There were dueling speeches in Ohio today.
I thought Romney did pretty good -- compared to his normal word-salad fare.
But then I heard the President spell out his economic vision for America. He made Romney look like a Bush-retread piker.
If this is the game Obama's bringing, the next few months are going to Rock!
Obama contrasts his economic plan with Romney’s (short excerpt)
[Video won't embed, sorry.]
link to video
Remarks by the President on the Economy -- Cleveland, OH
enewspf.com -- June 14, 2012
Barack Obama:
[...]
Now, I understand I’ve got a lot of supporters here, but I want to speak to everybody who's watching who may not be a supporter -- may be undecided, or thinking about voting the other way. If you agree with the approach I just described, if you want to give the policies of the last decade another try, then you should vote for Mr. Romney.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Now, like I said, I know I’ve got supporters here. No, no, you should vote for his allies in Congress.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: You should take them at their word, and they will take America down this path. And Mr. Romney is qualified to deliver on that plan. (Laughter and applause.) No, he is. (Applause.) I’m giving you an honest presentation of what he’s proposing.
Now, I'm looking forward to the press following up and making sure that you know I'm not exaggerating. (Applause.)
I believe their approach is wrong. And I’m not alone. I have not seen a single independent analysis that says my opponent’s economic plan would actually reduce the deficit. Not one. Even analysts who may agree with parts of his economic theory don’t believe that his plan would create more jobs in the short term. They don’t claim his plan would help folks looking for work right now.
In fact, just the other week, one economist from Moody’s said the following about Mr. Romney’s plan -- and I'm quoting here -- "On net, all of these policies would do more harm in the short term. If we implemented all of his policies, it would push us deeper into recession and make the recovery slower."
That's not my spin. That's not my opinion. That's what independent economic analysis says.
As for the long term, remember that the economic vision of Mr. Romney and his allies in Congress was tested just a few years ago. We tried this. Their policies did not grow the economy. They did not grow the middle class. They did not reduce our debt. Why would we think that they would work better this time? (Applause.)
We can’t afford to jeopardize our future by repeating the mistakes of the past -- not now, not when there’s so much at stake. (Applause.)
I've got a different vision for America. (Applause.) I believe that you can’t bring down the debt without a strong and growing economy. And I believe you can’t have a strong and growing economy without a strong and growing middle class. (Applause.)
[...]
The line about "Romney wanting bringing back all of
Bush's Policies, but On Steroids!"
-- was a quite the zinger too. And Barack brought the facts, to back it up too.
Most of the critique, centered around the Obama speech being too long.
I didn't think so, but then again, I'm a politics geek.
The discussion by Martin Bashir and panel, honed right in on the Vision-thing.
Here are some of those highlights:
Obama rocks Cleveland in big economic speech
Martin Bashir, msnbc -- June 14, 2012
link to video
Barack Obama:
>> if you want to give the policies of the last decade another try, then you should vote for Mr. Romney. you should vote for his allies in Congress. you should take them at their word and they will take America down this path. and Mr. Romney 's qualified to deliver on that plan.
Martin Bashir:
>> and despite their similar circumstances today, the President explained that there is a stark choice that will face voters come November. for those who imagined Mitt Romney as a milquetoast moderate the President, instead, cast his opponent in the terms Mr. Romney has used to describe himself, a severe conservative, pulled to the far right, with the rest of his party.
Barack Obama:
>> their agenda will be simple and straight forward. they have spelled it out. they promised to roll back regulations on banks and polluters, on insurance companies and oil companies. they promise to not only keep all of the bush tax cuts in place, but add another $5 trillion in tax cuts on top of that. we can't afford to jeopardize our future by repeating mistakes of the past. not now. not when there's so much at stake.
Martin Bashir:
>> and if you ask Ohio voters, the President has an edge, who caused the bad economy? not the President. 57% say George W. Bush. Who gets your problems? not Mitt Romney. the President with a 13-point lead.
[...]
David Corn:
what do you think the most important word in the speech was?
[...]
it's choice. he wants voters to see the selection as a choice election. his vision, his set of policies, his actions versus Mitt Romney's vision and his policies as defined mostly by the Ryan budget plan that Mitt Romney has endorses. and Mitt Romney, of course wants this election to be not a choice but wants voters to be angry at Obama, angry about the election. he wants them to vent, this wants this to be a venting election and Obama wants to say there's a rational choice that our future will depend upon what you do. and that's what he laid out here. [...]
Krystal Ball:
>> that's right. in addition to the contrast that the President laid out in his speech between their two plans and visions for the country, there was a dramatic contrast between two speeches. President Obama in his kept saying 'that's not my spin, those are just the facts and these are the independent economists who say so. I'm trying to be very fair here, here what happens they literally want to do.' Whereas Romney's speech was much more focused on buzzwords, went back to the President's alleged gaffe and tried to make hay out of that. it was focuses on seize on that emotion. Romney 's trying to make this an election of venting and we cannot expect just to rationally lay out the argument and win in November but there's a time and a place for everything and i think it was important that the President take some time to go through the history, not because we're focuses on blaming bush because he wants to say, look we've been here before. We have tried this model before and this is exactly what Romney wants to do except in the words of Bill Clinton, on steroids. if you thought that was good if that worked for you, vote for Mitt Romney.
[...]
Romney was
positively beaming after his well-delivered speech.
I bet Romney's not smiling now. Especially after being painted as the equivalent of Bush-Lite.
LOL. Welcome to the Big Leagues Mitt -- you've just been re-etched and very accurately-sketched!
For all the American people to plainly see.