In an effort to change the discussion from incomes taxes to anything else, Mitt Romney's campaign sent Newt Gingrich out yesterday as a spokesman to campaign against President Obama on welfare. You've probably already read or heard about how well that went over.
The Huffington Post just posted an article saying that "The Franciscan Action Network (FAN), a Catholic faith-based advocacy and civic engagement organization, is strongly criticizing Mitt Romney's recent ads and rhetoric regarding welfare programs and welfare recipients, urging him to spend some time in low-income communities."
"Our Christian tradition teaches that we are to treat the poor with dignity and to prioritize the poor in our policies as a society," the organization said in a press release on Thursday. "At a time when millions are struggling financially, it is degrading to talk about the 'dependency' of people hurting in this economy, as Gov. Romney did recently."
(snip)
FAN spokesman Lonnie Ellis told The Huffington Post that what Romney is doing is "worse than ignoring" poor people. He said Romney is essentially criticizing President Barack Obama for helping out low-income individuals. "It's saying look, 'President Obama is actually supporting poor people too much, or he's just giving a free ride to poor people,'" Ellis said. "So it's actually using poor people in a really bad way."
Mitt Romney Criticized By Franciscan Friars For Comments On The Poor
Meanwhile,
Rachel Maddow's blog tells us that the Nuns on the Bus are still hard at work:
First, the Nuns on the Bus launched an extraordinary tour, lambasting the House Republican Budget plan crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for the way in which it mistreats the poor.
Now the Nuns on the Bus have a few thoughts for the Republicans' presidential hopeful.
NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, is inviting Governor Mitt Romney to spend a day with Catholic Sisters who work every day to meet the needs of struggling families in their communities. Sister Simone Campbell, NETWORK's Executive Director and leader of the "Nuns on the Bus" tour, said that she especially encourages Mr. Romney to work alongside the Sisters as they serve the people. These are the people who will be further harmed by his proposed budget cuts and by the terribly divisive and demeaning political advertisements about welfare.
The Sisters' invitation comes after recent false attacks from Mr. Romney that demonstrate his lack of understanding of the struggles families and children face as they work to get out of poverty.
Using the less fortunate among us as a political weapon is despicable. Today Mitt Romney had this to say about negative political ads:
“You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on the radio. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”
Mitt Romney trashes ads against him
Does this mean that Romney will be pulling his welfare ad from the airwaves? Probably not:
After days of right-wing media outlets lauding Mitt Romney for his hypocritical ad attacking President Obama over welfare work requirements, a Fox News guest finally criticized the ad. But instead of pointing out Romney's hypocrisy, he lamented its lack of images of "welfare moms."
Fox Guest: Romney's Misleading Welfare Ad Should Have Had Images Of " Welfare Moms"
Since the
Republican base is screaming for Romney to select Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate, the same Paul Ryan who received a letter from
Catholic bishops criticizing Ryan's budget cuts to food stamps, what do you think the chances are that Romney will actually select Ryan? My guess is that the base has not succeeded in housebreaking Romney yet, so he will not relent to their demands for Ryan as the running mate because it would be too risky.
Mr. Romney, We the People still want you to show us your taxes!