Reaction to Romney’s Economic Speech: ‘All About Obama’, ‘Uniformly Negative’

Last updated on October 28th, 2012 at 09:50 pm

On the day when economic news should have dampened Romney’s dreams of using actual numbers to bash Obama in order to avoid laying out his own plan, Romney called the numbers showing that “the U.S. economy expanded at a slightly faster 2 percent annual rate” “discouraging.”

Despite promising that he was indeed finally laying out major economic news of a Romney plan, Mitt Romney stumbled his way through a stump speech attack on Obama that included no economic news, no specifics, but tons of negativity aimed at the President.

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Speaking at a campaign rally in Ames, Iowa, Romney failed to impress. Here’s a roundup of reaction:

Ali Velshi: “They said this was major economic news. There wasn’t a piece of economic news in it.”

Gloria Borger: “This wasn’t so much about, you know, specific policy prescriptions. Nothing new right now.”

Jim Acosta: “Yes, there’s not really a whole lot that’s new inside these remarks here, if you take a look at these remarks in terms of what he said out here today.”

Brooke Baldwin: “I didn’t hear a lot new in the speech. I’m guessing you didn’t hear much new in the speech either.”

Jim Acosta ‏@jimacostacnn Owner of Iowa company where Mitt Romney delivering speech on economy received stimulus funds: http://on.cnn.com/QKbZg9

ThinkProgress ‏@thinkprogress Romney makes closing economic argument at firm that benefited substantially from stimulus funds http://thkpr.gs/ScsELv

Sam Youngman ‏@samyoungman Looking at excerpts from Romney’s “major” econ address. Looks like his stump speech to me.

Ari Shapiro ‏@Ari_Shapiro Romney campaign releases excerpts of today’s “major economic speech.” So far looks a lot like the stump speech he’s been giving this week.

Benjy Sarlin ‏@BenjySarlin So….what’s the news in this major Romney speech so far.

Ali Velshi ‏@AliVelshi I’ll rejoin @SuzanneMalveaux on @CNN after Romney’s econ speech from. This speech isn’t delivering specifics.

Kathie Obradovich ‏@KObradovich Romney about 9 minutes into his speech and it has been uniformly negative in terms of bashing Obama. #romneyia

Molly Ball ‏@mollyesque So far Romney’s big speech on the economy is all about Obama.

Sam Stein ‏@samsteinhp With all the talk of bi-partisanship, has anyone asked Romney campaign if he still looks back at himself as a severely conservative gov?

Justin Wolfers ‏@justinwolfers Turns out that Romney’s “big economic speech” today, was just a placeholder, so that he could go on the attack if the GDP numbers were bad.

Jonathan Cohn ‏@CitizenCohn It’s been a while since I listened to a full Romney speech. Sort of awe-inspiring to hear all of deceptions strung together.

Eric Kleefeld ‏@EricKleefeld Mitt Romney delivers major economic speech, declares substantively that he loves America.

Molly Ball ‏@mollyesque Apparently difference between a Major Romney Address & a regular Romney speech is whether he enters to “Air Force One” or “Born Free.”

Elizabeth Drew ‏@ElizabethDrewOH There Mitt goes again: He will create the 12 million jobs that are going to happen anyway. Who is going to speak up?

Travis Waldron ‏@Travis_Waldron There was nothing major about that speech.

Poor Mitt Romney. Today, the Economist wrote, “Yet in the latest quarter America made its biggest contribution to world GDP growth since 2005 (excluding periods of global recession).”

Lis Smith, Obama campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement, “Romney has started promising ‘big change,’ but the only change Romney’s offering is to take us back to the same failed policies that crashed our economy in the first place. That’s not the change we need, and with every ‘major speech,’ Mitt Romney just reminds voters that’s all he’s got to offer.”

Why was Mitt so negative yet unspecific? Because his specifics spell doom for most Americans. The Economic Policy Institute concluded, “Romney’s policy proposals would reduce GDP growth by 0.5% in 2013, and by 1.1% in 2014. His spending cuts alone would reduce GDP growth by 0.9% in 2013 and by 1.3% in 2014.”

Yeah, that’s change you can believe in — Bushian, backward change. Only Mitt Romney would promise to deliver economic news in an allegedly major economic policy speech and then fail to deliver any news or policy.

After what Mitt Romney did to Massachusetts’ economy, it’s unclear why anyone thinks he could do better if he had a hold of the entire nation. Perhaps this is another reason why he fails to deliver specifics. The economy has a long way to go in order to continue its recovery, but backward isn’t advisable.

Irony alert: Romney gave this speech at a location that received Obama stimulus funds.

Sarah Jones

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