Mitt Romney has predicated his entire campaign around the notion that Barack Obama has made the economy worse—and that he, Mitt Romney, is the guy who can make things better. It's a refrain he's used in just above every stump speech he's given of late, but two days ago in Pennsylvania, he
suddenly denied ever using it:
When NBC producer Sue Kroll asked the former Massachusetts governor why he believes that Obama's policies have made the economy worse -- when the economy is now growing (and not shrinking like it was in 2009), when the Dow is climbing (and no longer in a free-fall like it was in '09), and when the unemployment rate is down a full percentage point from where it was in Oct. '09 -- Romney gave this answer:
I didn't say that things are worse.
On Monday he said:
The people of New Hampshire have waited long enough. They want to see good jobs. They want to see rising incomes. They want to see an economy that's growing again, and the president's failed. He did not cause this recession, but he made it worse.
That's pretty much been Romney's mantra throughout his campaign. As Greg Sargent puts it:
Uh, hello press corps? Romney has now flip-flopped on a central campaign message.
That's absolutely right. It not only undercuts the entire rationale he's offered for his candidacy, but it calls into question his veracity. At a minimum, it's a major political story, certainly bigger (though less amusing) than Michele Bachmann's John Wayne Gacy gaffe.
Romney has made these kinds of strange statements before. For example, in late April he claimed America wasn't at war—that we are in the midst of a "peacetime" economy. Now he not only says that Barack Obama didn't make the economy worse, he also claims that he's never said that Obama made the economy worse. That's a big deal. And it's such a strange and self-destructive thing to say that I'm now beginning to rethink whether Romney is in fact the GOP's strongest candidate. With unforced errors like these, it's only a matter of time before he says something that puts him in Sue "Chickens for Checkups" Lowden territory.