Americans are two weeks away from the 2012 Presidential Election. The stakes could not be higher. With just about two weeks to the 2012 Presidential Election, most polls indicate that the presidential race is a close one. On Sunday, on Meet the Press, NBC’s Chuck Todd unveiled a brand new poll that shows President Obama and Mitt Romney deadlocked, 47-47. The three Presidential Debates have been completed. Yet, there are still a rather significant number of undecided voters that could determine the outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election.
Many voters have looked carefully at each candidates’ political record; and they have decided how to cast their ballot on or before November 6, 2012 but there are still some undecided voter. With that said, it has been reported that yesterday Mitt Romney’s Super PAC’s largest attack surge in history will hit in nine must-win battlegrounds. Many suggest that these attack advertisements could give the Republicans the undecided voters and this election—if, as some assert the undecided voters fail to look carefully at Mitt Romney’s record both as an elected official and a business leader. This post was by a rhetorical question I heard which asked Why do the voters that know Governor Romney the best like him the least. In researching and writing this post, I sought to learn more about Governor Mitt Romney as a politician and a business man.
What Do Massachusetts Voters Say about Governor Mitt Romney?
In the state of Massachusetts, President Obama has a resounding lead over his opponent Mitt Romney. Some polls indicate that President Obama leads Romney by as much as twenty (20) points in the state of Massachusetts. The question for undecided voters should be why is that the voters that know Governor Mitt Romney the best support him the least. Perhaps, as many assert, the people of Massachusetts know all too well that Mitt Romney does not act in the public best interest but rather in the best of interest of the select few much like his leadership at Bain Capital.
Willard “Mitt” Romney’s Record: The 70th Governor of Massachusetts
During the 2012 Presidential Debates and on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often references his accomplishments as Massachusetts Governor. Romney won the 2002 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts. Currently, in Massachusetts, the state where he was governor, Mitt Romney is trailing by twenty (20) points or more behind President Barack Obama in the Race for the White House. What does it say to you that the voters who know Mitt Romney best trust him least? Let’s look at what Massachusetts voters know and Romney supports refuse to accept about his record as an elected official and a business man.
Taxes & Job Creation
To date, Romney’s tenure in elected office was rather brief—not for a lack of trying Romney ran for Massachusetts’ US Senate seat and US President several times and lost. Now, back to Romney’s record as the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney was a one term governor of the state of Massachusetts. From 2003 to 2007, Willard “Mitt” Romney served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts. While Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the debt burden per capita was the highest in the nation. As Governor, Mitt Romney raised or created more than one thousand (1,000) taxes and fees on people across Massachusetts, while two hundred and seventy-eight (278) wealthy residents in the state received a tax break. And, Massachusetts plummeted to forty-seventh (47th) out of fifty (50) in job creation. With that said, Mitt Romney’s record as Governor of Massachusetts should give voters some insight into the Romney/Ryan ticket’s plan for our nation and the outcomes of such measures on our nation’s economy.
Heath Care: Romney Care
While Romney was Massachusetts Governor, Mitt helped develop and enact into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance. The architect of Romney Care was also the architect of Obama Care. For many years, Romney touted Romney Care as one of his most impressive accomplishments as Massachusetts Governor. Interesting to note, now as the Republican Candidate for President, Romney states that one of his first acts would be to abolish Obama Care (also known as Romney Care) as it is bad for business. Makes one wonder why is that candidate Romney has now deemed near-universal health insurance access bad for business when President Obama replicated on a national scale what Romney enacted into law in Massachusetts years ago.
Abortion
When Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts, Mitt was prochoice. US Presidential Candidate Romney is no longer pro-choice. It makes one wonder, what are Romney’s core values. Newt Gingrich in his kinder descriptions on Mitt Romney’s constantly changing positions on issues as a flip-flopper. He went on to say you do not know which Romney you will be electing should he be your choice for political office. Gingrich is correct in that Governor Romney has flip flopped on quite a few key issues. This should give voters great pause when considering voting for Mitt Romney in any election—you never know whether you will get the Romney of 2002, 2004, 2008, or 2012.
What are Governor Romney’s Qualifications for President?
Throughout the campaign, Governor Mitt Romney has indicated that his qualification to be president is grounded in his fifteen (15) years as head of Bain Capital. According to Romney’s campaign’s narrative, while at Bain, he became immersed in business enterprise and learned along the way the true secrets of how to grow the economy and create jobs. During Romney’s watch at Bain, the Bain’s returns reputedly averaged more than fifty (50) percent annually. Romney asserts that this fact is proof he is not only successful in the business arena but his experience at Bain has prepared him for the task of restarting the nation’s sputtering engines of capitalism.
David Stockman[i], Reagan’s Budget Director’s Comments on Governor Romney
Here is what conservative Republican, David Stockman, Reagan’s Budget Director is saying in articles both in Newsweek and the Daily Beast about Mitt Romney’s claim about being businessman that was a job creator.
“Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production.”
“Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better.”
“Bain Capital’s billions of profits were not rewards for capitalist creation; they were mainly windfalls collected from gambling in markets that were rigged to rise.”
Now that we know what really happened at Bain Capital and during Mitt Romney’s term as Massachusetts’s governor, it is time for the undecided voters to take action that can and will change the future. On November 6, 2012, they, like each of us, must seize the opportunity to vote.
It has been reported by Harry Reid that the race for the Senate majority is just as close as the race for the White House. Someone is going to break this tie. As Reid aptly stated, “Right now, it looks like Romney and Rove plan to do just that.”
As was aptly stated by President Johnson when discussing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”
Each election day, countless eligible voters deprive themselves of their voting right through complacency or apathy. Don’t be among them—exercise your right to vote.
Source(s): “Frontline The Choice of 2012”, aired on PBS. “As Goes Janesville”, documentary aired on PBS. Mitt Romney: The Great Deformer, “Is Romney really a job creator?” “Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, takes a scalpel to the claims”, In Newsweek Magazine and the Daily Beast, David Stockman, Oct 15, 2012. Wikipedia. US Senator Harry Reid Action Alert, October 23, 2012. US Senator John Kerry, Action Alert, October 22, 2012.
Photo Credit: Microsoft Clip Art
[i] David Alan Stockman is a former U.S. politician and businessman, serving as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan and as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan.
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