The best way to know a candidate is, IMO, to listen carefully to what s/he says and compare what is said to what s/he has done. In that regard Romney has failed the credibility test; his stump speech is demagoguery at its best and what he wants us to believe about his experience is belied by the facts.
In my opinion Gov. Romney is a classic empty suit; a man loaded with ambition and little else. His European Tour of late left the impression of a person with little diplomatic skills - necessary in both foreign and domestic affairs - and with the aloofness which sunk Sen. Kerry’s campaign.
Romney seems to test his ‘beliefs’ before the public and then modify what he ‘believes’ by the medias reaction. He has little or no foreign policy experience and no experience common to the normal man. Thus far the late Molly Ivens comment about George H. W. Bush seems to apply to the former MA Gov: “He was born with a silver shoe in his mouth”
There’s that, but there’s more to it. the public blames George Bush for the economy Obama inherited, that excuse is actually working for him with some justification.
I think the real issue is that he turned out to be just another regular Democratic machine politician, and so no one who isn’t already inclined to vote Democrat has any reason to support him. He sold himself with expectations he had to know he couldn’t meet.
From what I’ve learned of him, Romney is not a bad man. He is not the Antichrist (or the Mormon version thereof). As such, attempts to demonise him are backfiring.
And as I’ve said on many threads, every Romney flaw is also an Obama flaw. If you’re outraged by an out of touch flip-flopping panderer, then you should be supporting Gary Johnson.
I think there may be something to that (though I’m not convinced that’s the primary issue). He rode into the office on a wave of hope, and a promise of real change in how government works. I do think a good part of the lack of change can be placed at the feet of the obstructionist Republicans in Congress, but I’ve become rather disenchanted with Obama and some of his choices, as well.
I’ll still vote for Obama in November (because the Dem platform is far closer to my personal views than the GOP is), but my enthusiasm isn’t huge – and, from what I’ve read, that’s a big issue that the Obama campaign is facing in general. A lot of volunteers who were fervent supporters in '08 aren’t nearly as enthusiastic this time around.
Republicans can obstruct laws. They cannot obstruct the President communicating truthfully with the public, nor can they obstruct him from spending $8 billion to further his reelection campaign by postponing Medicare Advantage cuts until January, nor can they obstruct the Labor Department from telling employers to not issue WARN notices.
Obama didn’t promise to just implement Democratic policies. That’s not change, Americans have seen that before. Republicans can obstruct that, but they can’t obstruct honest, integrity, and being straight with the people without focus grouping and poll testing every Presidential statement.
Obama leads Romney on all the intangibles(is likeable, understands my problems).
Romney leads Obama on trust to handle actual issues, with the exception of foreign policy. Understandable, since Obama has earned his Nobel by making the world a more peaceful place without Osama bin Laden in it.
And here’s what the Bain attacks have accomplished:
Now, I’d like you to think about Mitt Romney’s background in business, including his time as head of Bain Capital. Do you think his business background would cause him to make good decisions or bad decisions as president in dealing with economic problems the U.S. will face over the next four years?
All you have to do is look at the healthcare debates to see how well that worked. Multiple times Democrats attempted to explain the makeup of the bill. They were drowned out by lies and slogan’s, for the most part. It seems like scary sound bytes penetrate the average voter’s consciousness a lot easier than complex explanations.
I would love a follow-up question asking if they have any idea what his plans for the economy might be. I can see the simple leap people take from “Hey, he ran a successful business” to “If he ran a business well, he’ll should run the economy well, too.”
However, we all know that isn’t the case. The U.S. economy isn’t a business and doesn’t operate according to all of the same principles. Additionally, I’ve seen it pointed out a few times recently that past presidents with business experience haven’t fared to well with the economy.
I really wish more people would actually read the news instead of watching it on TV.
The dishonesty flew around on both sides. Democrats tried to explain the good parts of the bill only, Republicans tried to explain the bad parts.
Actually, I’m being too kind to the Democrats. They actually just wanted to pass it quickly and hunker down. Getting into a long debate about it where they were on the defensive was not the plan. However, if the President had indeed been a different kind of politician, he would have explained to the public what he was trying to do, and actually listened to what the public was saying back in response. Instead, he wanted a bill “by July” and he only engaged in the debate after Republicans hammered the holy hell out of the bill.
In other “different kind of politician” news related to health care, what’s with making backroom deals with health care industries and then getting them to run $100 million pro-ACA ad campaigns?
His plans are about as detailed as the President’s, as in not very. So we are left to either hope more gets fleshed out over the course of the campaign, or we have to rely on their past performance.
Good decisions, maybe, but in whose interest? Republican dogma is that by ensuring the rich (rebranded as Job Creators[sup]TM[/sup]) do well, everyone will do well. Romney might well believe this, and may make excellent decisions in furtherance of it. But over the last three decades, I haven’t seen the premise borne out in practice.
You know what would be very interesting? A R candidate who promised --no, who GUARANTEED–to fix the economy by cutting taxes, cutting spending, etc. By “guaranteed” I mean that he would promise that, if he were elected, and the economy weren’t in tip-top shape (by certain objective measurements–unemployment below x%, GDP above y %, etc.) at the end of spring 2016, he would actively campaign for the D candidate, denounce the R party as thoroughly wrong-headed on economic issues, raise at least 10 million $ for the Dems, turn over his remaining electoral staff to the Dems, etc.
But as it is, they’re reduced to saying, “I know, it hasn’t worked the last 14 times a R told you that it was an economic panacea, but trust me, this time, it will work…”
Yeah, Romney leads on those issues in the first poll, from USA Today/Gallup. Did you see the NBC News/WSJ poll just below it? Obama leads in all categories except for handling the economy in answer to this question: “Now I’d like you to compare Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on a few issues…”
The fact that these polls are a bit outdated, and vary widely, suggests to me that we shouldn’t draw any conclusions from them.