Ben Stein: Romney's a 'losing candidate'

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For someone who says he doesn't think he'll ever vote for a Democrat, Ben Stein sure has some harsh words for this year's Republican ticket.

"[Romney] has all around him the look of a losing candidate," the economist and actor said Thursday on Tavis Smiley's PBS program.

Stein, who made waves in May for saying he doesn't think President Obama is a very smart man, said the chief reason for the GOP nominee's woes is his lack of a strategy for economic recovery.

"Mr. Romney does not have a plan to turn things around. All he's saying, and correctly so, is that Mr. Obama said he had a plan that would work and it didn't," Stein said. "But does Mr. Romney have a better plan? If he does, we haven't seen it."

(Last September, Romney released a 59-point plan that he said would improve the economy over both the short and long terms.)

The former speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford went on to say he's not satisfied with Paul Ryan's approach to taxes.

(Also on POLITICO: RNC 2012: 8 takeaways)

"He has bought into what I think is a bit of nonsense about supply-side economics. He has bought into the idea that by cutting taxes, you automatically spur the economy. That would be wonderful if true, and it may be true, but there's no data that it's true,” he said. "And it certainly isn't true that by cutting taxes you spur the economy enough so you make up the lost tax revenue."

But even though he predicts an Obama victory unless Romney "pulls himself together," don't expect Stein to pull the lever for the incumbent this fall — or ever.

"For me, the number one issue is right to life. I don't think the Democrats are very good on the right-to-life issue," he said. "People who think of abortion as a reasonable method of birth control just are never going to get my vote."