these:
The one term that must not be mentioned
By Steve Benen
David Axelrod, a top political strategist for President Obama, raised an interesting point about Mitt Romney's big speech in New Hampshire last night.
It's a fair point about an overlooked aspect of the speech. In fact, going through the transcript this afternoon, I noticed that Romney mentioned his father being a governor, but not his own term in office.
When I was doing research for this recent piece on presidential candidates and their pre-campaign experience in public service, I found plenty of governors and former governors who tried (and succeeded) to parlay their background as the chief executive of a state into becoming the chief executive of the nation.
But I could find no example of a major-party nominee whose only experience in government was serving as a governor, but who then made no effort to talk about this experience as a candidate for national office. Nor could I find any examples of a governor quitting after one term, knowing he'd lose if he sought re-election, and then running for president.
And why is it, exactly, that Romney is avoiding the subject of his only background in public service? Perhaps because, during his 2003-to-2007 tenure, Romney failed to impress much of anyone.
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http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/25/11394752-the-one-term-that-must-not-be-mentioned
Romney Camp Defends Poor Jobs Record: He Inherited A Bad Situation
Pema Levy
Mitt Romney has been dogged by an unfortunate statistic for his entire campaign: When he was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation. President Obama’s campaign has ramped up the attack this week in response to Romney’s assertion that he knows how to create jobs — a fact he says is backed up by his record in the private sector. Sunday, Romney’s campaign struck back with a new line of defense: Romney stepped into a serious situation and improved it.
If it sounds familiar, it should — it’s the same line of reasoning that Obama is using to persuade voters to stick with his policies.
Twice on Sunday, Romney’s advisers appeared on television armed with different numbers than the ones wielded by the Obama campaign. On ABC’s “This Week,” Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter and top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom duked it out over Romney’s Massachusetts record.
Massachusetts “did fall to 47th out of 50 in jobs creation,” Cutter said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Wages went down when they were going up in the rest of the country. He left his successor with debt and a deficit, and manufacturing jobs left that state at twice the rate as the rest of the country.”
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http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/romney-massachusetts-record-job-creation-47th-fehrnstrom.php
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