Romney's GOP Acceptance Speech

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Sept 5, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

             Delivering the biggest speech of his political career, 65-year-old former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney set a respectful tone but offered no new proposals for fixing the U.S. economy.  While preaching to the choir in Tampa at the Republican National convention, Mitt offered undecided voters not a shred of a plan to do anything differently than former Republican President George W. Bush.  Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney were conspicuously absent from the proceedings to spare Romney any connection to the past GOP failures.  While bashing President Barack Obama, Romney made no mention of the Bush administration that left the country in economic ruins at the time Barack was sworn in Jan. 20, 2009.  Mitt mentioned nothing of former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan’s bleak assessment that it would take years, maybe decades, for the economy to recover.

            Romney’s entire message hinged on the theme of “we deserve better.”  “I’m okay.  You can trust me.  I can do a job, and I want to put America back to work,” Romney told the GOP crowd, without saying how he’s going to do it.  Because he subscribes to GOP boss Grover Norquist’s “No Tax Pledge,” Romney has only one way to deal with the current $1.2 trillion federal budget deficit.  Mitt agrees with his handpicked VP House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that the federal budget must be slashed, gutting the government’s most popular entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare.  Short on details, Romney’s speech omitted his real plan to slash government jobs to help balance the budget.  Romney talks about adding 12 million new private sector jobs but won’t say how he’ll pull it off.  If he tosses federal workers out of work, the unemployment rate would skyrocket.

            Mitt succeeded in presenting himself as a genteel politician, avoiding the kind of vitriol that doesn’t sit well with independent voters.  While Ryan’s speech the night before was replete with factual inaccuracies, Romney’s message largely presented platitudes and old fashion bromides.  “I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed,” Romney told delegates, setting up the most disingenuous element to Mitt’s speech:  The failure to own up to past Republican failures.  Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus made certain that Bush and Cheney were erased from the convention.  Painting a big target on Obama’s back was the only message.  Forget about the economic calamity handed to Obama on Inauguration Day.  Barack gets blamed for not doing the impossible:  Turning around the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.

            Romney mentioned nothing to convention delegates about the over 4 million jobs created since the economy bottomed out in March 2010.  Blasting the nation’s 8.3% unemployment rate, Romney said nothing about the over 200,000 jobs lost a month during the waning days of the Bush administration.  “The President hasn’t disappointed you because he wanted to,” said Romney, praising Barack for good intentions.  “You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him,” picking up on Clint Eastwood’s incoherent speech preceding him.  Romney only presents Barack as a failure.  Mitt mentioned nothing about Obama’s relentless pursuit of terrorists and eventual kill of Osama bin Laden May 1, 2011—something the Bush administration couldn’t do in eight years of hot pursuit.

              Painting Barack as out of touch, Mitt highlighted the White House’s pursuit of global warming, not fixing the economy.  Yet the president’s Supreme Court-approved health care overhaul promises to fuel the largest expansion in the health care business in the nation’s history—and potentially create millions of new jobs.  ‘My promise . . . is to help you and your family,” said Romney, if you’re an independent business owner and entrepreneur.  If you worked for General Motors, Chrysler or Ford, Mitt would have you in the unemployment lines.   He and Ryan opposed Barack’s bailout of  GM and Chrysler.  Mitt talks of helping “your family” but not if you work for local, state or the federal government.  Romney’s cryptic economic plan calls for slashing the federal workforce and de-funding costly state programs that keep real people employed, like school teachers, police and firefighters.

            Romney talks of reversing Obamacare, the major initiative that could create an explosion of new private sector jobs.  If Condoleezza Rice’s speech the night before gives any clues into a Romney foreign policy, she blasted Obama for not taking the same adventurous policy as the Bush administration.  Rice ripped Barack for not staying in Iraq and now intervening in Syria’s civil war.  Voters need to see that Romney spares no tax dollars for fighting foreign wars, only for domestic programs that help struggling taxpayers.  Blaming Obama for everything but the kitchen sink played well to Romney’s partisan audience.  He offered no clue how he intends to rain more jobs down on the U.S. economy.  Keeping Bush and Cheney away from the convention, the RNC wanted to blame the entire economic mess on Obama.  You’d think Mitt would have at least thanked the president for getting Bin Laden.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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