Mitt Romney uses Jimmy Carter as campaign weapon

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Made popular 376 days ago in Politics

politico.com — FORT LUPTON, Colo. — For President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney is an obvious throwback to another era — a stiff Father Knows Best-type who straps the dog to the station wagon and marries his high-school sweetheart.
But Romney is pursuing his own strategy to puncture Obama’s next-generation cool and paint the president as a retread, comparing him to Jimmy Carter and his fuzzy-headed liberal thinking. To the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, Carter is not just a former president, he’s a potent metaphor and political weapon.
“When you mention Jimmy Carter, that lightens up certain regions of the mind and brings to mind ineptness and incompetence,” said Peter Wehrer, who worked in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations. “That’s going to be one of the things that Romney is going to try and tie to Obama.”
Romney has mentioned Carter periodically on the campaign trail: Twice this month, he has made unflattering references to the 39th president. When asked on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden whether he would have green-lighted the mission, Romney told reporters on a New Hampshire rope line that “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order” to kill bin Laden.
Two days later at a rally in northern Virginia, he explicitly referred to the Carter era as better for businesspeople than the Obama years have been.
“What the president has done, and I think unknowingly, never having spent any time in the private sector himself … was one item after another make it harder and harder for small business to thrive and to grow and to start up,” Romney said.
“It was the most anti-small business administration I’ve seen probably since Carter. Who would’ve guessed we’d look back at the Carter years as the good ol’ days, you know? And you just go through the president’s agenda over … the last several years and ask yourself, did this help small business or did it hurt small business?”
The parallels between Obama and Carter — as Republicans see it — are too plentiful to ignore. There’s a first-term Democratic president dealing with an economic recession, high gas prices, a prevailing sense of malaise following the hope-and-change election of 2008 and an executive Republicans have, almost since day one, painted as in over his head.
And then there’s the best part: If you can frame yourself as Carter’s foe, you get to lay claim to becoming Ronald Reagan.
It’s unclear whether sticking Obama with a Carter label is an effective campaign tactic. A senior Romney aide said the campaign has not poll-tested Carter’s name as a campaign touchstone and warned not to put too much stock in Carter as a Republican boogeyman.

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How is Barack Obama a "retread" of Jimmy Carter?

For the killing of Bin Laden even though Romney thinks it wasn't worth it. "Even Carter would have done it."

4.4%

For saving the American automotive industry (millions of jobs) which Romney sees as not worth it.

For making RomneyCare nationwide

40%

For always being pro-choice while Romney has gone back-and-forth from pro-life to pro-abortion during his career

For always believing in global warming while Romney has gone from believing to outright denying it

For always supporting economic stimulus during the recession while Romney's gone back-and-forth on the issue

For always giving Reagan is do while Romney says he was against than for Reagan

For not having money in accounts overseas as Romney has

Mitt Romney's desperate

31%

For criticizing Wall St. and the Federal Reserve while Romney thinks "they're doing a good job."

25%

This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.

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lastbaldeagle

Posted 375 days ago

0 up votes, 0 down votes

Obama is worse than Carter. Who would ever thought the democRAT party could come up with a worse president than Jimmah?

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