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Subscribe to RSSCOLUMBIA, SC -- Back on the stump for the first time since Saturday night's debate with his GOP rivals, Mitt Romney wasted little time in turning his focus back to President Obama, lashing out at the president for making "disparaging" comments about Americans.
"Sometimes, I just don't think that President Obama understands America," Romney said. "I say that because this week -- Or was it last week? -- he said that Americans are lazy. I don't think that describes America. Before that I think it was in October, he was saying we have lost our inventiveness, and our ambition. Before that he was saying other disparaging things about Americans. I just don't think he understands -- he was saying we just weren't working hard enough. I don't think he gets what's happening in this country."
Romney was referencing remarks made by the president at Saturday's APEC summit in Hawaii, where he was asked about government policies that serve as impediments to foreign investment in the United States, not about Americans generally.
"I think it’s important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity -- our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture," Obama said. "But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America."
Later in his remarks, Romney hit the president again, perhaps a bit more gently, for his broader economic policies.
"Now I don't want to be too critical, the president came in, and I think never having worked in the private sector, he went to work trying to make things better. And remember that old Ronald Reagan line - he says the most frightening thing you could possibly hear are, 'I'm here from the government and I'm here to help,'" Rommey said. "And so he did almost everything, in my view, wrong."
The balance of Romney's speech, which followed an introduction by his wife, Ann, was focused on his own economic and fiscal policy. He touched on his plans to shut down various government programs, and send Medicaid back to the states, but spent the most time on labor policy.
Speaking on the floor of Colite, a non-union sign factory, Romney tailored his speech to reflect the anti-union sentiment among Republican voters here, fueled by a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) lawsuit charging that Boeing built a factory in South Carolina to punish striking workers in Washington State.
Romney said that President Obama paid unions back for helping him get elected by appointing “stooges to the NLRB.”
“You know something about that in South Carolina,” he said, alluding to the NLRB/Boeing case.
Romney said that American workers were entitled to protections including the right to a secret ballot, the right to 30 days notice before a union election, the right to resist mandatory unionization and the right to work in a non-union state.
*** UPDATE *** Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt responds: “Only Mitt Romney would criticize the president for encouraging CEOs to promote the United States abroad in order to create American jobs and attract investment at home. Maybe that’s because when Mitt Romney was a finance executive, he was more focused on outsourcing American jobs and creating profits for investors without any regard for the impact of his decisions on middle class families.”
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And here we all thought he was going to marry "Backflip Obama." Sigh.
Democrats are a joke, they are the true carnival barker, if you are so good how come you lost the House overwhelmingly. Gabby going to need to get her head together before she can run. Although she is a better Democrat now.
Ignorance is your forte and bitterness is the pill you swallow.
If I were a Teapublican, which I'm not, I'd be damned embarrassed to have to choose from this posse of halfwits to run as the Grand Obstructionist Party candidate for President!
If I were a brainless Lib, which I'm not, I'd be damned embarrassed that the guy I voted for gave billions of taxpayer money to Green companies who filed bankruptcy anyway, unemploying thousands. Furthermore, my 1st lady has accomplished absolutely zero, except take vacations on taxpyers' dimes. Not to mention during his tenure, thousands of people were allowed to piss and @!$%# in Zucotti Park, which he agreed with, even though his buddy Corzine of MF Global just stole 800 million from people, is the 8th largest bankruptcy in US History, and isn't going to jail for it a la Madoff.
just to get the facts straight, it was millions not billions. As an independant, the teapublicans should be more embarrassed there, Laker (no NBA season) Steve
Add them all up Steve 60, it wasn't just Solyndra.....so yes, it's BILLIONS, not millions.
laker steve ?You are referring to the bush bill to promote green and alternative energy sources?Cause there was 50 billion to go to companies and Solyndra was one of them which was about1.3% of that budget and 250 million was invested by private.That one right?
NoLakerSeason Steve, you do the adding, your the one making the false claim. Back it up with the others, not just Solyndra. Just remember Hannity is not your friend.
Don't confuse Laker Steve with facts and figures. They conflict with his misdirection and misinformation.
Hey Fed Up Senior, getting Social Security? Getting Medicare? Getting police and fire protection? Why not give up your social security and Medicare and tell the police and fire department you do not need their services. Also let Pharma sell you any drug at full price, without any protections or tests.
And now, my prediction for the 2012 election...and I am not a great Obama supporter, Obama 52%, all others 48%. Take it to the bank. Six or eight or how many Republicans that are running do not stand a chance of winning. I have been following/involved in politics since 1960 and have see it all. This Republican group has to be among the worst bunch of candidates I have ever seen.
So Mitt -- are you about to join the birthers?? President Obama understands Americans more than some spoiled rich kid like you ever will. President Obama has actually had to work, worry about paying bills, worried about how to pay for his education -- things you NEVER had to deal with.
He had to work? Tell me, where in the private sector has he ever worked?
Barbara...he worked for a law firm.
OK
Why do politicians so often"shoot themselves in the foot"? Romney says Obama doesn't understand America, c'mon, lets be real, if anyone doesn't understand America it is Romney ... and he proves it most times he says anything, especially when about the average American.
Romney and the whole field of GOP candidates do not understand America, they only get their T-party base, which has veered so far off to the right, the rest of the GOP can't find them. Romney knows he is taking the Presidents words out of context, but why would that stop him? They all use the code words, liberal agenda, socialists, un American etc. They think a few more tax breaks for the rich and deregulation, and Americans economy will be fixed! The GOP field is embarrassing and I myself can't wait, for 2012. Obama 2012
hummbird..the Tea Party hates Romney...
don't- I'm no expert on the T-Party, but what do you call the people in the crowd watching the debates? From all their clapping it sure seemed like T-Party people to me. You know nut's!
The great American reality TV show, aka Republican Presidential debate, is all about finding the idiot that can say the most stupid thing. The award shifts everyday from Cain, to Mitt, to Michelle, Newt, perry or Santorium to whomever. That was a good try Mitt. Yesterday it was Herman, today its you Mitt. Well done.
lalli..Chuck Barris (The Gong Show) is chomping at the bit to host the next GOP debate. HA!
I did hear that President Obama refer to some Americans as "LAZY"... he was referring to the do-nothing welfare congress..congress, like those they hate that are on welfare, does NOTHING for their hefty salaries, their free health care and their opulant private gym..they are a joke ..as is the gang of morons running on the GOTEA ticket..it gets funnier every day..I grab a bag of popcorn before I read the news online because its like watching a funny movie...
I'd have to Agree with you Kathy. This is the 1st thing President obama said i agree with - The laziness with some people in this country is staggering...they are dragging this country down.
If your poor and don't want to be - don't be. get off your duff and do something about it. our welfare system is too generous. It causes laziness.
"We should make the poor uncomfortable and kick them out of poverty." Benjamin Franklin
Welfare for wealthy and corporations is a far bigger problem and costs trillions more than welfare for the poor. Fact.
Not to mention it never gave the desired result of trickling jobs down.
You tell me what's a bigger problem? We're not in a 14 trillion dollar hole because of unemployment benefits. But because of freebies and handouts to the very wealthiest among us.
Yes you are correct there is a multitude of issues the biggest being our currant tax system that needs to be replaced with a value added, flat tax or a consumption tax or even a combination. the currant system wasn't designed to tax a population it was designed for business.
Oh and you do Mr. Romney? I am afraid you are sadly mistaken. You all talk big until you are in the President's seat (which you will never be). You are a Republican and your party got us into this mess in the first place. You do not understand America - all you want is to protect your own riches and the heck with the middle class, the elderly, affordable health care for everyone, and anything else we are all fighting for.
""Sometimes, I just don't think that President Obama understands America," Romney said. "I say that because this week -- Or was it last week? -- he said that Americans are lazy.
Romney is full of himself. Once again a GOP is making a racial remark. When does it stop? Romney is the one that does not understand Americans except for those that are wealthy. He called corporations people and compared himself to unemployed individuals. He is a pompous arrogant person who has lost his way. All he wants to do is fill his ego by becoming the President of the United States. He will say whatever it takes so that this goal is accomplished. Romney is probably going to be the GOP Presidential candidate even though many in his party do not like him. Hopefully he does not succeed because he will take us down the wrong path, especially with all of the GOP presidential candidates cow towing to the likes of the Koch brothers and their libertarian ideology.
To all who question the true heart and compassion of conservatives,please refer to post #54,it is truly a self explanatory post. Bravo......
I first met Mitt as a young boy in Michigan at his high schools football game. I will never forget it,it was a beautiful day and I looked out onto the field,and there HE was. Mitt was at the 20 !! the 30!! the 40 !! His BATON twirling in the sun !!!! (I guess that's better than twirling in his head)
martin bashir for president !!!!!
Frankly, Americans are lazy. Right now farmers are in deep @!$%# because we kicked out all the illegals and no they can't find any white people to pick their crops or work in their fields. And it is a fair guess the "going to church on sunday" crowd is not going to break a sweat helping out either.
Republicans take part in debates to try conviencing American that he or she is dumber than his opponent and just when it seems Romney is the clear leader, her comes Santorum and then Newt and then Bachmann and then Perry and out of nowhere comes Herman Cain. John Huntsman is to smart to be one of them and poor poor Ron Paul, well he just doesn't have a clue.
and this is news?
'Corporations are people too"
and you do lololol
Hey Romney, I got news for you. He understands America all right. He just HATES what America has stood for. I'm tired of people cutting Barack Hussein slack. No one is that stupid, clueless...and Barry is intelligent. He knows EXACTLY what he is doing. Come on Romney, take off the kid gloves...get real...and tell it like it is.
"He hates what America has stood for"
This is what passes for civil, thoughtful, objective political discussion on the right these days.
George Bush was the proximate cause of 4,000 US deaths and tens of thousands more wounded in a needless war, but Obama hates America.
You couldn't make up this kind of narrow-minded, lockstep stupidity if you were actually trying.
C'mon, Jeb. Run already. The GOP field sucks. At least make Obama work for re-election.
One commentator stated that the president had presided over the first financial downgrade the country had ever suffered. Wow!! What a reach that allegation is. It was the Republican House TP'ers who were willing to sabotage the economy of the entire world by allowing the US to default. A perfunctory act necessary to pay the country's accrued obligation and one that has been executed dozens of times without any meaningful discussion by both parties was turned into a huge controversy simply to thwart the president.
It really is all about the "big lie" more and more with the GOP.
Romney has morphed into the archetype of the worst kind of politician. He will say anything to get the last punch on his lifetime ticket.
Really too bad.
Yeah, its disappointing. He's not unlike John "I Was For It Before I Was Against It" Kerry. Willing to say anything, anything to get a half a percentage bump in the polls. Sad.
Of course, Romney is in South Carolina, so he's adjusting his playbook to sound tougher. Baah!
"Trust is not being all things to all people, but being the same thing to all people." Gerald Ford
John Kerry, much like Romney, was all over the place. He too was a politician who wanted his lifetime ticket punched. Nor core commitment to anything except to his resume.
I give him credit for volunteering for Viet Nam though. Romney didn't, nor did most of the Bush WH.
But can you mention any other Kerry "flip flops" besides that unfortunate "I was for it before I was against it" incident? That's something of a challenge.
But with Romney, it's almost all "flip flops", the challenge there is to find something Romney hasn't changed his mind on. Romney has always been a Mormon, there's one. Any others?
It has to be so embarrassing to be a Republican these days. I have friends who vote (R) come hell or high water and they went down and registered as Libertarians. As far as Romney saying the President does not understand America goes, well who listens to Mitt? If you do not like his position on any given subject wait about two weeks and he will come around to your way of thinking.
Yeah. The Democrats are crazy and the Republicans are downright insane. I have a lot of Libertarian leanings. Of course, they'll never win, which is a problem. :)
Romney is a liberal Republican who will never get my vote but this statement on Obama is 100% correct.
Obama not only doesn't understand America, he like most leftists despises our Constitutional Republic and individual liberty. Instead he prefers Stalinist style totalitarianism and collectivism.
At this point, it is about getting someone in the White House that actually wants to follow the Constitution and promote the right of individuals to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed
Got even once ounce of substantiation for your claim that Obama prefers Stalinist totalitarianism over a constitutional republic?
geez louise, is that stupid.
Obama is not a Stalinist. He is a Marxist-Leninist.
Yeah, just like George Bush and Dicky Cheney totally followed the Constitution. Right on brother, you are on to something. Larry robinson, don't mind them Dems. Its the Tea party ignos! forever.
It's discouraging to think people as remarkably stupid as Chris and Larry might actually vote.
Mark: He is. He doesn't advertise. And I'm not saying he's the evil anti-Christ incarnate. He's just a guy, born in Hawaii as I understand it. But he is a Marxist-Leninist backed by the Daley Machine.
ChrisMcK, I guess you are disappointed he is not backed by the Koch machine. That's his big mistake, I guess. Being born in Hawaii, does that make him less American than Perry born in Texas or Romney( wherever he was born). You spew the same crap one would hear from the dim-wits in the Tea-party. And you are so willing to believe every crap from the GOP candidates. My advice for the likes of you- Listen, analyse, rationalize and Be objective!!!
Vague charges of "Marxist, Socialist, Fascist, Totalitarian, collectivist" - but not one shred of evidence to back up the silly insults.
No, having a marxist ex-neighbor doesn't count, nor does the TARP or GM bailouts, both of which were laws signed off by the Bush Jr. administration and handed over to his successor to carry out the terms of those laws.
So what has Obama done? The distinctly un-marxist act of selling off the government owned shares of Chrysler and GM, restoring both to privately owned Capitalist business status. Any other "collectivization"? Cue crickets...
No, government regulation is not "marxist", regulation has been the function of the US government since it's founding, and that function is mentioned in the Constitution.
100% correct, eh? Well then where's your proof that Obama is like Stalin? Is he sending us to gulags? Is he disappearing and torturing citizens that disagree with him?
The only thing 100% correct here is that you need to stock up on some tinfoil. Your insane conspiracy leanings are showing.
I love getting the Obama devotees riled up. Fact: Obama was a died-in-the-wool Marxist at Occidental College. Fact: Obama has many past and present friends and supporters who identify with Marxist causes. Fact: Obama was at best a modest politician with local pull until he made peace with the Daley Machine and they gave him their Rolodex, so much so that he was able to knock off the Clintons in 2008, a meteoric rise unprecedented in American politics. And now Rahm Emmanuel is mayor of Chicago and a Daley brother is working in the White House. I'm not making this stuff up. Just Google it and you will find multiple sources.
The fact that Romney and the rest of the GOP field is pathetic hardly excuses what Obama is. It's time for a clean slate.
"Fact: Obama was a died-in-the-wool Marxist at Occidental College. Fact: Obama has many past and present friends and supporters who identify with Marxist causes. Fact: Obama was at best a modest politician with local pull until he made peace with the Daley Machine and they gave him their Rolodex, so much so that he was able to knock off the Clintons in 2008, a meteoric rise unprecedented in American politics. "
Nope. Pretty much all opinion. And all debunked previously.
It must be true if he says it's so. I mean, how could an up-by-his-bootstraps African American man ever "understand America" as well as a white Wall Street Eagle Scout like Willard M. Romney?
Romney was an Eagle Scout? He's got one over Cain then --- Cain is only a Beaver Scout
Come to think about it, didn't they both support the women's right to choose before they happened to be against it & turned against women in America?