Moving on from debate, Obama uses humor to jab Romney
President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally in Denver, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012.
/ AP Photo/Ed AndrieskiDENVER On the morning after the first presidential debate, President Obama mocked the Mitt Romney he encountered last night as decidedly different from "the real Mitt Romney" on the campaign trail.
Obama: I didn't debate "the real Mitt Romney"
"The man on stage last night doesn't want to be held accountable for the real Mitt Romney and what he's been saying for the last year," the president told a campaign rally at a local park.
He said "the real Mitt Romney" advocates $5-trillion in tax cuts largely for the wealthy, but the Romney at the debate "didn't know anything about that."
Mr. Obama added "the real Mitt Romney" doesn't advocate more teachers in schools, but the Romney at the debate said he loves teachers and "can't get enough of them."
"Gov. Romney may dance around his positions," the president told an estimated 11,200 supporters at his rally, "but if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth."
Further, he ridiculed Romney's statement that he would reduce the deficit by cutting funding for PBS.
Obama: "We didn't know Big Bird was driving the federal deficit"
"Thank God someone is getting tough on Big Bird," the president said derisively. "We didn't know Big Bird was driving the deficit."
"And Elmo," shouted someone in the crowd, referring to another Sesame Street character made famous on PBS.
"Elmo too," said the president.
The remarks were part of an Obama campaign effort at damage control, for a debate in which their candidate was widely seen as pummeled by Romney.
The campaign pushed aside Romney's performance in the debate that drew surprised raves from many pundits. Campaign officials and supporters tried instead to focus attention on what Romney, portraying it as either dishonest or lacking in detail.
"Governor Romney came in and basically played a shell game," said campaign senior adviser David Axelrod referring to Romney's plan to cut taxes without expanding the federal deficit.
"Again and again and again," said Axelrod of what Romney said, "he told a story to the American people that is completely in contrast with what he said before and unfounded in fact."
At an Obama campaign rally this morning in a Denver park, thousands of supporters turned out in a 40-degree chill. Entertainment by singer Will I. Am was a draw as well. And when asked if they believe "the new Mitt Romney," the crowd shouted "no."
In advance of Mr. Obama's arrival, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., slammed Romney for the "disingenuous lines" he delivered at the debate.
And Udall asked the crowd, "wasn't the president thoughtful, dignified, substantive and truthful last night?" It agreed.
But supporters of Mr. Obama expressed disappointment in his debate performance. They said he failed to raise issues on which Romney is vulnerable including his "47 percent" comments in the fundraising video, his actions as head of Bain Capital and his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns.
Chris Matthews was one of several MSNBC hosts apoplectic about Pres. Obama's performance for failing to strongly confront Romney.
"Where was Obama," Matthews shouted into the camera. "What was Romney doing? He was winning."
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What the American People need to know is that the GOP have "DEATH SPIRALS" in motion in 2012 that have already killed tens of millions, soon to be hundreds of millions, with BILLIONS in damages that 2015-2020 will be TRILLIONS in damages. Many of them will make the horrific damages from Sept 2008 look like a cakewalk.
1) Most immediate-- Fiscal Cliff caused by TEA Party extremists holding Congress hostage on both the 2011 Budget and raising the DEBT Ceiling. Now over ONE TRILLION in cuts across the board will cause 2 million people to lose, some of the 7.5 million jobs created since 2009, driving unemployment to 9%. Ben Bernanke, Christine Lagarde, Congressional Budget office have all warned, more than once, " It's too much, too soon".
2)The Paul Ryan--GOP "cut and gut Budget" will drive unemployment past 15%, just as a similar plan was also forced on Roosevelt in 1937. Christine Lagarde has both warned and explained that this strategy, which has been used in Europe, will cause Europe years and years to recover, so we can expect the same.
3) Global Warming has killed, murdered really, tens of millions from sea level rise, extreme weather events, and largely from food crop failures, which have affected more than 500 million people since 2010, when wheat in Russia failed 2010, 2011, 2012 and corn and soy beans failed in U.S. in 2012. Since these are staples, largely used by the poor and are in many associated products, when there's a shortage the price jumps are HUGE. Starvation and malnutrition numbers went from 600 million to over a billion from the 2010-2011 wheat failures of 40% and the 2012 failures are expected to affect another 200 million people. So the GOP, and the multinationals who own them, are now murdering people.
4) Global Warming will be accelerated by the Keystone XL Pipeline, putting the planet over a cliff by 2015. It won't be reversible. Without the 70% extra pollution spewed by processing the filthy tar sands from Alberta, where they're destroying an area the size of Florida; scientist know that 80% of the damage is already locked in from the 3 decades of lies about Global Warming, so the heat from the carbon in the atmosphere will play out, and the other 20% will be locked in by 2018. That's without the filthy tar sands processing spewing 70% more pollution. With the tar sands, the planet is over a cliff 2015, for oil we do NOT need.
5) Somewhere in there, if the GOP are in power they will repeal Dodd Frank, FINANCE REFORM, so that derivatives stuffed with junk can damage the economy for the 4th time, by 2018-2020, because so far the pattern has been 1987 (S&L), 1998 (LTCM), 2008 (Subprime). They undoubtedly will succeed at that point in destroying not only the US economy, but the world.
In the meantime, we could be growing GDP by 158% with millions of Green Jobs, leave the DEBT in the dust, and get a Sustainable Future by shutting down Global Warming. The GOP have worked very hard to sabotage this, since they are owned by dirty fossil fuels. (REINVENTING FIRE by rmi.org and TAR SANDS by Andrew Nikiforuk). Amory Lovins' Plan calls for getting completely off of most dirty fossil fuels by 2050 and getting to 46% renewable energy instead. Obama's Plan was more aggressive to get to 80% renewable energy by 2035. In reality, in order to save the Ice Sheets, and every major city and coastline all over the planet, we now have to get to 80% renewable energy by 2025. Anyone under the age of 50, especially the children and grandchildren, now have no future, because the planet is on a trajectory to become uninhabitable. The very corrupt GOP, the dirty fossil fuels that own them, and the uninformed Conservatives who support them will be responsible for murdering billions, trashing a planet, and destroying the U.S.
That guy on drugs sure looked like Obama.
Of course nobody can get upand fightfor the President ina debate. he has to stick up for himself.
What blow me away is how god awful our mainstained corporate media to let this lying bozo get away with this.