You SURE you want that message?

Last night at the Republican Convention in Tampa, multiple speakers got up to tell us how much America sucks right now. Despite an economy that is recovering, they stood under a giant debt clock and declared “We built this”. It’s an odd message, given how responsible Republicans are FOR that national debt.



[Graphic credit: Eclectablog]

Yeah, you built that. Have a look at the facts:

Here’s another one from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Wars unpaid for. Prescription drug benefits unpaid for. Monstrous tax breaks for monstrously wealthy Americans unpaid for. That all adds up and, yes, Republicans, you DID build that.

While Ann Romney got up to nominate her husband for “Husband and Dad of the Year”, she declared, “Tonight, I want to talk to you about love.” A short time later, she was repudiated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who declared, “Tonight, we choose respect over love”.

The theme of “We built this” flies in the face of reality. As Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren put it, “We built this together.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave a speech tonight at the Republican National Convention about the Greatest Generation. Let’s talk about what really made the Greatest Generation so great. Coming out of the Great Depression, America was at a crossroads. The future of our economy — and our democracy — was at stake. We made a decision together as a country: To invest in ourselves, in our kids, and in our future. For nearly half a century, that’s just what we did. And it worked. For nearly 50 years, as our country got richer, our families got richer — and as our families got richer, our country got richer. And then about 30 years ago, our country moved in a different direction. New leadership attacked wages. They attacked pensions. They attacked health care. They attacked unions. And now we find ourselves in a very different world from the one our parents and grandparents built. We are now in a world in which the rich skim more off the top in taxes and special deals, and they leave less and less for our schools, for roads and bridges, for medical and scientific research — less to build a future. Tonight, Chris Christie and the Republicans told the American people that we’re to blame for our broken economy. He told families to tighten their belts. He told seniors to live on less. He told teachers to stop fighting for fair pay. He never, ever mentioned how much more the richest have taken, and he had no mention that those who broke our economy still haven’t been held accountable. The Republicans believe in an America that is rigged for the big guys — giant corporations that can hire an army of lobbyists, ship jobs overseas, and take their profits to the Cayman Islands. That’s not who we are as a people — and that’s not the kind of country we want to be. We built America together, and that’s what makes America great.

Obama campaign Senior Strategist David Axelrod described the GOP Convention this way:

If any American tuned in tonight hoping to hear if Mitt Romney has a plan to lift the middle class, improve education or build a better future, they would have to be disappointed. What they got instead was a relentless cavalcade of insults and ideology, anger in place of answers, from a party more bent on tearing down the President than lifting up our country.

It’s clear that this is true. An email from GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan this morning has him stealing the theme of “Hope” from the Democrats’ 2008 election and declaring that it’s hopeless. America sucks, he said:

the hopes of our country are growing dim. Following four years of failed leadership, Our country needs a leader to revive those hopes, and we need someone of principle. This week’s convention in Tampa marks a crucial moment for our party and our nation. This is the moment when we pull together and renew our commitment to returning America to prosperity and greatness. Governor Romney is the man for this moment. He, the Republican team, and I share one commitment: We will restore the promise and greatness of this country.

This is how he portrays our great country in spite of nearly 30 straight months of consecutive private sector job growth under the guidance of President Barack Obama, hamstrung by Republicans who thwarted every effort he has ever undertaken, a party more intent on destroying him that rebuilding the country after their party drove us into an economic abyss.

It should be noted that one Republican speaker did go off-script last night and actually talked about things getting better in their state. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley went on and on about how things are so much better now in South Carolina than they have been. A classic Republican, she appears to give all the credit for good economic news to her party and all the credit for bad economic news to President Obama.

Flying under the banner of a Republican Party platform that is the most heartless, uncaring, regressive conservative vision you could imagine, Mitt Romney will now try to peddle himself as the caring, compassionate person his wife thinks he is. We’ve seen this movie before. All of the same actors are there. All of the same catch phrases are there. All of the same myths about which party is truly fiscally responsible and which party cares about middle class Americans are there. What’s not there are ideologies to back up those myths.

Mitt Romney’s UNfavorability rating is at an all-time high of 51%. Hell, it even took Chris Christie 16 minutes of his 2016 campaign keynote speech before he finally mentioned Mitt Romney and never without also mentioning Paul Ryan.

Where’s the (Republican) love?

On top of that, Romney is running a campaign they now concede is based on lies:

“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse told buzzfeed.com.

With that type of bald-faced admission that they will simply make up anything they wish, repeat it ad nauseum and never flinch in the face of being called liars, it’s going to be easier and easier as the weeks go by for Americans to determine which candidate has the best interests of the country in mind.

That man is decidedly NOT Mitt Romney.