Last night, Judy Woodruff hosted a PBS Newshour segment which allowed Tim Pawlenty to spout the GOP CASE FOR ROMNEY. His responses to Judy's questions went unchallenged.
For the record, here are Pawlenty's responses, provided to enable us to store this dialogue in case it becomes unavailable at a later date.
I hope we can ponder The GOP Case for Romney and respond. These are the talking points the GOP will use to convince Independents that President Obama is failing.
Bill Clinton was Judy's guest the night before. Bill's transcript follows Pawlenty's. However, PBS includes just a few snippets of Bill's statements, not the entire transcript. Fortunately, the video clip was available for embedding.
Both Pawlenty and Clinton video interviews are included below.
QUESTIONS?
Who will voter's be enticed to believe? Are there differences in the style of presentation? Do the differences matter?
Lastly, and following the transcripts are some other factors that are more alarming than concerning. How will these be addressed?
Here's a question you might ask your Independent friends:
Imagine the Romney Dynasty that could be created if he wins in November. Romney plus his FIVE SONS.
Maybe some Independents will be swayed by actual facts, instead of the GOP's skewing of the facts:
Jobs Added by Obama vs Bush
And, in truth, Pawlenty did quite miserably as Governor of Minnesota. His Corporate Welfare Program, JOBZ, was/is a total failure.
Tim Pawlenty's JOBZ Debacle
When the National Review recently crunched the numbers, it discovered that Minnesota's job-growth rate under Pawlenty was 0.5 percent—the worst among the ex-governors vying for the GOP nomination.
At least one member of Pawlenty's party is trying to undo his economic legacy.
Republican state Rep. Linda Runbeck introduced legislation in late April seeking to repeal JOBZ.
The program "picks and chooses companies and really rewards them grandly for just being in a location," she told Finance and Commerce, a Minnesota publication.
"Chasing businesses like we seem to be doing, and spending a lot of money to do so, is really antithetical to good, vibrant job creation."
Obama 3-times'd Pawlenty's weak .5% job growth failure.
The US Job Growth between May, 2011 and May, 2012 equals 1.4%.
So much for facts and figures, let's listen to Pawlenty's GOP Case for Romney.
From PBS Newshour, June 7, 2012:
With a strengthened campaign arsenal, Romney continued to pound the president on the economy at a military contracting plant in Saint Louis.
MITT ROMNEY (R): Record numbers of Americans are now living in poverty, 46 million people in this country living below the poverty line. This is not just a failure of policy; it is a moral failure.
YES, Mitt, and MOST OF THE POVERTY IS IN GOP CONTROLLED SOUTHERN STATES:
JUDY WOODRUFF: While the president's camp was also focused on the economy, his campaign kept its attention on Congress in a TV spot released today in nine battleground states.
NARRATOR: The president's jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers, and construction workers back to work right now. And it's paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more. But Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can't wait.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And in Las Vegas today, Mr. Obama continued to push Congress, while praising his own economic record.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We're still going through this process of recovery from that crisis. And we've taken some tough steps together. And the good news is, our economy is growing again. But we need it to grow faster.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Earlier this week, I sat down with former President Bill Clinton, who defended Mr. Obama's record on the economy.
To hear the Republican perspective, we went to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a one-time Romney opponent who now serves as national co-chair for the Romney campaign.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty, thank you for talking with us.
TIM PAWLENTY (R), former Minnesota governor: It's good to be with you, Judy. Thanks for having me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me ask you first about the economy.
President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, whom I talked to two days ago, say that despite the weak jobs numbers from last month, that the underpinnings of this economy are strong, and that this is an economy that's eventually on the way to full recovery.
How do you and Gov. Romney see it?
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well, we can set aside the partisan spin and just look at the numbers, Judy.
You now have 40 months of above 8 percent unemployment. You have 23 million -- let me repeat that -- 23 million Americans unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for work. And those numbers are worse in many other categories.
So to look at that and to say that we're on the road to recovery or somehow this is a positive situation is political spin of the highest order. President Obama has had his chance. He's been in office nearly four years. He hasn't been able to get this economy ignited and recovering in any meaningful way. We have got too many people hurting and he's failed in that regard.
And so it's time for a new president. Mitt Romney has that deep business private sector economic experience. He will get economy moving again.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, specifically, what about the point they make that the United States economy underpinnings are strong, that the U.S. is the world's largest exporter, that manufacturing is coming back? What about that?
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well, Judy, the numbers just don't lie.
There's below 2 percent GDP growth in the last quarter, anemic GDP growth or nearly nonexistent GDP growth in the quarters preceding that. So to look at that and to say that somehow that's a strong economy with positive momentum just isn't accurate.
And then if you look at what President Obama has done, layering the burdens of Obamacare and the deterrence to job growth that that's caused, killing American energy exploration through canceling the Keystone pipeline and deterring further development of natural gas and oil exploration in this country, refusing to do tax reform, trying to add tax increases to the economy -- in fact, if you go talk to the business leaders in this country, they will tell you that his initiatives and his directions have dramatically hurt the economy, not helped it.
So, both objectively on the numbers and in terms of the people who are in the front seat of trying to get this economy moving again, all of the indicators suggest that President Obama's not working. His presidency has failed with respect to the economy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, one other point the White House has made is that if the Congress and Republicans in the Congress had gone along with the president's jobs plan that included infrastructure spending and spending on state and local governments, that more jobs would have been created by now.
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: My goodness, Judy, what a -- it's almost laughable.
If you look at the over $800 billion stimulus that was chockful of infrastructure projects and giveaways to sub-units of government, and that didn't work. Remember when they passed that? They said, if we don't pass the stimulus bill, unemployment could go as high as 8 percent.
Well, of course, it went to 10 percent or more and is still above 8 percent. So to suggest another round of stimulus like that, more cash for local units of government, infrastructure programs as the way forward, first of all, it was tried in a very large way. It didn't work. It failed.
And it belies what people are telling us. They are six million businesses in this country. About this 5.9 million of them have 500 employees or fewer. If you go ask them what's bothering them, why they're deterred from investing and growing their businesses and providing jobs, they all say, get the government off my back, the taxes are too high, the insurance costs are too heavy, the regulations are too heavy and slow, the energy costs are too high, and down the list.
And President Obama's approach on all of these issues is more government, more costs, more burden. And it's exactly the wrong direction.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What would you say is the essence of Gov. Romney's plan to create millions of private sector jobs in these difficult economic times?
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well, I'm glad you asked. He's got the most extensive economic proposal of any candidate in the race, including the president, and it has these key features.
First of all, he's called for dramatic tax reform and restructuring, lowering the corporate tax rate in this country, which is now the highest in the developed world, down to 25 percent, to something to be more competitive, reducing income tax rates for individuals and small businesses across the board by a 20 percent reduction, having a health care reform that's real health care reform focused on the private markets and controlling costs, starting with repealing Obamacare, but then instituting private sector reforms in that regard, having an American energy policy, so we take advantage of this transformational game-changing opportunity that we have with natural gas and oil within the territorial reach of the United States, reforming our labor laws and regulations in this country, so that we have an opportunity to be more competitive and still fair in that regard.
And the list goes on and on. But those are just some of the examples that stand in contrast to President Obama's adding more burdens, rather than taking away burdens to the private economy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You mentioned the Romney tax plan. As you know, there are some analysts out there who say that what it would actually do is raise taxes on lower-income people at the same time it cuts taxes for those who are very wealthy, people earning over $200,000 a year.
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well, keep in mind, his proposal is to cut taxes across the board. So there wouldn't be a tax increase in that arrangement or that proposal.
And then, number two, he also has a series of spending cut proposals. So he wants to reduce spending in the federal government from 24, 25 percent of GDP, as it is currently, down to the historical range of 19 percent or 20 percent. He's called for specific spending cuts within the federal government, so it's not just cutting taxes, stimulating growth, but it's also getting spending under control.
And, by the way, as just one example, you have the president of the United States who refuses to propose any meaningful reform on one of the most pressing fiscal issues of the day, and that is how to change and reform and save our entitlement programs in this country, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Mitt Romney has a specific set of proposals on the table. The president is ducking, hiding, weaving, bobbing on those issues, won't lead, won't propose. And he's hiding on one of the most pressing issues of the day, and that's unfortunate.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Governor, one other thing. Coming off the recall vote in Wisconsin this week, the victory for Gov. Scott Walker, what is Gov. Romney's position on efforts across the country to restrict collective bargaining for public employee unions?
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well, he's taken the position that each state should take their own approach with respect to those issues for state employees.
And, so, while he's supported Gov. Walker generally in Wisconsin, he has said each state can take its own path. But you have there, Judy, an example of a group that got carried away with what they received and what they asked, namely, the public employee unions in Wisconsin, say, for police or fire.
But the give you one example, they had an arrangement in Wisconsin where the school districts had to buy health insurance from essentially a monopoly health care provider that was run by the teacher unions. And once they opened it up to competition and market forces, school districts saved tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
And to have a union have so much power that they use the force of law to demand and require school districts to buy health insurance from a monopoly provider of health insurance that's the teacher-union-run health insurance plan is one measure of how out of control their power was in Wisconsin.
So I applaud Gov. Walker's efforts. I know Gov. Romney has as well, generally. Those are the kinds of out-of-control spending systems that have to be brought under control. President Obama won't do it. Mitt Romney will.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, thank you very much for talking with us.
GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: You're welcome, Judy. Thank you for having me on the show.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Online, you can watch my earlier interview with former President Clinton.
Watch Pawlenty Outlines Romney's Economic Record, Labor Stance on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
BILL CLINTON. This is what is online, in print, covering Judy's discussion with Bill Clinton:
CLINTON WEIGHS IN
Judy Woodruff spoke with former President Bill Clinton Tuesday about the economy, campaign politics and his work with the Clinton Global Initiative.
She asked the former president if Mr. Obama's "goose is cooked politically" if there are three or four more months of disappointing job growth.
"I don't agree with that," Clinton said. "I think, for one thing, he would be in trouble if that happened and the Congress had passed his whole jobs plan. But they didn't, and they are explicitly advocating -- and so is Gov. Romney -- an approach that looks like the approach the Europeans are trying to get out of, which is austerity first, which drives up unemployment and interestingly enough drives the government deficit up."
The 42nd president also said the skills Romney picked up at Bain Capital do not "necessarily have any relevance at all to creating jobs."
"Business experience does not guarantee success," he added. "If you go back to the Kennedy presidency, you look at the last 50 years, the Democrats have had the White House 23 years; the Republicans have had it 28 years. We've had 66 million private-sector jobs created, 42 million under the Democrats, 24 million under the Republicans. And you know, what creates jobs is a healthy level of investment, a well-prepared workforce, a commitment to new markets abroad and at home, and constant innovation and investment in research and development."
You can watch the full interview here or below:
Watch Clinton: 'Business Experience Does Not Guarantee Success' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
ALARMING:
I have to be honest here, Pawlenty presents a very clean cut, smilingly convincing, believable presentation. It's worrisome. I'm not sure enough Independent voters, who will hear the GOP Case for Romney 24/7 via TV, Radio, print, and phone call ads will be able to discern the difference between fact and fiction.
I also believe that the millions of ardent Ron Paul supporters will inadvertently hand votes over to the Romney ticket.
I found this article from the UK Progressive that sums up another case for the Mt. Everest challenge Democrats face this fall:
Karl Rove’s Grand Slam
Which brings me to Karl Rove, who has inspired the wealthy donors of the ideological right, the Republican Party and many of the most corrupted and powerful special interests who will donate between $1 billion and $1.5 billion before the carnage of this campaign is fully done.
The inability of Democrats to play in the same league as Karl Rove financially is a humiliating debacle that might be unprecedented, measured by comparing wealthy donors of one party to wealthy donors of the other, in the history of presidential politics. This parallels an enthusiasm gap of voters that creates what I believe is the current Republican edge in the election.
Add to all this the issue of alleged
Election Fraud:
2010 Midterms: Footprints of Election Fraud -The question about the many cases found where exit polls and the resulting VOTE COUNTS don't match.
BradBlog seems inexhaustible in his reporting about this issue. In his article about the Wisconsin electronic voting system and how votes are tabulated, but not verified, we find the same issues that have been reported throughout the country. This is a very worthwhile read:
WI RECALL: Election Day Underway, Dirty Tricks, Lost Student Votes, Kathy Nickolaus, 'Recount'?
How to Help Protect the WI Recall Elections What you can do in Wisconsin and elsewhere...
A little known fact is the acquisition by Dominion Voting Systems, formerly of Canada which still uses paper ballots, of other Electronic Voting Machine Companies in the USA, giving Dominion control over approximately 50% of votes.
EXCLUSIVE: On Heels of Diebold/Premier Purchase, Canadian E-Voting Firm Dominion Also Acquires Sequoia
THE GOP CONSERVATIVE MEDIA IS ON STEROIDS CREATING STORIES OF DEMOCRAT "ELECTION FRAUD" Of course, most of the stories are just that, stories. Not surprisingly, Michelle Malkin and Fox News are the source then quoted by all the Right Wing Bloggers. BUT THEY ARE PLAYING A FULL COURT PRESS to convince voters that it is the DEMOCRATS not the GOP that are the perps.
Smooth Criminals: The Republican Al Capones of Voter Registration Fraud
WILL WE COUNTER THIS ATTACK?
Are you aware of this blockbusting story? Perhaps this is the tip of the iceberg that can answer the perrenial question "WHO DO PEOPLE VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST?" Well, perhaps they dont. Perhaps the GOP south has been rigging elections all along.
This case sums up many tactics used to STEAL ELECTIONS
KENTUCKY - Jury convicts all 8 defendants in Clay vote-buying case
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/...
Indictments and convictions of Election Fraud show that the GOP is the culprit more often than not. YET, the Right Wing bloggers work really hard to pin this on Democrats.
Republican "Election Fraud" 966,000 results
Democrat "Election Fraud" 1,360,000 results
PERHAPS YOU CAN ADD TO YOUR "TO DO LIST"
Tweet GOP ELECTION FRAUD NEWS.