From the right, as noted earlier by David, the WSJ (with superb piling on here from the NYT):
The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it’s Mr. Obama’s fault. We’re on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that “Obama isn’t working.” Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President’s policies aren’t working and how Mr. Romney’s policies will do better.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is assailing Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch rich man, and the rich man obliged by vacationing this week at his lake-side home with a jet-ski cameo. Team Obama is pounding him for Bain Capital, and until a recent ad in Ohio the Romney campaign has been slow to respond.
Team Obama is now opening up a new assault on Mr. Romney as a job outsourcer with foreign bank accounts, and if the Boston boys let that one go unanswered, they ought to be fired for malpractice.
From the left, Krugman rises to the moment in the NYT:
Just to be clear, outsourcing is only one source of the huge disconnect between a tiny elite and ordinary American workers, a disconnect that has been growing for more than 30 years. And Bain, in turn, was only one player in the growth of outsourcing. So Mitt Romney didn’t personally, single-handedly, destroy the middle-class society we used to have. He was, however, an enthusiastic and very well remunerated participant in the process of destruction; if Bain got involved with your company, one way or another, the odds were pretty good that even if your job survived you ended up with lower pay and diminished benefits.
On the other hand, he did raise $100 million last month — that should pay for some more $990 t-shirts for Ann — and at least the 39 percent of American families with dogs aren’t concentrating on Seamus strapped to the roof for one news cycle.
Discuss
27 Comments . Leave a comment below.Considering Fox News made a big stink out of the expenses of protecting the First Family on vacation abd anything The First Lady wears I am surprised nobody is running with this. Remember the stink over Swiss cheese Kerry or the $500 haircut Edwards got? This is the stuff Howie used to love bashing but only if there is a prominent D next to the name. Maybe it’s just less hypocritical for the party that openly admires Ayn Rand, derides true Christian compassion as socialism and feels that corporations are people too. Obama must feel like Jon Lovitz’s Dukakis sometimes “how could I lose to this guy?”. Now if weak kneed (and Wall Street enriched) Dems like Booker, Rendell, Clinton and our own Governor can STFU already about Bain we can hammer richie rich and win back enough lunch pails to keep OH, WI, PA and MI and maybe take MO.
…my reaction to Romney going jet-skiing is a big WHO CARES? One’s choice of recreation and whether it matches what I do for fun is hardly a reason for me to vote one way or the other. The logical conclusion arising from such complaints is to take a poll like the Clintons did to determine where to vacation which is stupid and unnecessary. Personally, I prefer candidates acknowledge who they are than try to be someone they are not.
The ratio of record-hot to record-cold events for the past few years stands at TEN TO ONE. During the 1950s and 1960s, it was about even (which is to be expected). In the 2000s, it increased to two to one. The consequences of our irresponsibility are unfolding all around us RIGHT NOW.
Against this backdrop, the jetski is the EPITOME of self-centered greed. It spews CO2 into the atmosphere, while accomplishing NO purpose other than the gratification of its rider. It is loud and intrusive. Lake Winnipesaukee (where that picture was taken) is a beautiful, pristine and mostly quiet place filled with loons, fish, and wildlife.
That image is a potent symbol of all that Mitt Romney and the GOP stands for. I hope the Obama campaign fully exploits it.
My gosh, the biggest pigs of energy are limo Al Gore and John SUV Kerry.
Tell Obama to trade in his plane which was designed back in the 80′s when gas was a $1 a gallon, and opt for a Gulfstream. So sick of hypocrites telling me I must do with less while they live high off the hog.
because the lake I know is covered with powerboats and there is even an almost ship, the Mt Washington. Every available inch of shoreline is covered with houses, docks and the like. There are amusement parks and water parks. Have you ever been to Weir’s Beach? I guess I not wealthy enough to visit your section. I stayed at the Naswa last time I was up there.
You really need to get off your high horse every once in while.
“No purpose other than gratification of the rider” What? That sounds like dozens of pursuits, not only jet skis, but snowmobiles, ATVs, motorbikes, sports cars, boogie boards, even bicycles and horses.
You remind me of this:
“What kind of a cause is that,” asks the sly Molina, “a cause that won’t let you eat an avocado?
Actually, the part of the lake I know is around Gilford, Elacoya State Park, Rattlesnake Island, up into Alton Bay. Yes, I have been to Weirs Beach, many times. Take your ridiculous horsemanure elsewhere.
You sound like a jet-ski rider to me.
so I will take that into consideration when you make other points.
I am not a jet skier. I am a normal person however.
Republicans like Mitt Romney — and even Reagan — run as symbols of American success. They don’t really have to make a display of modest means; they only have to prove that they’re not contemptuous of the typical American.
Democrats, by contrast, run as representatives of American hopes and values. So Democrats have to show that through and through they share the values of the typical American and understand her hopes.
That’s why jet skiing by Mr Romney is not an issue at all, but windsufing by Mr Kerry symbolically at least called into question how well he could represent Everyman’s dream.
I didn’t understand the flap about Kerry wind surfing and I don’t really understand the flap about Romney jet skiing. I really wish our presidential election campaigns were shorter….
and Michelle Obama is in the news more than Ann Romney so that more stuff will accumulate.
She is considered a major fashion icon, including her $540 sneakers
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/michelle-obama-wears-silv_n_193138.html]
I like your selective reports Bob_Neer. I got this info from your link above. You could be in the MSM with your parsing the facts to fit your narrative.
I actually like Michelle and I don’t care what she wears, but fair is fair. I defended her regularly in 2008 when people I know brought up her $350K salary. I responded by saying if she worked at a law firm she could be making a $1M “so what?”.
Romney’s rich. If people don’t vote for him it’s probably because he’s a stiff, and it’s more likely that it was his Mormon background, rather than his wealth that made him that way.
Mitt Romney is running a Charlie Baker type national campaign, no bold ideas, one saved Harvard Pilgrim, Mitt saved companies, blah blah.
I cringed at the jet-ski photo b/c Ann was driving and Mitt was the passenger. Did anyone else notice that?
Obama is taking a page out of the Pat Buchanan play book, saying how he puts American jobs first. Obama hitting Mitt on his wealth reminds me of Pat telling his supporters to get their pitchforks and storm the kings castle. Very smart of the Prez to do this in Ohio. Pat must be smiling.
Bob, you just can’t help yourself with Seamus. Every time you mention Mitt’s dog, you know I will remind you how Obama ATE DOG when he was a young lad, and expressed no regret. Also, Clinton killed his own dog for failing to restrain Buddy in a safe zone or properly train him. Is Clinton, with all his money, too cheap to install a fence at his mansion? Then again, you love the ambiance of Fenway Dump, the sore neck one gets trying to watch a game there, the waffle imprint you get on your butt by sitting in those seats, the bad shoulder you end up with b/c the guy next to you is over 200lbs and bleeds into your personal zone.
I think that’s a pretty good up-summing. And, of course, we all know how that worked out.
We live in a 51:49 country and the electoral college math (driven by demographics) is working against Romney. 8 and 12 years ago Bush could barely make the numbers work and it’s only gotten less Republican-friendly.
There’s no room for bold plans or new ideas, and Romney can’t talk about adding spending or cutting spending (in a meaningful way) or increasing taxes. Even talking about cutting taxes falls on deaf ears when you consider how much the bottom 50% pay in federal taxes. Also in general most responsible people know that cutting Federal taxes is not a good idea (I don’t even think the 2% SS cut was a good idea).
All the other idea areas- education or competitiveness or the like are out of style with the economy #1
So Obama says “stay the course” and Romney says “change the course” and hopes that something breaks his way. What else was he going to do anyway?
I have been predicting an Obama win for months. Republicans take the Senate and hold the House though.
… and picked their candidate based on resume instead of the person. “He has both government experience as a chief executive AND private sector experience as a chief executive! He knows how to make lots of money!” But they forgot about the campaigning part, and the communication part, and the fact that a lot of the American electorate likes to sort of *like* the person they vote for in a presidential election.
It’s the same kind of mistake the Democrats made in 2004 by picking John Kerry based on his resume instead of stopping to think what kind of candidate he’d be in a long, grueling national campaign where he’d have to appeal to a much wider cross section of people than in the election he won before.
Romney is simply not a very good candidate. Yeah he can raise boatloads of money, and that does matter. But has also trouble connecting with people and he has mishandled things that really should have been anticipated — his personal finances, the similarities between the Affordable Health Care Act and the plan he signed in Massachusetts.
Romney is not an economic theorist. He doesn’t have to be a transformative leader. If the country wanted that, Newt or Ron Paul would have won. Romney will probably win just on the sputtering economy, so he’s not going to take chances.
Romney’s economic team is basically from the Republican establishment, any new ideas will come from the congress.
Not what we need.
The truth is we only have two candidates to pick from, and in that case the one who is less bad is the best choice.
We should be suspicious about anybody who says they can turn things around with one idea. We got into this mess because we believed that some wizard behind the curtain can pull levers and make our economy go. If it was easy they would have done it already.
We have a divided government with checks and balances. That does not appear to work when one of the parties decides to check out of the process.
Republicans do not appear to care about the economy – they have checked out. They don’t want to make it better – in fact, their platform is to not do anything because they are arguing that doing anything will make it worse. Oh wait, I forgot – and “tax cuts”.
The American public needs to wake up to that. I think they will.
If Mitt Romney’s campaign is “I’ll do better”, I think he will lose.
How many votes did Obama’s own budget get? Has Harry Reid even passed a budget in the Senate? Talk about checking out, they were never in the game.
At least Paul Ryan has a plan and votes backing him up.
Would building XL Pipleine help or hurt the economy? Does wasting dollars on alternative energy companies help or hurt the economy? Does having gas prices low help or hurt the middle class families?
.
that let month, more people (85K) became eligible for a gov’t disability than new jobs created (80K). Me thinks we are in an economic death spiral, no?
With business prospects so bad, the central banks pump money to keep things looking like they are growing. It’s no substitute for having real policies which create real growth in products.
Keystone XL then looks economical but only in the context of commodity prices going up wildly.
Then in the past few months the gold price fell, the oil price followed, but things didn’t get better — a classic monetary deflation. Then a bunch of people banking on continued inflation get whacked.
Who knows what is a good investment long term, where to put your money, when you can’t be sure what the central bank will do with the value of the dollar? When the dollar becomes a major part of what determines which products win and which ones lose, then how does the average business decide whether to invest in one thing or another? The answer is they do nothing, just hang onto the money and hope to ride it out.
Pushing the entire nation toward default last summer was really the most idiotic example of petty politics I can remember for a long time. It was an action based on spite and ignorance that hurt the whole country and set us back relative to the economic competitors that you rightly note are out there, and would gladly sweep away both Republicans and Democrats.
Have you seen this?
I bet nobody thought twice about it when they saw the Romney family driving on the highway with Seamus riding high.
I don’t know about today but for the longest time, people did not have to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle in NH. You see much of a difference?
n/t
As a commentator once said of Thomas Dewey, “never before has a candidate run on the platform Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. And our future lies ahead”, Romney, like Dewey, is betting that simply being a safe alternative is enough. Romney, like Dewey, is also saddled with right wing base that despises him and the baggage of an unpopular Congress. Now its time for to give em hell Barry!
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