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TAMPA, FL -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney reined in his criticism of President Barack Obama on Wednesday, signaling a softer tone at the outset of a three-stop swing through Florida coinciding with the president's trip to New Jersey to survey hurricane damage.
Returning to the campaign trail after cancelling several campaign events out of respect to victims of Hurricane Sandy, Romney joined several prominent Florida Republicans in blending a pitch for storm recovery support with more traditional political fanfare.
In his first formal campaign event (Romney morphed one planned stop in Ohio into a "relief event" on Tuesday), Romney struck hopeful notes.
"You should know I could not be in this race if I were not an optimist. I believe in the future of this country I know we have huge challenges, but I’m not frightened by them, I’m invigorated by the challenge," Romney told supporters gathered in an airplane hangar here near the close of his remarks. "We’re going to take on these challenges we’re going to overcome them!"
As the storm cleanup begins, the Republican presidential candidate is facing questions about his position on the federal government's role in disaster relief. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.
And Romney included an entreaty for donations to the Red Cross as the East Coast reels from the impact of the hurricane earlier this week. (Romney himself made a donation to the Red Cross, an aide told NBC News.)
"If you have an extra dollar or two, send them along and keep the people who are in harms – who have been in harms way, who’ve been damaged either personally or through their property, keep them in your thoughts and prayers," Romney said. "We love all of our fellow citizens. We come together in times like this and we want to make sure that they have a speedy and quick recovery from their financial and in many cases, personal loss."
Romney was joined on the trail by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom noted that Floridians are more familiar with hurricanes than most of the nation, and urged the roughly 2,000 attendees here to pay back the generosity they have experienced after past storms.
At a campaign event in Tampa Bay, Florida, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney promotes a five-point plan for growing the economy.
"People are going to be living with the aftermath of the storm, and so our hearts and our prayers go out to them, and also our help," Rubio said. "If you see on the screen the number you can text the Red Cross and make your donation. We have been the beneficiary of these donations in the past. Let's make sure we pay it forward for our neighbors and fellow Americans up north who are suffering."
Bush, who had to handle numerous hurricanes during his time as governor, also waded into the politics of disaster relief, suggesting that local governments contributed more to recovery efforts than the federal government.
"My experience in all this emergency response business is that it is the local level and the state level that really matters," he said to applause. "That if they do their job right the federal government part works out pretty good."
Brian Snyder / Reuters
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney greets audience members at a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida October 31, 2012.
But today's event was certainly a return to the issues that have driven the campaign for the last year -- with Romney criticizing the president's stewardship of the economy indirectly, and offering his own plan in contrast.
“My view is pretty straight forward and that is I believe that this is time for America to take a different course, that this should be a turning point for our country, and I say that because I look at where we are and with 23 million Americans – you think about that. These are real people. These are folks trying to put food on the table," Romney said. "Twenty-three million people struggling to find a good job. This is something that requires in my view a different path than we’ve been on."
Reuters, Getty Images
In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.
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Three words....CitiGroup Plutocracy Memo. Read it so you will know what is in store for us if Romney is successful lying his way to the Presidency. Don't say you weren't warned.
And, for you supporters of Romney, I ask only one thing of you if you haven't already voted. Please, just google Romney is lying and Ryan is lying and see how many thousands of sites come up showing all the lies. Fox news has even called them liars. Please, we can not afford to have another President that lies to us and then doubles down on the lies even when they have been admonished. What kind of integrity and character is that? Is that what you want in a President? This election is not about electing a Homecoming King. It is the very highest office in the land that is at stake and he can harm us with his policies. Don't give him the chance. We cannot go back to what got us almost to the brink of collapse. I implore you, do your homework.
People need to take a look at the who the people are that are advising Romney. He has Bush war monger foreign policy advisors and the same guy who brought you those tax cuts is his econpmic advisor. He may be tapped to be the Treasury Secretary. Didn't they cause enough harm the last time they had a President's ear?
.... AND YET MORE LIES FROM FOX NEWS .... REPUBLICAN PARTY USING LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES ..... JUST PATHETIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .... and voters don't see it ... or refuse to see it???
U.S. says CIA responded within 25 minutes to Benghazi attack
Intelligence officials dispute a report by Fox News that officers in Libya were ordered to 'stand down' after the diplomatic compound came under attack.
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times November 2, 2012
WASHINGTON — CIA security officers in a Benghazi post responded within 25 minutes to a call for help from a nearby State Department compound after it came under attack Sept. 11, officials said Thursday, seeking to refute a Fox News report asserting that CIA managers ordered them to stay put.
In releasing a detailed timeline of CIA actions that night, senior intelligence officials have put aside long-standing concerns about revealing the extent of the agency's presence in Benghazi in order to push back against what officials say are baseless allegations that aid was withheld.
"At every level in the chain of command, from the senior officers in Libya to the most senior officials in Washington, everyone was fully engaged in trying to provide whatever help they could," a senior intelligence official said in a statement. "There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support."
Fox News asserted in a story last week that CIA managers had ordered agency security officers to "stand down" and remain in their own facility, known as the Annex, when the attack on the diplomatic compound began about 9:40 p.m. and that there was an hour delay before officers disobeyed orders and went to help repel the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and State Department officer Sean Smith.
Among those who rushed to help was Tyrone Woods, a former Navy SEAL who was part of the CIA security team and who later died in the attacks.
The Fox story also asserted that the CIA "chain of command" refused to pass along requests from its officers for military aid and that special operations forces in nearby Sicily could have been sent to help but were not. Intelligence and Pentagon officials strenuously denied that Thursday.
They insisted there was no viable military option to disrupt what amounted to a series of sporadic attacks in a crowded city full of people sympathetic to the U.S. There were no armed drones in the region and airstrikes were not called for, officials said.
"Let's say we were able to get an aircraft there. Do you go in and start strafing a populated area without knowing where friend or foe is?" a senior Defense official asked. "If you did that, you could kill the very people you are trying to help."
A special operations team was sent to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, but the team arrived after the attack ended, said the senior Defense official, who would not be quoted by name discussing potentially classified
information.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta learned of the attack shortly after it began, about 4:30 p.m Eastern
time, Defense officials said, and discussed it in a previously scheduled meeting with the president. Obama ordered him to pursue whatever options were feasible, a Defense official said.
Panetta "ordered all appropriate forces to respond to the unfolding events in Benghazi, but the attack was over before those forces could be employed,"Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
Shortly after 11 p.m. a surveillance drone had arrived from elsewhere in Libya — about an hour after it was requested, officials said. But the video feed was not seen by the president, contrary to some news reports. And the feed did not offer analysts a clear understanding of what was happening on the ground, officials said.
After the CIA team arrived at the compound, "over the next 25 minutes, team members approach the compound, attempt to secure heavy weapons [from Libyans], and make their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire," the senior U.S. intelligence official said.
The senior intelligence official disclosed that the CIA also sent a second six-member team from Tripoli on a chartered plane to help repel the attack. The team included Glen Doherty, another former SEAL, who was later killed when attackers fired mortar rounds at the CIA Annex.
The team arrived around midnight but got bogged down at the airport. Ultimately, it learned that "the ambassador was almost certainly dead" and headed to the agency facility "to assist with the evacuation," the official said.
It arrived with Libyan support at the Annex at 5:15 a.m., just before mortar rounds began to strike. Woods and Doherty were killed as they fired on militants from the roof. The mortar attack lasted 11 minutes, the official said.
The drone overhead was not armed. Even if it had been, there were no viable targets, officials said.
"The officers on the ground in Benghazi responded to the situation on the night of 11 and 12 September as quickly and as effectively as possible," the intelligence official said. "The security officers in particular were genuine heroes. They quickly tried to rally additional local support and heavier weapons, and when that could not be accomplished within minutes, they still moved in and put their own lives on the line to save their comrades."