Amidst a sea of diversity: white voters from all walks of life: Teapartiers, Birthers, Constitutionalists, NRA members, hedge fund managers; Mitt Romney speaks of his record on job creation. He’s equating the creation of employment with the creation of wealth for a lucky few. Bain Capital is his crowning achievement. A business based on using borrowed capital, raising the value of a business by lowering costs (a.k.a. firing people), then selling it for a profit to investors, often times breaking up the company and displacing the lowly worker. The figure began at ‘hundreds of thousands’ of jobs created and has now morphed into simply ‘thousands’ of jobs. In typical Romney fashion, his facts evolve as often as his positions.
Here he is trying to explain why the auto bailout was his idea even though he criticized the President’s plan as foolish back in 2008. In fact, the Conservative Wall Street Journal stated this “foolishness” created 1.5 million jobs. Meanwhile, we hear not a peep of Romney’s jobs record as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. Paul Begala, Former Clinton advisor, said this strategy is a mistake. Romney should be defining his record in Massachusetts before his opponents can define it for him.
As Governor, Willard took Massachusetts from 37th in job creation to 47th. It ranked only ahead of Katrina-ravaged Louisiana and two rust belt states, in dire straits due to George Bush’s outsourcing and the continuation of NAFTA and other harmful trade policies. The National Journal asserts, ‘Economists from Massachusetts also say Romney was never able to solve the structural problems inherent in the state’s economy — issues that now plague the country as a whole and will challenge whoever becomes president in 2013 — such as the decline in manufacturing and the dearth of employment for less-educated, low-income workers.’ Sounds to me these workers were helped immensely by President Obama and thrown under a bus by Governor Romney.
Willard is quite awkward when it comes to relating to the common worker. A child of privilege and wealth, he can’t seem to connect with the average American. But it’s not just the stark socioeconomic differences. It’s also a matter of Mitt’s defining Mormon faith that creates this barrier between himself and the voter.
As Governor, he displayed ‘sense of detachment…a function partly of his faith, which has its own tight social community that most outsiders don’t see. Indeed, the stories of Romney’s humanity and warmth come mostly from people who know him as a fellow Mormon.’ He can’t seem to relate to anyone outside his ward or stake. Since most of his prospective constituents are not LDS churchgoers, most folks won’t be able to relate to him on the same personal level as President Obama, a man far more comfortable in his own skin.
His business beliefs that profit is far more important than people is as contrary to many Americans as his other belief that Jesus will rule from Missouri in his Second Coming. That’s a blog for another day….
