Both GM and Chrysler are hitting back at Mitt’s lies about the auto bailout in general and about Jeep moving U. S. jobs to China in particular.
GM says the Romney campaign is in a “parallel universe.”
It’s fine with me if he becomes president in that parallel universe, just not this one.
I can’t remember private companies calling out campaign ads for their lies in a presidential race before.
From Greg Sargent at The Plum Line blog, WaPo:
“Mitt Romney’s new television ad suggesting that the auto bailout will result in American jeep jobs getting shipped to China has been widely pilloried by news organizations, both nationally and in Ohio. The Romney campaign’s response: It is expanding the ad campaign.
“A Dem source familiar with ad buy info tells me that the Romney campaign has now put a version of the spot on the radio in Toledo, Ohio — the site of a Jeep plant.
“The move seems to confirm that the Romney campaign is making the Jeep-to-China falsehood central to its final push to turn things around in the state. The Romney campaign has explicitly said in the past that it will not let fact checking constrain its messaging, so perhaps it’s not surprising that it appears to be expanding an ad campaign based on a claim that has been widely pilloried by fact checkers.
“The move represents a gamble on Romney’s part. The audacity of this falsehood makes it easier for the Obama camp to raise doubts about Romney’s character, integrity, and honesty — and to make the case that Romney not only failed to support the bailout when Ohio needed it; he’s now lying extensively to cover it up. Yesterday in Ohio, Joe Biden slammed the Romney camp by saying: ‘Have they no shame?’
“As Steve Benen put it, this episode demonstrates more clearly than any other yet that Romney ‘believes we’ve entered a post-truth era and the disincentive has disappeared — he can repeat falsehoods with impunity without fear of consequences.’
“This falsehood is particularly pernicious — it plays on people’s fears for their livelihoods.
“Ultimately, this may be Romney’s only recourse. It’s the only response Romney has left to the fact that he got it wrong on a policy that helped save an industry linked to one in eight Ohio jobs, and Obama got it right. And who knows — it just might work for him.” Emphasis added.
I, of course, hope Mitt loses, but I especially hope he loses big in Ohio. He equates intelligence with wealth. He thinks if you’re not rich like him, you must be stupid.
From “Romney’s Gut Check Moment,” Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:
“We don’t know yet what’s going to happen in Ohio, but if Barack Obama pulls it out (most polls now show a razor-thin but abiding margin) it will almost certainly be because of the auto bailout. The hard choice President Obama made and the political expedient option chosen by Mitt Romney.
“Yes, both Obama and Romney favored the companies going through managed bankruptcy. But the US auto industry entered its own existential crisis as the world economy, particularly credit markets, were at a standstill. Even with government guarantees there was no private capital for the GM and Chrysler to power to keep them functioning as they went through the bankruptcy process. And that was the rub. Government guarantees weren’t enough. The government had to write checks and at a moment when bailouts of all sorts had become politically toxic.
“Romney said no. Obama said yes. Without those funds — politically unpopular and with little guarantee of a return — the car companies would go into liquidation bringing down not only themselves but lots of associated companies and suppliers with them.
“From where Romney stood at that moment, saying no to any more bailouts was the politically expedient thing to do and it looked like a good long term political bet.” Emphasis added.
Obama might not have just saved our auto industry, he might have saved himself.
The President was certainly back last night, and I hope, but am not sure, that it was enough.
Mitt helped the Prez by not seeming presidential himself. He seemed more like a very rich, entitled, spoiled, impatient, looking-down-on-us peons CEO. Appearing like a guy used to being in charge and getting your way doesn’t necessarily translate into looking like a commander in chief. Mitt reminded me more of Donald Trump than Thomas Jefferson.
The President was extremely well-prepared, crisp and fluent without being professorial, engaging and engaged. He consistently did well, as when he called out Mitt on his past rejection of coal plants; when he explained that oil companies were sitting on their leases on public lands waiting for prices to rise; when he twice called out Mitt for his own low tax rate and called his tax plan “sketchy,” inevitably making us think of Mitt himself as “sketchy” and untrustworthy; when he explained that gas prices were so low when he took office because the economy was crashing and demand for oil was low. The President really had an answer for everything.
The President called Mitt a liar, as on the auto bailout, without hurting himself. By contrast, Mitt came across as rude to the President.
The President was effective going after Mitt both personally and on policy because Mitt helped him. Obama sought to portray Mitt as an out-of-touch rich guy, and Mitt helped him by playing that role well. The shoe definitely fit. Obama sought to portray Mitt as not having any answers other than tax cuts for the rich, and Mitt helped him by being vague and not explaining how he would create jobs, just claiming that he knew how.
The coup de grace obviously was the President’s 47% attack at the very end, which was powerful and effective. He contrasted “debate Mitt” with Mitt “behind closed doors,” who has contempt for people on Social Security and veterans and active-duty service men and women and students. There is no explaining away the 47% video. When Mitt said he cared about 100% of us last night, his voice lacked the passion and conviction it had when he was dissing almost half of us in Boca Raton. He gives himself away.
To me, Mitt was at his lowest when he claimed that Obama’s description of Mitt’s tax plan was “foreign.” It was a bizarre word to use when you mean inaccurate, and it was intended to convey that Obama himself is “foreign.” We’re back to Kenyan Muslim Socialist, we’re in birther, World Net Daily territory, which is beyond the pale of a presidential debate and beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate. But Mitt really has no dignity, just ambition.
This debate would mean more if the first one hadn’t gone so badly for Obama, if he had been building on a strong first showing. Mitt wasn’t as bad in this debate as Obama was in the first, he wasn’t a disaster. I’m not sure he stumbled as much as Obama needed him to. He certainly came across as more unlikable this time because things weren’t going his way, and he was facing a very different opponent. It was easy for Mitt to be pleasant in the first debate when the President was doing so poorly.
The President wasn’t on a level field with Mitt last night, he was in a hole. But he definitely put down his shovel and hopped on his ladder. He has three weeks to keep climbing.
This picture is certainly worth a thousand words. Paul Ryan told the convention that President Obama closed this Janesville, Wisconsin, GM plant after he promised to keep it open. How could he have closed it when he wasn’t president on December 23, 2008? I doubt that any of the poor workers in this photo had much of a Merry Christmas.
Photo by Bill Olmsted for The Janesville Gazette
H/T Immoral Minority
Embattled Farmers 