Romney begins "blue state" bus tour
AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
The campaign has dubbed it the "Romney Plan for a Stronger Middle Class" tour. It marks a ramping-up of Romney's public schedule, which slowed considerably after his first bus tour brought him to 14 cities in six states over a five-day period in late June. Since then, Romney has held just 20 campaign events across the country, as he took time off for a vacation, focused on fundraising and spent a much-publicized week abroad.
"It's great to be out campaigning," Romney told reporters on his charter flight from Bedford, Mass., to Norfolk on Friday evening. "You know a lot of campaigning is raising money, which has its own rewards, honestly, but campaigning is the most fun. The most enjoyable and rewarding."
Romney's upcoming sojourn -- which one of his aides called a "blue state tour" -- will bring him to Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio over a four-day period. In all but North Carolina, Romney finds himself trailing Obama in recent polling, a fact that Romney advisers shrug off. They point to a decline in Obama's 2012 polling numbers in each state relative to how he did in 2008.
"In 2008 these states were all won by Obama, but this time around his support has eroded considerably," Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters in Boston on Friday. "Even though his team is pouring tons of resources into these states, the bad economy continues to hang over Obama like a dark cloud."
Another advisor, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, pointed to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll showing Republican voters to be more enthusiastic about voting this year than Democrats. "It reinforces that point that the intensity in this election is behind the Republicans," said the adviser.
The tour will allow Romney the opportunity to begin to introduce himself to voters in the swing states that are just now beginning to pay attention to the presidential campaign. He will be joined on the bus by his wife, Ann. His son Matt and two of his grandchildren will also make an appearance.
"I think that they're going to be impressed by the fact that this is a family that shares their values," Ferhnstrom said. He dismissed a question from a reporter who suggested that Romney has had trouble connecting with blue-collar voters in similar areas in the past.
"I wish you could see the governor interact with people the way I see him," he said. "I don't buy into the premise of your question that there's some kind of disconnect."
According to Fehrnstrom, Romney will stick to some standard campaign themes while on the bus tour: growing jobs and the economy, promoting small business, repealing Obama's health care law and getting tough on China for unfair trade. He will make a point to stop by several small businesses, including Homemades by Suzanne, a catering company in Virginia, and Smokey's Shack, a North Carolina barbeque joint.
But just as he did earlier, Romney will have some competition. The Democratic National Committee has scheduled its own "Romney Economics: The Middle Class Under the Bus" tour and plans to make stops in each of the states that Romney will visit the day before he arrives.
At each stop, Democratic state representatives and other DNC members will offer a pre-buttal to the presumptive Republican nominee.
The DNC said in a statement that its effort "highlights Mitt Romney's record of failure as Governor of Massachusetts, the lack of support small businesses received from Governor Romney's administration and Romney's proposed tax hike on middle-class families to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."
Popular in Politics
- Obama prom pictures surface
- Drones, Gitmo part of broad Obama counterterrorism speech
- IRS' Lerner: "I have not done anything wrong" 679 Comments
- House passes GOP bill to speed Keystone XL pipeline approval
- Christie: Keep politics out of Oklahoma disaster relief
- Amid scrutiny of commerce pick, White House confident about her fate
- Former Miss America might challenge McConnell
- Obama to view Oklahoma tornado damage Sunday
Simple enough?
Paul Ryan's speech this morning was absolutely Reaganesque.
Reagan, 1980. Romney, 2012. And the Next Presideng of the United States - Paul Ryan, 2020.
No one in the blue states cares, Mitt. No one wants to see you. Save a dinosaur -- stay home.
Of course the middle class will get "stronger" - they'll be getting LOTS of fiscal exercise by carrying the weight of high earners tax breaks, of which Mitt is the poster child - this will either make the middle class stronger, or will kill them.
I really can't do anything about your lack of comprehensiveness, but for your information; Subtract 11.9 trillion from 15.9 trillion and that leaves only 4 trillion debt increase during President Obama's first term and, when you deduct the 1.25 trillion that was actually paid in interest on the national debt itself, that only leaves 2.75 trillion for President Obama to spend on preventing another great depression.
BTW, the reason I referred to you as a pathetic little person with a lack of comprehensiveness is because you called me a "lib" (obviously meaning it as an insult) when in fact, as I have posted before on these sites, I have voted in every presidential election since 1960 and the ONLY times my choice lost was in 2000 and 2004.
In case you can't figure that out; I have voted for winning republican presidents 5 times, and for wining democratic presidents 6 times.
I believe that makes me about as independent as anyone can be.
I definitely tend to vote more democratic now because the Republican Party I used to prefer no longer exists.
You all have a good evening.
So with our debt raised 5 trillion (that's with a "T" by the way, lib) under Obummerboy and his commy cronies and growing exponentially, what is your commy plan to cut spending and reduce the deficit?
....Oh wait, we can't cut spending because we are giving too many welfare and food stamp handouts to libs like you; and, of course, commy libs depend on handouts to buy votes.
-----------------
How about reducing the defense spending???? The US spends MORE than the next ten countries combined on "defense"....and the right-wingers in Congress are whining about the automatic cuts that are in train because they want to spend EVEN more...
Yeah, sure thing, commy lib. And just what do you think is going to happen when 41 taxes are going to be added and increased to pay for Obummercare? Commy.
---------------
It's called paying for the services we have deemed appropriate to receive from our government. You don't seem to understand that we as citizens have government to provide the services that we want to enable us to live in a safe and stable country with protections to make our lives better and these things are paid for by TAXES which you obviously don't want to pay.
If cutting taxes really created jobs then the (still in effect) Bush tax cuts would have prevented the present economic situation.
Here is what excessive tax cuts and deregulation have produced over the past 3 decades:
Not even counting the tripling of the national debt by Reagan during his 8 years, Republican borrow and spend policies ran the national debt up to $11.9 trillion by October 30, 2011(end of last Bush fiscal budget proposal) and so far $8.5 trillion interest has already been paid on the national debt since October 1989.
The debt is currently at $15,9 trillion, up ($3.9trillion, Obama administration) and rising
The $8.5 trillion paid-interest plus the $15.9 Trillion debt outstanding ($11.9 at end of Bush last fiscal year budget), is the equivalent of a $24.4 trillion borrow-and-spend TAX INCREASE, since 1989, on all Americans, past, present, and future.
Romney promises to create 12000 new jobs during his first term. That is virtually impossible due to the fact that almost ALL manufacturing has been outsourced over the same 30 odd years that the current debt was being created.
Almost every appliance from freezers to computers is manufactured outside the U.S.
Only jobs that produce commodities for sale here can help the economy.
Even with the large stimulus spending by both Bush and Obama, the employment problem and economic recession have not recovered and that is simply because every dime of that stimulus money, actually spent by consumers, goes to the country that made the commodities they purchase.;;;; That is all except the huge profits reaped by the U S companies who moved their plants to other countries or as in the case of Walt-Mart, buy said commodities from cheap-labor companies for resale here.