Romney managed to embrace the immigrant parents and small-business mindset, somehow, claiming that when he "was 37, I helped start a small company," referring to Bain Capital. There was also a significant amount of criticism towards the current Administration, but nothing that we haven't heard before. Of course, the Republican Party offers the solution: "Lots of jobs." Twelve million of them, in fact, but there's no word on how exactly he plans to attain those. Much of the rest of the speech was marked by recycling the Republican Party Platform, with the same unbalanced focus on the significance of private schools and small-business.
A lot more baseless accusations were thrown around, with Romney claiming that he "will not raise taxes on the middle class." Incidentally, Obama made the same pledge. As far as Romney's "5 Steps" go, most are vague and questionable. Following the five points, he criticized Obama's foreign policy as weak for not taking a stronger stance against Russia, China, Iran and for some reason Cuba. Ironically, he said that he will honor "the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan." It seems like the GOP has forgotten their pledge to make bipartisanship as difficult as possible.
Romney's speech was sorely disappointing. In some ways, I wish he had maintained the stance on social issues that he had while he was governor of Massachusetts, because those provided a much more moderate view (Note: I will link an article as soon as I find the one I am looking for). Instead, he seems to feel like he needed to pander to the conservative base of the GOP, where he would have won many votes anyway simple for not being Obama. What do you think? Does Romney offer a solid plan for America?
Speech Transcript
2 comments:
I agree with many of your views on Mitt Romney's speech. While he provided a more "human" image of himself, in fact, probably the most human image we've ever seen from Mitt, the speech was fairly empty. There was little actual talk of his politics and the end of the speech made him sound fairly militaristic. Getting into a war with Iran would not be a politically smart move, and his statement regarding "severe consequences" for those who cheat us in trade, also seemed to hint at militaristic approaches. The warlike approach of his future plans was a major turn off, to me at least. Furthermore, his criticisms of Obama for essentially not being an entrepreneur seemed odd and questionable. Overall, Mitt Romney was fairly vague on any mentioned political plans such as his "5 point plan" and the "severe consequences" he mentioned in his speech. With no substantial information or elaborations provided today, his plan for America appears far from solid.
I agree with you, James; Romney's speech was definitely crowd-pleasing and enthusiastic, but it definitely did not offer Americans any good sense of his plans. However, I don't think this surprises me. Throughout the course of his campaign, he has avoided addressing much of his plan. He also changes his mind on policies frequently, so much so that even he forgot what he is promoting (I am referring to one interview a while back in which he said "I stand by what I said, whatever it was.")
This whole issue troubles me, and I'd hope that it troubles Americans too. If Romney's willingness to be vague and deceptive comes so naturally during his campaign, could he do so just as easily if he were president?
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