Money Boo Hoo: Romney Blames Obama for His Flailing Campaign

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 01:59 pm

Mitt Romney told the press that his campaign is failing because of Obama. Romney’s failing has nothing to do with his Libya debacle or his 47% comments in his mind, rather it’s Obama’s fault for running “inaccurate ads” and “fooling people” about Romney’s beliefs.

Obama is the reason he is failing in the polls and why he can’t campaign as much as he should. It’s all Obama’s fault for “trying to fool people into thinking that I think things I don’t.”

Speaking to reporters on his private plane, “Mr. Romney blamed his relatively languid campaign schedule — five public events in the past seven days, compared with 11 fund-raisers — on the president’s decision to opt out of the federal campaign finance system four years ago, and criticized Mr. Obama for, he said, ‘trying to fool people into thinking that I think things I don’t.'”

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What is Obama misrepresenting? Romney claims that Obama is misrepresenting his positions on the auto industry, abortion, and his tax plan. Apparently, Mitt Romney thinks he was for the auto bailout, as he told Michigan after he wrote the op-ed titled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”.

Romney claims that Obama misrepresents his position on abortion, because he has “said” that he believes in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. The problem is that he ALSO said that he supported the Personhood Amendment that specifically does not provide any exceptions. Also, as pointed out by the Obama campaign, the Republican Party platform does not make exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. The only person who brought national attention to this issue is Republican Todd Akin, courtesy of his “legitimate rape” comments that highlighted the “human life amendment” (in line with the Personhood Amendment) in the Republican Party platform.

As for Romney’s tax plan, he hasn’t been specific regarding what loopholes and deductions he would get rid of, but independent analysts have determined that the only way his budget works is if he raises taxes on the middle class and poor. Is it fair to say this when he won’t tell us the details? Perhaps the more pertinent question is if it is fair for Romney to withhold the details of his tax policy while running for President.

Romney claimed repeatedly that he is being misrepresented. “I think that the president’s campaign has focused its advertising in many cases on very inaccurate portrayals of my positions. They’ve been very aggressive in their attacks both on a personal basis and on a policy basis.”

It’s hard to know how the most damaging things – Romney’s failure to release his full tax returns, his Libya presser and the secret tape of his 47% comments – could be Obama’s fault or have been misrepresented by anyone. Romney was in full control of his presser, and it was his own poor judgment he needs to blame for that. He knew he was going to run for President and yet he never addressed how he would deal with the expectation that presidential candidates release 10 years of their tax returns. As for the secret tape, a person running for President should know better than to speak so disparagingly of half of the country in public. But the real problem is that Romney’s disdain for 47% of the country is reinforced in his policies; it wasn’t a gaffe.

Romney called for Obama to stop running false ads, when in fact, Romney has been running his Welfare to Work ad — the most egregiously false ad this campaign season — relentlessly, and when asked why they continue to run it in light of it failing fact checks left and right, the Romney campaign defiantly announced that they would not be dictated to by fact-checkers. This may have been a rare moment of honesty from the Romney campaign.

Yet no one saw Obama in the wings forcing Romney to tell in his pre-taped 60 Minutes interview that his big idea for America is “freedom”. Hard to blame that on the President. Nor did Romney explain how self-deportation, taxing the poor, and defunding Planned Parenthood and the Department of Education equals freedom.

Speaking of banal and yet vague “big ideas”, Romney’s freedom rings close to the South Carolina beauty queen who said: “I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh…people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and…I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our…”

Romney also told 60 Minutes that his campaign was not in trouble, but today, he told the press that it was Obama’s fault he was in trouble. Even Fox News could not spin Romney out of this mess, and the most withering criticism is coming from his own party. Mitt needs to man up.

Someone needs to tell Romney that whining is not Presidential, and blaming others for his failures is also not what we expect from a leader. This is becoming increasingly embarrassing… Romney needs to stop trying to “reboot” and “respark” his campaign, and instead start looking for an escape hatch.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

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