E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSAfter Tuesday's fiery presidential debate, the heated arguments between GOP candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama showed no signs of cooling on the stump as they tried to cast each other as economic threats to voters in Ohio, Iowa and Virginia. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.
LEESBURG, Va. – In two appearances Wednesday in the critical battleground state of Virginia, Mitt Romney focused on what he called the president's lack of a second term agenda, while avoiding Libya, a major flashpoint from Tuesday night's debate.
"I think it’s interesting that the president still doesn’t have an agenda for a second term. Don’t you think that it’s time for him to finally put together a vision of what he’d do in the next four years if he were elected?" Romney said in Chesapeake, Va. on Wednesday afternoon.
At an evening event in Northern Virginia, Romney continued to work that theme, occasionally revisiting moments from the debate – as President Barack Obama did on the stump after the first debate – with snappier retorts.
"I just have to mention, I remember last night the president also saying about energy," Romney recalled before some 8,000 supporters Wednesday night. "He said, you know, we built pipelines that would go around the earth, and I thought, ‘It's just the one that comes from Canada with the oil is the one that we want, you see?’ And that's the one I'm going to get."
Libya went unmentioned in either appearance on Wednesday.
Alex Brandon / AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign event in front of a barn at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Va. on Wednesday.
The timeline of the attacks and the Obama administration’s response seemed to trip Romney during the debate.
Conservatives had previously said the attacks show the White House’s weakness in terms of foreign policy, and both campaigns spent much of Tuesday night's spin room session with reporters re-litigating the finer points of the administration's declaration of the attack as an act of terror.
"With 20 days left, today was a good day to hammer home the contrast between a candidate who has a plan to fix the economy in Governor Romney and a candidate who doesn't have a record to run on or a plan for the future, that being President Obama," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden said when asked why Romney didn't talk about Libya Wednesday. "Libya is still an issue with many voters, particularly given the conflicting statements from the president and his administration about the nature of the attack. The American people still have unanswered questions."
Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki offered a different view while discussing the debate with reporters aboard Air Force One today, suggesting that Obama's command of the Libya questions in Tuesday's debate might have shut down conversation on the issue -- for now.
"Our view is that the president – the back-and-forth on Libya last night was one of the best moments for the president, one of the best moments in recent debate history," Psaki said. "And that's because the president made clear that being commander-in-chief is about being a leader. It’s not about political gamesmanship."
Reuters, Getty Images
In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.
With a foreign policy debate coming Monday, Romney did make a point of mentioning other global issues at his second stop Wednesday, highlighting the importance of keeping America's military strong and ticking off a handful of world trouble spots he rarely mentions in a typical stump speech.
"I look around the world at North Korea, with its nuclear capability and a very strange dictator. I look at what’s happening throughout the Middle East and Pakistan," Romney said. "I look around North Africa now, with north Mali having been taken by an al-Qaida affiliate, and I recognize the world continues to be dangerous, and the decisions we make now about our military will determine our ability to defend ourselves in the future."
Leave a Comment:
Is it hard forRepublican voters to see that the GOP is against any type of spending or aid for those who are recovering from the resession. They speak of the debt created as if was a Obama Family Shopping spree. Imagine if he took the GOP's advise and focused on funding up the so-called job creaters?? What if he cut of the Food stamp program? What if he said the heck with building our infrostructure, they won't benifit from those jobs??? DO YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU A VOTING FOR???
Imagine if they took our advice and focused on the job creators and instead of struggling along, all the people in need had jobs so they could take care of themselves.
Sadly, Obama might still win this election. We should at least consider the consequences of that so we will not be surprised.
Last month the Obama administration started its third round of printing fiat money (currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves). $600 billion is the current estimate. That's almost $2,000 apiece for every man, woman, and child in the country!
In the past, when governments have printed fiat money to cover their own expenses, there has been a short-term economic bump, which is what we are seeing now, but then inflation is always the ultimate result. To us, personally, that means that, if Obama is reelected, the buying power of our savings and income will be severely reduced within about 18 months. Think about what you will need to do in order to survive inflation it will happen.
Romney, by contrast, is a proponent of fiscal conservatism. That is, he recognizes the ill effects of deficit spending.
kanin: Please explain the facts around Romney being a "fiscal conversative"....I have not seen nor read anything that proves that....specifics...not hot air that Romney has been spewing.
Oh that's right....Romney/Ryan can explain their policies....according to them, if they did, no one would vote for them!
President Obama has put us on the right track, with economy improving, stock market up, housing looking better, months of job growth. Romney wants to take us back to the failed Bush policies that got us into the mess he left in 2008.
Under Romney, inflation may be relatively mild; under Obama it will be brutal. If you are lucky enough to still have a job, your salary may not go down, but it will buy a lot less gas and groceries.
Interestingly the 47% who now pay no income taxes have a nasty surprise coming. Last week the Obama administration started printing money again out of thin air - $6,000 per household at last estimate. The massive inflation that this will cause reduces the value of everyone's dollar by exactly the same amount - rich/poor, industrious/lazy - it doesn't matter. Those 47% may be able to keep all the money they earn, but it will buy a lot less gas and groceries. The difference is what Obama is using to help fund his reckless spending.
Inflation is far worse for the 47% than a flat tax, because it will have a disproportionately large effect on those with fixed incomes.
OBAMA/BIDEN WILL WIN ON 11/6/12 AND IN A LANDSLIDE!
Learn some civics would you. The Fed is independent. The guy who heads it was initially appointed by Bush. And if you would listen to what he says, he's having to print money because the Congress refuses to pass any stimulus. Note this is an independent Republican economist saying that more stimulus is needed. So if you fear your money is becoming worthless (to borrow from Herman Cain) blame yourself.
see the new jobless claims. it is ta-da up. 46000-388000 rose 750-365000. don't seem to help obama.
you stupid libs. the market is in a bull mode. it can go up with good news and down with bad.right now, as this is being written, the market is up a little over 5 points. not from obama's stumping at the moment. if we were in a bear market. the market would be down by 25-75 points by now.
The new Occidental mysticism: State your wish with enough certainty and conviction, and you will force it to become true. The Giants will win this game, no doubt, end of story!!!!
Obama has lied to the people of the United States. He did not ever condem the death of 4 Americans to terrorist attack. He was adressing 911 attacks the day after in the 'rose garden'. Miss Candy admitted to her error and supports Romney's statement at this time. Why the media has not printed this in a headline as of yet bewilders me. Miss Candy also interupted Romney at least 24 times during the debate and Obama only 7. Why??? Obama used more time and always finished his point. Romney was not allowed to.
The outrage should be why Obama as President not Candidate should have had a press conference on this whole cover-up a long time ago. Now it is too late. He is deceiving the American people. Am I the only one who sees this?
My god, I do believe you are serious and believe that Obama is so callous that he doesn't care about the death of a man that HE appointed as ambassador.
wm.
Actually he did not say ACT of terror he specifically said ANY ACTS of terror so in accordance with the english language and its grammatics there was no specific ACT of terror designated but a compilation of any and all ACTS of terror. THIS IS WHY MOST PEOPLE GO TO SCHOOL TO COMPREHEND WHAT THEY ACTUALLY HEAR.
Damn, I do believe you've found the Higg's Bosen. You have surely split hairs to the level of the basic building blocks of matter. It's too bad that the GOP is spending so much time on English and grammar to defend Romney, because their and his weak subject is math.
Could you tell me where Romney will decrease spending? He has already stated that he will increase military spending. He doesn't seem to like programs such as Social Security amd medicare. Maybe he will cover the military increae by cutting one of those two.
If your personal income was $100,000, yet you routinely spent $125,000, putting the $25,000 overage on credit cards, how long do you think it would take for your fiscal house of cards to collapse?
Did you ever see the effects of hyper-inflation? Remember all of those pre-WWII photos of Germans hauling wheelbarrows full of money to buy 1 loaf of bread? Continuing to try and prop up this crappy economy by pumping in money from the fed (QE1,2 3?), will eventually result in hyper inflation. Good luck eating then. Good luck wuth social security, medicare and the rest.
Obama is just covering his eyes and hoping this will go away. He can't fix what he doesn't understand and he clearly does not understand the economy and econmic growth.
MOMINNJ-6679824 - Well-said and absolutely true!
Mom and Kan: where do we get the magic money to fund Romney's defense budget increase? And if you haven't figured it out "broadening the tax base" is code for "someone is going to end up paying more in taxes." It means taxing something or someone not currently taxed or taxing them at a higher rate. Who is that going to be? If you repeal the Estate Tax, you have to replace that with something else. What is that going to be? It appears to be all magic and unicorns from your perspectives.
i also believe Mit try to became your COMMANDER and CHEAT too ..hahaha want some "CANDY"??? Loser
Well, you are more than welcome to vote for your Divider and Theif if you want to.
Obama wasn't in the group at the secret dinner meeting the night of his inauguration to plot the strategy to regain power, defeat the president and deny him any policy initiatives.
I agree that the economy is a critical issue for women. The dots that Romney does not connect are that women must be able to control their reproductive choice in order to be able to take advantage of any opportunities in the jobs envirnoment. While he wants to improve opportunities for women, he will deny them choice and allow their employers to decide, on personal religious grounds, whether they have access to low or no cost contraception. There are connections between social and economic issues and to focus on one to the exclusion of the other is short sighted and counter-productive. A single dad needs day care and schedule flexibility just as surely as does a single mom. So do married couples. Private industry in this country has by and large ignored these issues so how else does it get done? Through government incentives such as tax breaks for companies that provide low cost day care to their employees during all the hours the business operates, for instance. That is the appropriate use of the tax code and once a practice is commonly a part of businesses' SOP, the tax incentive is gradually reduced.
Reproductive choice?
How far does that choice go? Gee, I really wanted a boy and not another girl? My boyfriend broke up with me so this baby I have been carrying for 5 months has got to go? This abortion didn't work, the baby is breathing so please doctor, drive a piece of metal into it's brain and stop the breathing?
The far left has so radicalized the issue of "reproductive rights" that they have alienated people who might, if the woman's life is in danger, or rape or incest, agree with them.
The far left disagrees with any restrictions and the far right reaction is to disagree with any necessity.
Well, since Romney is against abortion choice except maybe in cases of maternal danger, rape or incest (we are really not sure since it changes frequently and depends on who is speaking - Romney or Ryan) and he supports the rights of an employer to deny contraceptive coverage through insurance to their employees, I would say we have no idea where he stands on the economic issues that affect women related to reproductive choice.
The issue is that Romney doesn't see the connection to begin with apparently because in his world view when a woman gets pregnant she just stays home to raise the children full time because she has someone like Mitt to support them. Want to know how archaic his thinking is? He considers flex schedules to allow women time to pick up the kids and cook dinner a woman friendly work environment. Most women understand what that is code for.
well, don't worry about Mit will balance the budget or stop spending $$ when Mit Wroney became your COMMANDER and CHEAT he will start war with Iran and Syria then GOP will give him a Blank-Check just like their boy Bush in wrong war IRAQ they say :" FREEDUMB HAS NO PRICE$ TAG " meanning Mit can spending $$ anyway he want! WAKE UP all you MORONS then i will give you a "CANDY"....hahaha USA DOOM day are COMMING, the DUMB elect the DUMBER(MIT) to became COMMANDER and CHEAT, we are one nation under CHEATER$ and LIAR$
If Romney gets in we will have 12 million jobs ............and if it happens it will be because of what President Obama has put into place and the work that Obama has already done.
Because of this we need to let The President continue doing his Job because Romney and Big Business wants to bury you again and stop anything that we as a Country have achieved unless it's filling their pockets.
Do you think the Big Banks are happy because the President cut them out of the interest they made on Student Loans and just started giving the money directly to the Students?
All the President talks about is the American People getting a fair deal.
But Romney is counting on our Uneducated Trailer Dwellers not to research anything. He likes it when people are bowing down to him, and thinking he's God. He's been Rich all of his life and that is what he is used to, and he expects it.
They said on TV this morning that Romney's Arrogant Son Tag said he wanted to go up and Punch The President during the Debate. Well....he should have done that if he wanted to because that is what Spoiled Brats do when they can't get their way.
But I bet The President would have put a Real Chicago Style A-s Whipping on him, and taught him some Respect which is something the Romney's obviously have not done.
All the President wants is for you to get a Fair Deal and you are too damn Dumb to take.
we elect the same FOOL as much as STUPID BUSH to run USA to TOILET RECCESSION Again!! 8yrs GOP Bush is not enough for you guys to oepen youru blind eyes?
the Pharisees = Mit and Gop but Jesus always in the POOR SIDE!!! read the Bible you see it
Was Jesus on the side of Killing Embryonic Humans?
If the government reduces spending unemployment & poverty skyrockets and the system collapses. If the government continues spending the debt cannot be sustained and the system collapses. We may be at a point where there is no solution and our system will collapse. This is a condition that has been building for years.
Ahhhh, I have always loved the smell of desperation coming from the democrat-communist party. And they know it is over for the Muslim. Obama's ring on his left hand states..."There is no God but Allah". Well Hussein, I totally disagree with you.
Jobless claims take big jump in latest week!
By NBC News staff and wire reports
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits leapt to the highest level in four months in the latest week, erasing the large drop reported last week and then some.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial claims, a notoriously volatile data point that is subject to large swings due to technical factors, rose a seasonally-adjusted 46,000 to 388,000. The four-week moving average, which smooths out wrinkles in the data, rose 750 to 365,500. Both data points remain below 400,000, suggesting that the labor market is healing, although at a snail's pace.
Last week, California reported a large drop in applications, pushing down the overall figure to the lowest since February 2008. This week, it reported a significant increase as it processed applications delayed from the previous week.
A department spokesman says the seasonally adjusted numbers "are being distorted ... by an issue of timing."
The government adjusts its readings for claims to take into account regular seasonal swings. Claims usually increase at the beginning of a quarter, but one state appears to be following a different pattern than normal in reporting its claims, which led to the wild fluctuations over the last couple of weeks, a department official said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
And on the News last they showed the Young Man that asked the 1st question at the Debate in regards to Student Loans and Education. He talked to bothCandidates after the Debates. Romney offered him a job after he graduates.
HE said that he doesn't see him getting the Job because he was undecided until the Debates,because he is Voting for Obama!
the Pharisees used religion as much as Gop and MIT used today to trap voters into their side they keep say God in their side and if you don't God won't bless you! what kind CRAP is it? i guess when they read their bible they MUST CLOSE THEIR EYE$! because Jesus say: I come for the unrightous, the sick need doctor but Gop and MIt used religion to abandon the poor and needy.. they not even look at Gay guys on the street, THOU SHALL HOLLY THAN THY??
Why can I read the actual statements from the President in the Rose Garden but MSNBC fails to actually report the truth on the subject. The president did not refer to Libya as an act of terror. He lied in the exchange with Romney. I guess we all have to actually look up this data now. MSNBC is not a credible source of information.
It takes longer than a 4 year term to fix a wrecked economy. Especially when the very people that wrecked it are throwing up roadblocks to legislation that is needed to get us back on the road to recovery. This is the second time that republicans have trashed our economy. When it caused The Great Depression it took over ten years to get us back on track. It may well take another six to eight years to fully recover from the position the repugs have currently put us in especially if they continue to block legislation and do nothing in congress. Flippers (Romney) agenda is using his position in office to force his version of the Mormon faith on every woman in America in order to deny them the right to how they deal with their own bodies according to their own beliefs. Religion should not be the basis for legislative laws.
His policy of giving additional tax breaks to the rich while they invest in foreign companies in places such as China allows them to bankroll the very companies that are undercutting American goods and businesses while destroying our economy. His foreign policies due to his ignorance of such matters are a path to war which will increase our debt not reduce it and which we can ill afford. We need to keep Flipper out of office and remove those of his kind from congress so that we can once again unify our government and get it back on the road to recovery.
Remember this from the Kenyan Kalamity. If I can't fix this by the end of my term I'll be a one term president. At least he's right about something.
Then why did Obama say "A year from now, I think, people are going to see that we are starting to make some progress. There's still going to be some pain out there. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one term proposition."
If he was truly oblivious to the difficulty of the task, then he was totally incompetent. If he was aware of the "wrecked" state of the economy, then he was lying.
Or, perhaps, the situation then just wasn't nearly as bad as the one he eventually created.
If the repugs in congress had backed his policies instead of putting up road blocs we would have been much further along in our recovery. No president can foresee the political agenda of the opposite party when it comes to legislative action. If congress had continued to support him after becoming republican dominated instead of doing everything they could to block recovery to make him look bad we would not still be facing the issues we do today. This is the agenda the repugs admitted to when they said they would do everything they could to block his policies and insure he would be a one term president He stopped our slide into depression in the first half of his term and managed to put us on a slow road to recovery despite the actions of the repugs to derail our recovery. It's time to take back congress so we can get back on track.
Kan: look around. Given that the US banking system is the one that sunk the world economy, the US is doing relatively well compared to the economies in Europe which we helped to sink. Those economies that didn't feel the recession were countries, like Iceland and Sweden, that have tightly regulated banks and who didn't engage in our insane banking practices. Countries like Canada (with their national health care) and Australia perform better because they have relatively small (and very cohesive populations) and have an over abundance of resources to export to China. It took 10 plus years to recover from the Great Depression. If you count the stock market, it took decades even with the post WWII boom. But then again, Nazi Germany recovered much faster - why? They had a stimulus program.
if your retired and a political junkie like me, you would also have noticed, but not widely reported that obama is no longer say on his speeches that al qaeda is ' on the run'.........oh well......guess they're still trying to kills us for any reason...... I FIND IT AMAZING THE 'SELECTIVE REPORTING' DONE BY THIS NETWORK.......OBAMA ONLY NEEDS TO BEAT ROMNEY, ROMNEY NEEDS TO BEAT OBAMA, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN,MSNBC AND NY TIMES. SAD VERY SAD......
The Press Secretary and Us Ambassador to UN Susan Rice were still not calling it a Terrorist Attack and on The View when directly asked was it a terrorist attack Obama was unwilling to say Yes it was. Even in the rose garden he was generally talking about terror against the US. Romney should have worded his answer better and not get into nitpicking. The Obama administration has been all over the place when it comes to this attack. I'm sure they didn't lie but they definitely were not organised and were well over their heads on this one.
Hussein Ostumbler- "I did not have sexual relations with that video."
Its Obama fault that the economy is in shambles, with the spending and the devaluation of the dollar, high unemployment brings down wages hence less of a shrinking dollar. We need a leader who knows economics. Romney/Ryan 2012, Obama was all about him not us. WE DESERVE BETTER....Everything Obama does is about politics even the raid on Bin laden. nO mO O
Can't get away with a talking point - please explain the direct correlation between increased federal spending and the alleged adverse impact on the economy? Extra credit - identify the amounts of federal spending that are directly attributable to Obama's increases and not the naturally occurring increases year over year in the federal budget that were already baked in or the budgeting for our two wars.
Its not too late to abandon USS Obama.
We have plenty of room on board the USS Romney.
I have a question for MSNBC, you love to report on polls, but lately not so much.
What happened? Could it be that you do not want to report that Romney is up 51% to 45%? Time is not your side Mr. President.
You came, you saw, you failed!!!
The reason you have room on the USS Romney is that it's a sinking ship. The only people left are the ones who are too blind and stupid to realize it. I'm not sure what polls you're referring to but if you get your information from Fox news then that explains why you're so sadly misinformed. This may come as a shock to you but presidents are elected by the electoral college not by majority vote. Right now, with the states that are solidly blue, all the president needs is to win one swing state and he'll be over the 270 electoral votes he needs for re-election. He leads in most of these states so it looks pretty bad for your side.
You came, you saw, you failed!
LMAO you are diluted. PA is now in play. MI might fall (even with the GM bailout).
Obama has way more iffs than Romney does.
can you imagine MIT WRONEY say to MR BAIN , STOP Send americans jobs oversea to China (communist country)??? WOW Mit look very good does n't he? FLIP....FLOP... i am 47% wrong then and 1900% wrong now = Mr Bain = MIT WRONEY!!!! same OLD LIAR! i call it THE (PIG) in LIPSTICK....hahaha want some "CANDY"??
Yea Obama is against 100% of the American poupulation just look at his record there the truth....
Well, when even the "Moderator" tries to cover and LIE for Obama, why should Romney mention Libya?
And AFTER the debate she's out there in interview after interview saying ROMNEY GOT IT RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!
Have ANY of you libs read or heard Obama's statement on 9/12? He does NOT call Benghazi a terrorist attack, he mentions 9/11 and Afghanistan and then says "acts of terror".
Does ANYONE wonder how it is that Crowley actually had Obama's statement in her HAND during the debate, and still got it WRONG?
Does ANYONE wonder why it is that over 90 minutes that Crowley jumped in to "fact check" either one of the candidates, INCORRECTLY, only one single time, and it just happened to be about the President LYING TO THE NATION?
And does ANYONE wonder how it is that Obama KNEW she had the statement and actually told her to "read the transcript" when it was brought up?
How much longer is the press going to COVER for Obama and the DEATHS of four Americans?
Oh and by the way, after Obama's little "Rose Garden" statement, during a CRISIS where our embassies all over the world were under siege by Muslims, what did Obama do? While our consulate in Libya was STILL BURNING and four Americans lay DEAD, what did he do?
Why he did what all "great" Presidents do, at least to you libs.
He flew to Vegas to TELL JOKES and COLLECT MONEY.
What a Fnk Retard you are, all you insult me by calling yourself an American. Half azz Republincan spin on things, Only saying half the words to make it sound bad. You had better be saving all that change that Romney is paying you because you are going to need it. The President said,"We will not tollorate any acts of Terrorism." Romney believes in the Draft, two-faced draft dodger. I killed a lot of "bad guys" just for you. now it is your turn, you will be drafted, and you will be baptized by fire. If you are lucky enough to survive, please come back and tell how great Romney is.
If I became president the second thing I would do after getting Obama uncared madness repealed would be telling the UN to F off..
Bush did that already, where have you been?