This morning Dennis Prager referred to the following article in today’s Wall Street Journal wishfully praying Mr. Romney will accept the call to restore traditional American values to the nation as a campaign goal:
ROMNEY POINTS TO FAILURES, GOP GOVERNORS TOUT JOBS
by Neil King, Jr. at the Wall Street Journal:
“A recent TV spot that ran for weeks in Virginia had all the makings of an ad touting President Barack Obama’s re-election effort.
“Virginia is growing strong again, and so is our future,” gushed the narrator, adding that Virginians were now enjoying “the lowest unemployment rate in over three years.:
Far from an Obama campaign plug, tthe ad was paid for by Republican donors and narrated by Republican Gov. Bob McDonell, a potential running mate of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
As Mr. Romney hops among battleground states to highlight U.S. economic woes under Mr. Obama, he keeps knocking against dissonant voices from his own side: Republican governors, such as Mr. McDonnell, touting recent turnarounds in states that Mr. Romney has to win in November.
Mr. Romney’s message that the national economy remains sour is central to his core campaign argument that the president’s policies have impeded the recovery, and that someone with deep business experience is better to set the U.S. right.
But Republican governors in states that will decide the election, such as Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Iowa, have a rosier view. While Mr. Romkney points to a feeble recovery, underscored by last month’s grim jobs report, the governors-looking to their own political fortunes-cite job growth, highter corporate investment and the rebirth of domestic manufacturing in their states.
Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, is part of a contingent of GOP governors and party elders urgin Mr. Romney to re=tailor his message by highlighting the success stories under way in a half=dozen GOP-led states, even if it means diluting his gloomier national pitch.
While the Romnehy campaign could easily incorporate that message before the election, the competing narratives have led to some awkward moments. When Mr. Romney traveled to Iowa last month, his campaign released a Web ad highlighting Iowans who were struggling to find work=in a state with a 5.1% jobless rate, the seventh lowest in the U.S.
“My state is seeing significant growth,” Mr. Branstad said in an interview, adding that he didn’t see why the Romney campaign decided to highlight unemployed Iowa residents. Ticking off a long list of companies that are expanding in the state, including Alcoa and John Deere, he said, “We are doing very well.”
Ahead of Mr. Romnehy’s Iowa campaign stop in Des Moines last month, Mr. Branstad said, he suggested that Mr. Romnehy put aside his jobs message and focus on the perils of mounting U.S. debt. “Debt is the number one issue that people in Iowa want to talk about,” he said.
Mr. Branstad wants the Romney campaign to focus more on what he and other GOP governors ave done to cut taxes, trim state budgets and regulations, and, in some cases, to challenge labor unions. He ticks off a list of governors including John Kasich of Ohio, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mr. McDonnell of Virginia and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Mr. Walker, the GOP’s latest star rookie, easily beat back a recall effort last week with a campaign that zeroed in on Wisconsin’s job growth and strengthening economy.
“Romney should be saying, “Let’s do what Kasich is doing or Walker is doing or McDonnell is doing the the states where things are looking good,’” Mr. Branstad said. “He should be seizing that momentum and spotlighting it.” Doing so, the argument goes, would help Mr. Romney make his own promises to trim government appear part of a larger conservative movement”………etc.
Comment: One of Mr. Romney’s shortcomings is although he has run for public office and won the governorship in Massachusetts, he is not by nature a politician. He is indeed a business man trained to gather as much information as necessary to make a prudent decisions. He is by training a problem solver. In this respect I admire him even more than someone like Representative Charlie Rangel of New York who must have been born with a special gene group that has made him both charming and bright and speedy-quick verbally who likes people and wants to please them. I have always been charmed by Mr. Rangel, as have so many in Washington and fortunately in Harlem.
Despite his shady this and that, I like Charlie Rangel a lot and enjoy each of his interviews on television. I am hoping Mitt will pick up on the Rangel gifts soon, the ones without the shady stuff, however. Mitt seems very clean, intelligent and likeable.
America is in crisis economically, spiritually, educatinally, and morally. Mr. Romney nor his family seem to be plagued personally by this American crisis. What an advantage for his campaign.
Filed under: American Culture, Economics and Finance, Education, Mitt Romney, National Politics, Religion
