Train Wreck: Romney Campaign Press Secretary Andrea Saul On The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd

Romney Campaign Press Secretary Andrea Saul was on The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd today. I’ve transcribed part of her appearance to highlight just how vague and non-specific the Romney campaign messaging is. They don’t really offer solutions. What they offer are critiques of the Obama administration based on generalities.

Chuck Todd listed many occasions when the federal government had to step in to rescue a business or industry (past and present). He then asked Andrea Saul, “Does that mean Governor Romney is going to turn back the clock and the government will never invest in the private sector under a Romney presidency?”

Saul’s response was a train wreck:

No one’s questioning if there is a role for the federal government to play. What we see with President Obama is he spent billions of dollars hand picking winners and losers. He promised with the passage of the stimulus that unemployment would be at six percent or lower currently, and it’s not, it’s not even close, because he doesn’t fundamentally understand what it takes to get the economy going again. So rather than spending his time rewarding campaign donors with tax payer dollars, that eventually were lost in many cases, he should have been focusing his time on taking the burdens off of these businesses, whether it be, you know, regulations that are hampering their ability to do things, whether it be the taxes. There are all these burdens that he has put on, you know, folks in the real world economy, that they can’t thrive under those burdens. And so, you know, what Governor Romney would do, you know, should he be elected, is to make sure that we create an environment that’s friendly to job creators. You can’t be hostile to job creators and still be friendly to jobs, it just doesn’t work that way.

Might be time for a new press secretary, huh?

First, what comes to mind is a line from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “She won’t respect him, ’cause you can’t respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn’t work.” The context and messaging doesn’t really match but the cadence and wording of that last sentence by Andrea Saul instantly made me think of that Bueller quote.

Second, what a heaping pile of words with no focus and no specific validity. Of course she doesn’t really have much of a response to Todd’s question. She gives that one short sentence and then moves on to a barrage of general statements and lies about President Obama. She uses the very stale message about the stimulus and the unemployment rate. When the stimulus was passed it was not known just how deep the recession had gotten. These things are not known until hindsight. The Obama administration might have been wrong about predicting where the unemployment rate would end up but that doesn’t mean the stimulus didn’t work. But the Romney campaign has their nice neat package of a message and they are going to stick with it.

Next Saul gets into the best (or worst) part of her response where she offers zero specifics. She says Obama doesn’t “fundamentally understand what is takes to get the economy going again.” OK, so what does it take? Give me some specifics. Don’t just say Obama doesn’t “fundamentally understand” and then move on. In fact, if there really are some secret Romney specifics that could get the economy going shouldn’t we know what they are now? I mean, eight months is a long time to make people wait when they are out of job. Of course there is no substance. They have nothing to offer.

Later Saul gets into Obama’s “hostile” treatment of the “job creators”. Is anyone else getting tired of hearing about these mythical “job creators?” It’s just about as annoying as politicians always starting a line with “The American people.” Anyway, so Saul says Obama is hostile towards job creators because of “all these burdens that he has put on”. Those poor people!

But the good news is that Romney will be their friend. Nice. Just what the doctor ordered. Economy magically fixed. Next issue.

Unfortunately millions of people will vote for Romney in November, guaranteed.

dks

Election 2012 • Politics