Romney’s stump speech now includes a story about Rhoda, who owned a BBQ restaurant in Richmond VA. Apparently Bill’s BBQ had been owned by Rhoda and her family for over 80 years. It closed down earlier this year.
Here is his stump speech boilerplate:
“I met Rhoda Elliott. She has been running her family restaurants for years, a business that has been in her family for 83 years. At its high point, she employed 200 people. She just closed it down. And she told me that regulations and taxes, ‘Obamacare’ and the effects of the Obama economy put her out of business.”
Hey now, I love me some BBQ, so this hits home for me.
So apparently Romney or a member of his team spoke to Rhoda at some point while out stumping, and she told him about her BBQ joint closing down, and she blamed it on a combination of “regulations and Obamacare”.
So now Mittens is out running with this example of a hard working family owned restaurant that closed down because of choking regulations. Sure fits his stump speech well. Gets the faithful outraged. Gets the applause meter going. Good story.
Problem is it seems Bills closed down because of something that Romney talks about as being the thing he believes most in. The free enterprise system. Seems like Bill’s closed down because it sucked. Low quality food, health code violations, no advertising, and old, tired facilities. While Bills closed down, another BBQ place opened up nearby. Alamo BBQ is doing well. Sounds like the marketplace has spoken.
So, did Romney and his team not investigate WHY Bill’s closed down? Or did he just not care because the story fit his need for misery under Obama?
I posted this in the election signs thread, but it seems relevant here. Funny thing is, that’s right around the corner from my house and I had no idea there was a business there. All I ever saw was a bunch of Deliverance-looking guys sitting on a porch. After asking around, I can’t find anyone who could tell you what that business was.
Ya! Businesses should be allowed to serve their customers deep fried rats without any damned government regulation. If people don’t like deep fried rats, then they should employ the services of a food taster, like any good Randian.
Gosh, maybe Rhonda just sucked at running the family business.
Yeah “regulations”. :rolleyes: Goddamned injurious health regulations and labor laws. Why a person aughta be able to sell those deep fried rats outa the pockets of indentured servants who sleep on the floor in the back room and get paid in rats, roaches and a roof over their heads. Who else is going to eat those roaches? Hmm? Ungrateful bastards.
Romney’s statements pretty clearly were meant to indicate the regulations were due to Obama. I doubt Obama has much to do with Virginia restaurant health-codes.
It’s not just a matter of “Did Romney not care?”, the foundational myth of the Tea Party is their members would be revealed as the heroic geniuses of business and personal and civic virtue they surely are if only there was no government interference.
Each and every personal or business failing, therefore, is necessarily attributable to government interference. In other words, Romney could not (politically) have come to any other conclusion. Quite regardless of what the facts might show.
We are in a post-Daniel Patrick Moynihan world: Everybody has his own facts, and that’s that.
The better question is why do the leaders of the Democratic Party valorize bipartisanship so much. It is no virtue to cooperate with a party that has decided that ideology is an acceptable substitute for reality.
