Romney tries image makeover, stressing empathy for average Americans
Mitt Romney speaking to supporters in Toledo, Ohio Wednesday / AP Photo/Rick Osentoski
(CBS News) TOLEDO, Ohio - Although the message may not have been written on a cue card, the Romney campaign took a page out of the 1992 playbook of George H.W. Bush on Wednesday, launching a new charm offensive meant to appeal directly to those who were turned off by his comments at a private fundraiser about "the 47 percent." The message: I care.
Faced with his own image problems in 1992, the first President Bush made a now-infamous gaffe on the campaign trail when he mistakenly read out loud the stage directions on cue cards given to him. "Message: I care," he declared.
With new polls showing that more Americans view the current Republican nominee less favorably after hearing him call Mr. Obama's supporters people "who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims," Romney spent much of his day on Wednesday trying to project an image of empathy for the average American.
His campaign released a one-minute ad that shows him speaking directly into the camera. He even went so far as to cite the health care law he passed while Governor of Massachusetts as an example of his compassion for those in need."Don't forget - I got everybody in my state insured," Romney said in an interview with NBC News. "One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record."
The comment marked a rare public embrace of his signature health care law, which is considered by many to have been a road map for the president's Affordable Care Act. Shortly after making the comments, Romney offered a sharp rebuke of the president's law during remarks at a Toledo rally, saying he would "repeal Obamacare and replace it with real health care reform."
Romney has spent much of the past week struggling to overcome a negative impression left by comments he made at a private fundraiser and captured on video, in which he said, "There are 47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."Taking full advantage of the opportunity, the Obama campaign launched an ad with Romney's remarks on Tuesday. In the ad, an announcer says, "When Mitt Romney dismissed 47 percent of Americans for not pulling their weight, he attacked millions of hard working people making 25-, 35-, 45 thousand dollars a year."
Picture shows a softer side of Mitt RomneyComplete coverage: Campaign 2012
The Romney campaign responded with an ad of its own Wednesday, talking about Americans who are struggling. "Too many of those who are working are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to make falling incomes meet rising prices for food and gas," a somber Romney says to the camera.
Romney tells the audience that both he and Mr. Obama care about the poor and middle class, but says it is his policies that will make things better for both groups.
"We shouldn't measure compassion by how many people are on welfare," Romney says in the advertisement. "We should measure compassion by how many people are able to get off welfare and get a good paying job."
This message of Romney-the-empathizer carried over into Romney's stump speech on Wednesday. Speaking in Toledo on Wednesday night, the Republican nominee told the crowd that he meets struggling Americans all across the country.
"Most people that you see have some real challenges in their life of one kind of another," he said. "I understand that."
Romney acknowledged that the government can play a useful role in helping those who are in need.
"We have people that are hurting, we have people who are disabled and people who are poor, they need our help and they receive our help," Romney said. "We're a charitable people." But at the same time, Romney said, "We're going to insist that these people have the opportunity for work if they can carry out work, if they're able-bodied. Because we are not going to create a society of dependence on government."
In response to the new offensive, the Obama campaign sent an end-of-day statement titled "Romney's 'empathetic' rhetoric doesn't match up with reality."
"Mitt Romney is working overtime to rehabilitate his image after being caught writing off half of all Americans to a room of high-dollar donors. But his warm and fuzzy rhetoric doesn't match up with his policies, principles, or priorities," Obama for America Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter wrote in a statement on Wednesday night.
"In fact, while Mitt Romney held up the Massachusetts health care law as evidence of his empathy for people, minutes later he promised to repeal Obamacare, which is modeled after his own law," she wrote. "It's not empathetic to deny affordable health coverage to tens of millions of Americans, allow insurance companies to discriminate against Americans with pre- existing conditions or charge women higher premiums than men because of a pregnancy. It's troubling that Mitt Romney thinks it is."
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Mitt, you are getting too old in this campaign season to be having another face lift. Not going to work. We know who you are pretty much now. Waiting for the debates just to be sure. I am not holding my breath sir.
The reason the contest is moving now to Obama and the Democrats is principally three things.
(1) The economy is coming back one way or the other, as once the election is done, there will be a clear direction; and voters want to give Obama more time, given the depth of the challenge Obama faced and the GOP's anti democratic tactics the past 4 years, and
(2) Now that people are forced to crystallize their views in the election, Obama is increasingly seen for what he is, a solid, seasoned leader who, as Clinton put it, is cool on the outside and burning for America on the inside;
(3) Mitt & Co. & GOP are now being seen for what they are, and it isn't pretty.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13017922/image/94804771-there-you-grow-again
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12989871-from-breaking-to-building-a-nation-the-change-is-you
What is Mitt's interest in the presidency? What is his vision? Does he really "Believe in America"? Why does he want, as he says, to "take the presidency"? Is he being honest? See here or links below.
Truth is, Mitt is not the right man for the Presidency. He is not the business man he advertises. He is a pirate, dressed in a business suit! He started Bain to bust and raid the treasuries of umpteen hundreds or thousands of companies. And he's buried his treasure in the Caribbean.
Mitt's just doing what he does best - taking personal advantage of an opportunity. He's looking to buy the White House as his new home office. The Presidency can help create greater fortune for himself, for his family, for his friends and perhaps his Church. Once these super wealthy people corner America's money, they'll decide whether to trickle it down.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12903382-michele-obama-and-bill-clinton-lay-out-at-the-rnc-just-how-much-obama-believes-in-america-does-mitt-romney-believe-in-america-or-something-else
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13017922-its-the-dishonesty-stupid
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12889195-footprints-at-the-republican-national-convention-in-tampa-florida
You may be interested in exactly how Romney made his money through Bain Capital. The Leveraged BuyOut (LBO) was his primary method, but Romney added some enterprise-lethal debt, in order to pay himself and pay off the company management to go along with his scheme. Romney had the gall to call his plunder "services" and cost thousands of Americans their jobs.
See--
"Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital", by Matt Taibbi--
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
What we know.
1) Did not listen to Libyan intelligence before murders.
2) Lying to Americans that this was not a pre-planned attack for political reasons.
3) Almost no reporting by the media on the most important story in America for political reasons.
4) Stonewalling investigations by not allowing the FBI in Libya because it is not safe even though CNN and many others are there and have been almost from the beginning.
5) Disturbing e-mails to CNN as to not report what was in Amb. Stevens diary which indicated that he thought his life was in danger and that he was on an Al-Queda hit list.
6) The Vile Rat admission that his life was in danger.
7) Romney was right but you will never hear that from the media.
What else do we not know???
- War with Libya
- War with Syria
- War with Iran
- Trade war with China
- Cold war with Russia
- War against women, gay & lesbians
- War against the so-called 47%
What other wars Romney has in mind that we don't know about?
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Answer: A great deal. Your "knowledge" is labored conjecture in the absence of information, and an extremely ill-timed partisan fault-finding mission.
As a measure of his inability to lead the country, your party's leader attempted to exploit the situation, though he knew little more than anybody else. That constitutes still another major gaffe from The Romney.
"And his remarks should in no way be construed as an intentional slur against Blacks...Latinos...Asians...Jews...Catholics...gays..."
"And the rest of THOSE PEOPLE who are not LDS and have no money"
"But we're starving them to death and baptising them just as fast as we can"
OK...so we got caught this time...but the Democrats do it too...
AND THEY WERE DOING IT FIRST...
Grow up...and try to acquire a little credibility
"Even the masses cried for Barabbas to be freed"
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Well...I guess it was bound to happen, DefenderOfFreedom...
Sooner or later, SOME reich-wing imbecile was sure to make some ridiculous (and blasphemous) comparison between vulture capitalist, draft dodger and all-around sleazy POS, Mitt Romney...and Jesus.
Republican tradition is on Mitt's side, however...Her Divaness, former temporary Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, compared herself to...
King David of Israel (facing the hostile MSM)
Six million holocaust victims (blood libel)
William Shakespeare (refudiate)
Paul Revere (of the NRA)...and many other equally vain and delusional comparisons...
But tell me, "DefenderOfFreedom"...
Why do you reich-wing jerks always pick such pretentious, patriotic names?
All you accomplish by tossing around tea-party buzzwords like freedom...patriot...liberty, et al...
Is to profane them...
Mitt Romney has more scruples in his little finger that Obama and his entire administration.
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Then the Republican party should have run Mitt Romney's little finger and dumped the rest of the worthless, twelve-faced SOB
- Mitt Romney
- by Peggy Noonan (speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan)
1. Denial - "Polls are fake, Romney is winning"
2. Anger - "*#@ Liberal media!!!"
3. Bargaining - "Dear God, please make Romney win."
4. Depression - "hu hu hu" <crying in Nov 6>
5. Acceptance - "Oh well, Romney is an idi0t anyway"
Romney: "I like some parts of Obamacare. When I am president, I will make my own universal healthcare. But better."
What do you call this?
a. etch-the-sketch
b. flip-flop
c. make-over
d. reboot
Tied. Sure....
Or when you put LOL! before every comment, does it mean you're being sarcastic?
LOL!
No I am not being sarcastic. Romney and Obama are tied. CBS,NBC,ABC and CNN will tell the truth as close as they can get to it without losing their ratings the last 10 before the election.
And the message remains the same. There is no makeover.