble burst. He signed hundreds of vetoes to slow spending, balanced the budget, created a rainy day fund, and left office with a low unemployment rate of 4.7 percent.
-- He hasn't effectively told the story of his job-creating business investment career, giving him the skills that are needed now more than ever in an economy where jobs are severely in short-supply.
Over 25 years as founder of Bain Capital he's helped build dozens of successful businesses that are household names today, but were tiny enterprises before he came to their rescue:Staples, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Sports Authority, Toys "R" Us, Domino's Pizza and Sealy, to name a few.
This in turn helped create thousands of jobs across our country.
He not only knows how to do this but understands the economics behind its success: Making venture capital plentiful again, setting policies that encourage investment in small and large businesses, and creating a climate of confidence for risk-takers and new business formation.
-- He needs to talk to the American people directly in TV ads where he looks into the camera and tells voters how he can pull us out of this recession and set the country on the road to full recovery.
Americans know a phony when they see one and the difference between an untested, inexperienced politician who has never run even a lemonade stand, let alone a big job-creating behemoth as Romney has.
-- He especially needs to devote more of his campaign ads to the task of simply explaining his agenda for growth and jobs. Chief of among his plans:
1. Cleansing the federal income tax code of loopholes and corporate welfare, and permanently lowering the rates to boost investment, business expansion and confidence in the future.
2. Breaking down barriers to full energy independence, by encouraging more drilling for oil and gas in areas the Obama administration has put off limits. Thus, boosting oil supplies and lowering gas prices. Approving the Canadian oil pipeline to the Gulf which will create 20,000 new jobs.
3. Reauthorize fast track trade negotiating authority to open up new export markets for made-in-America goods and services around the globe.
4. Apply the brakes to out-of-control spending that has driven us to the brink of insolvency, sapping the productive vitality of our economy, and wasting hundreds of billions of tax dollars that need to be retained in the private sector for job-creating expansion.
Romney has spent his life in preparation for the huge leadership tasks that await him to unleash the full power and creative energies of a free economy. Now he needs to convince the American people he can lead us out of the jobless, poverty-stricken nightmare of the past four years.
Romeny’s “Rope a Dope” strategy seems to be working to me. I would expect what we are seeing until labor day.
Romeny’s “Rope a Dope” strategy seems to be working to me. I would expect what we are seeing until labor day.
He better get started kicking butt or he’s gonna loose.
A gagging puff piece to make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but right on the money if Romney thinks he can win this while stubbornly remaining mute on all of those supposed glories of his in MA. Maybe he is waiting to sink a little in the polls to justify putting a conservative on the ticket, in time for the Republican National Coronation, ......er,.... convention. Otherwise the applause will be minimal and forced.
So he needs to put on a show when no one is paying attention to please some bloggers...why?
Obama’s blowing through tons of cash and getting marginal results, while Romney readies himself for a counterattack.
If his campaign isn’t stupid, they’ll strike back hard as summer ends and the silent majority type in the public starts paying attention.
People who are staying on top of things now are likely to have made their minds up already anyway.
They did. You guys decided to piss it away looking for Mr. Purity.
Congrats!
Right on the money.
People think he's deliberately being low-key; but that is the Republican brand working. Easy-peasy milquetoastery is their brand, their style, their stock-in-trade. Republicans never get mad: They're the Biblical mushmouth people, who are neither hot nor cold (on purpose!), the people the Nazarene spat out every day He lived on earth.
Mitt the Mush is almost exactly a description of the essence of GOP politics. -- well, not essence, but essentially its public face.
True, plus he’s not the nominee yet and the convention isn’t until the end of August. So far he is the “presumptive” nominee.
They did not, and we did not. But you know the real story, so why did you post this snark?
Congrats!
Malice noted, snark declined -- RiNO.
“He gave conservatives the finger, so many of them are not voting for him. If the gop had just left the voters to choose and not “gave” it to romney before the primary, we would have gotten a real conservative”
Conservatives didn’t have enough brains to hold a pre-primary convention, pick a candidate and back him or her. We have Mitt because conservatives don’t know how to organize. The entire primary process was a circular firing squad where different factions ripped apart every conservative candidate who dared to show his face. That’s why you have Mitt.
One by one, you conservatives took down Bachmann, Caine, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum with your vile rhetoric. With me just mentioning their names, I’m sure I’ll attract lunatics telling everyone how bad each of them were. Well, all were better than Mitt. Suck it up, boys and girls, you got your choice and its name is Mitt.
You’re getting exactly what you deserve in Mitt. Now we have to make the best of a bad situation and hope that we elect enough patriots and conservatives in state and local elections to take the country back.
I'd sure like to see that change by the end of the convention, by golly!
Tea Partiers just partied all over the Establishment in Texas yesterday ..... when was the last time the GOP convention ran away? Bolted? Stampeded?! Now, that would be fresh air, you betcha!
Yeah, very fresh. Then we'd have a candidate that did not win enough primary elections for consideration.
Romney was not in my top 3 or 4 choices, but if that's the hand I'm dealt I'll play it and try to get Ted Cruz into the Senate.
They did not, and we did not. But you know the real story, so why did you post this snark?”
So Florida was some rigged election?
Yeah, didnt think so.
Romney ran some negative ads, and the so-called right dumped on Newt as not being 100% perfect while the rest ran scared.
Romney wins Florida, stopping the momentum from South Carolina.
THAT is what happened.
If Newt had won Florida, we wouldn’t be talking about Romney.
Nuts. Romney BOUGHT the nomination, with Establishment support. THAT is what happened.
Bought?
So he put a gun to the people in Florida and forced them to vote for him? Did he pay them off? Did he have fraudulent votes cast?
We have Mitt because conservatives don’t know how to organize. The entire primary process was a circular firing squad where different factions ripped apart every conservative candidate who dared to show his face. That’s why you have Mitt.
You're right we did not know how to organize. Then you had the candidates who were not really running, but trying to water down the vote. The gop protected romney, helped him cheat (I have proof if you need it) and pushed him through there cohorts in the media. As we all talked about here, Bain owns Clear Channel & if you want to keep your job, apparently you better toll the line. All these so-called conservatives gave up there principals for money.
There are conservatives who feel like they have no choice but vote for romney, but can't stand him and know he is a liberal. There are also a lot of conservatives who have had enough of the gop. We know the cheating that went on; do you do that to someone who you respect? All the gop and romney want from true conservatives is to shut up and vote. They can ...
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