For weeks, one of the driving messages of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has been that President Obama made the economy worse, not better. The argument is a demonstrable lie, but Romney has repeated it over and over again anyway.
Yesterday, asked to defend his bogus claim, Romney flip-flopped: “I didn’t say that things are worse.”
Jamelle Bouie had a good take on this:
Compared to this, Michele Bachmann’s John Quincy Adams gaffe isn’t even worth a mention. Not only did Romney lie about Obama’s handling of the economy, but then — once caught in the lie — he lied again. What’s more, he backed down from the core message of his campaign, and ceded a tremendous amount of ground to the president. For the front-runner in a presidential nomination contest, it’s an extremely amateur performance.
Well said. Lying about lying, on camera, isn’t just foolish, it’s amateurish. Lying about lying on the campaign’s central economic argument offers a reminder that Mitt Romney probably isn’t quite ready for prime time. (Remember, the guy is one-for-three in seeking public office. A natural candidate he isn’t.)
The DNC is pouncing on Romney’s latest mistake, and unveiled this video this afternoon.
DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement, “The fact is that Mitt Romney was plain wrong on the economy, and instead of admitting it, he is compounding the problem by making another ridiculously false statement. Mitt Romney has a well-deserved reputation for flip-flopping and misleading voters about his previous statements and positions – but this really takes the cake. Not only can you not count on Mitt Romney to stand by what he said in the last campaign or in the last year — you literally can’t count on him to stand by what he said in the same week. The only question now is: what will Mitt Romney say tomorrow?”
Actually, that need not be a rhetorical question. If I had to put money on it, I’d wager that Romney flips back to his original position, and again tries to once again say Obama made things worse. Indeed, he probably can’t stick to this new line, since it would mean Romney has to admit that Obama made the economy better, and that’s not a line Romney wants to make.
Indeed, as of right now, it appears that Romney’s new is that the economy is stll in bad shape, but Obama didn’t make things worse. Behold, the GOP frontrunner.
