Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Friday, August 10, 2012

Romney Cries Uncle

NBC's First Read:
Romney also said in the interview he would like a pledge (of sorts) with Obama that there be no “personal” attack ads. “[O]ur campaign would be-- helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon-- business or family or taxes or things of that nature.” (Question: Is Romney really saying that scrutinizing his business record -- which he has held up as one of his chief qualifications to be president -- is personal? But we digress...) He continued: “[W]e only talk about issues. And we can talk about the differences between our positions and our opponent's position.” Romney said of his own campaign: “[O]ur ads haven't gone after the president personally. … [W]e haven't dredged up the old stuff that people talked about last time around. We haven't gone after the personal things.”
Of course, Romney has made his "business" experience the centerpiece of his entire campaign, which makes that experience not only fair game but means he himself has ensured that this experience will be the central topic of his vetting as a candidate. Of course, Romney can't "dredge up the old stuff" about Obama because it does not exist. There are no Obama scandals to flog -- Republicans have to invent "birth certificate," "palling around with terrorists," and "fast and furious" nonsense precisely because the Obama has presided over the most disciplined campaign and squeaky clean administrations in recent memory. And of course when it comes to negative campaigning, Romney ran what is widely regarded as the most negative carpet bombing campaign for the Republican nomination even before his campaign against Obama began. Romney's very first national campaign ad upon becoming the Republican frontrunner was a flabbergasting deception, clipping tape of Obama quoting McCain as if he was expressing fear himself about "losing the election" if people "talk about the economy." Since then Romney has repeatedly lied about Obama, claiming that Obama "apologizes for America" when if anything Obama has been excessively aggressive and exceptionalist in his foreign policy and public addresses, claiming that Obama denies entrepreneurs any credit for their accomplishments when if anything Obama celebrates entrepreneurship to the point of a fetish, grants business interests endless tax credits they greedily take and then ignore or revile him for, and simply points out what everybody knows, that business success like most success requires the wider support of society, laws, infrastructural affordances, and so on -- something Romney himself declared in a speech on the very day that Obama made the "you didn't build that" claim Romney has distorted into an anti-entrepreneurial fantasy diatribe. Romney is whining about the failure of his business case, the failure the failure of his negativity, because he is losing. I am pleased to see that Democrats so far are responding to Romney's self-inflicted agonies exactly as they should: doubling down on the hurt and running up the score in the hopes that the victory to come might be resounding enough to have coattails in the House and Senate.

No comments: