Romney looks to shift direction of race
WASHINGTON (AP) - With momentum on President Barack Obama's side, Mitt Romney sought Monday to explain to voters more clearly what he would do as president as he looked to right his struggling campaign and ease worries in Republican circles about its state seven weeks before Election Day.
"My plan is to help the middle class," the Republican nominee says in a new TV ad in which he promises to cut the deficit, balance the budget, reduce spending and help small business. Also, he adds: "We'll add 12 million new jobs in four years."
It was one of two new commercials he was launching in the most competitive states - the other assails Obama as bad for middle-class families - while also re-focusing his campaign appearances on his previously released five-point economic plan and starting a new effort to try to narrow Obama's advantage with Hispanic voters.
In addition, Romney was preparing to make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country and he's spending a significant amount of time preparing for next months' series of debates, mindful that the face-to-face meetings may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.
The emphasis on Romney's plans for the future comes after a week in which Republican veterans of presidential campaigns publicly implored the GOP nominee to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern, saying that simply castigating Obama wouldn't be enough to win. The new effort also follows a series of polls that show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at Romney's Boston-based campaign.
With griping in GOP circles mounting, Romney and his advisers spent the weekend in Boston hashing out a plan to try to shift the dynamics of the race before the first debate on Oct. 3.
After a turbulent week that saw Romney stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East, Romney chose to try to return to his comfort zone - the economy - and his argument that only he can solve stubbornly high unemployment given his decades of work in the private sector.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, was to emphasize that pitch this week in appearances while also zeroing in on the debt and deficit.
Romney, for his part, was starting the week with a speech Monday to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, as he looks to narrow Obama's advantage with these Democratic-leaning voters in key battleground states.
The campaign also was working to counter the notion of a campaign in disarray after a Sunday story on the Politico website detailed infighting among Romney's senior staffers. Campaign advisers worked to downplay those tensions and insisted the campaign is still on track.
"Obama's entire foreign policy is in flames. The economy is terrible. Let's get a little distance from the convention," top strategist Stuart Stevens wrote in an email Sunday morning, seeking to counter the notion of a campaign in a downward spiral.
It's been a tough few weeks for Romney.
Trouble began with Clint Eastwood's rambling conversation with a chair on the final night of the Republican convention, right before Romney's keynote address omitted the war in Afghanistan or a thanks to the troops serving there.
The intervening weeks have been scattered. Romney ducked battleground states as he hunkered down in Vermont for debate preparation, then spent days defending his decision to omit war from the speech. Polls showed the Democratic convention gave Obama a boost.
Then violence erupted in Egypt and Libya, prompting Romney to issue a statement criticizing the Obama administration before it was known that an American ambassador had died in Libya. Romney doubled down on his criticism in a news conference the next day.
That drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike.
Romney's team sought last week to try to shift the tide by working harder and spending more on TV. The campaign released a flight of ads for different states during the week of the Democratic convention, but later replaced almost all of them with the same ad attacking Obama's record on China.
That was just last week. The new pair of ads were rolled out Monday.
"My plan is to help the middle class," the Republican nominee says in a new TV ad in which he promises to cut the deficit, balance the budget, reduce spending and help small business. Also, he adds: "We'll add 12 million new jobs in four years."
It was one of two new commercials he was launching in the most competitive states - the other assails Obama as bad for middle-class families - while also re-focusing his campaign appearances on his previously released five-point economic plan and starting a new effort to try to narrow Obama's advantage with Hispanic voters.
In addition, Romney was preparing to make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country and he's spending a significant amount of time preparing for next months' series of debates, mindful that the face-to-face meetings may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.
The emphasis on Romney's plans for the future comes after a week in which Republican veterans of presidential campaigns publicly implored the GOP nominee to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern, saying that simply castigating Obama wouldn't be enough to win. The new effort also follows a series of polls that show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at Romney's Boston-based campaign.
With griping in GOP circles mounting, Romney and his advisers spent the weekend in Boston hashing out a plan to try to shift the dynamics of the race before the first debate on Oct. 3.
After a turbulent week that saw Romney stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East, Romney chose to try to return to his comfort zone - the economy - and his argument that only he can solve stubbornly high unemployment given his decades of work in the private sector.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, was to emphasize that pitch this week in appearances while also zeroing in on the debt and deficit.
Romney, for his part, was starting the week with a speech Monday to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, as he looks to narrow Obama's advantage with these Democratic-leaning voters in key battleground states.
The campaign also was working to counter the notion of a campaign in disarray after a Sunday story on the Politico website detailed infighting among Romney's senior staffers. Campaign advisers worked to downplay those tensions and insisted the campaign is still on track.
"Obama's entire foreign policy is in flames. The economy is terrible. Let's get a little distance from the convention," top strategist Stuart Stevens wrote in an email Sunday morning, seeking to counter the notion of a campaign in a downward spiral.
It's been a tough few weeks for Romney.
Trouble began with Clint Eastwood's rambling conversation with a chair on the final night of the Republican convention, right before Romney's keynote address omitted the war in Afghanistan or a thanks to the troops serving there.
The intervening weeks have been scattered. Romney ducked battleground states as he hunkered down in Vermont for debate preparation, then spent days defending his decision to omit war from the speech. Polls showed the Democratic convention gave Obama a boost.
Then violence erupted in Egypt and Libya, prompting Romney to issue a statement criticizing the Obama administration before it was known that an American ambassador had died in Libya. Romney doubled down on his criticism in a news conference the next day.
That drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike.
Romney's team sought last week to try to shift the tide by working harder and spending more on TV. The campaign released a flight of ads for different states during the week of the Democratic convention, but later replaced almost all of them with the same ad attacking Obama's record on China.
That was just last week. The new pair of ads were rolled out Monday.
What are you shifting into today Mitt? You old shape shifter. Maybe a snake? a buffalo's butt? A Horses butt? A cow pie?   Run Mitt Run.
I'm not voting for the Mormon and the Moron.
"Romney looks to shift direction of race"
More flip flopping...THAT'S their "plan"?
 @OrcasThunder Not so much that as the media spinning of their plan in order to support O.
 @RN1 "Not so much that as the media spinning of their plan in order to support O."
Ahhh...so Willard is controlled by the "media"...?
Chomp on this, Mittstake - We have an economic responsibilty to pay for what we purchase. End the Bush tax cuts for clowns like you. Majority of people are not fooled by your brand spanking new set of sheep's clothing . . . I call this disaster control for his campaign, too little too late.
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~~~ Â RIP GOP ~~~
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 @alexcrowley Another person who confuses marginal tax RATES with tax REVENUE, and doesn't understand that we have a SPENDING problem, not a REVENUE problem.
 @RN1  @alexcrowley "and doesn't understand that we have a SPENDING problem, not a REVENUE problem."
Another person who doesn't understand that cutting your spending WITHOUT increasing your revenue is exactly the same problem that most Americans are in - they can't reduce the debt simply by cutting out the "extras"...because they did that already! Trying to get the credit card companies to reduce their interest rates is an exercise if madness. The only way to solve this - for individuals AND government - is to add revenues by taking in as much of your income as possible, and the best way to do this is to get a better job, or for government to get more from taxes and fees.
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"In total, the policies Obama has signed into law can be expected to add almost a trillion dollars to deficits. But behind that total are policies that point in very different directions. The stimulus, for instance, cost more than $800Â billion. So did the 2010 tax deal, which included more than $600Â billion to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years, and hundreds of billions more in unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut. Obamaâs first budget increased domestic discretionary spending by quite a bit, but more recent legislation has cut it substantially. On the other hand, the Budget Control Act â the legislation that resolved Augustâs debt-ceiling standoff â saves more than $1Â trillion. And the health-care reform law saves more than $100Â billion.
For comparisonâs sake, using the same method, beginning in 2001 and ending in 2009, George W. Bush added more than $5Â trillion to the deficit."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story_1.html
 @RN1 Actually we have both a spending problem and a revenue problem.Â
It goes back to Reagan who wants to spend trillions on the military while not having the people with the farking money pay their taxes.Â
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I know, I know.. the party of jesus thinks the problem is that we are spending too much on the sick and needy.Â
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GOP: We are bringing Cognative Dissonance to the national level.
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 @RN1 "When roughly HALF of all families pay zero in taxes"
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That half that does not pay taxes
-elderly, retired
-Students
-Stay at home moms
-People earning minimum wages or just above it.
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So your solution is to raise taxes on the people who do not have any money?
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Farking brilliant.Â
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 @T H I S Yes, I agree, we do have a both a spending and a tax/revenue problem. We spend to much (arguing about WHERE it's spent is a different argument), and the tax problem is two-fold: that the tax code is way to complicated, and it puts far to much of the burden on two few people; it should be much broader based, and have much less in terms of "refundable tax credits" and such-not, so you have many fewer people with a vested interest in looting the higher-income brackets (because they personally benefit). When roughly HALF of all families pay zero in taxes (with very nearly that many getting more from the government than they put in), we are near the end-game.
 @RN1 Making an argument against Romney's plan is just way too easy considering there's no plan for walking his talk. Plus most people don't trust Romney, because he hasn't released his tax records.
 @alexcrowley Well, democrats (heck, pretty much ALL politicians) tell folks things that are proposterous all the time. Like we can take as much as we want from the rich, and give it to the poor, and the rich will never run out of money or move or change their actions in response, when in fact they DO run out of money or move or go Galt. Really, REALLY fundamental things like that are said by the Dems ALL THE TIME. Not in so many words, because then they'd look really stupid to all but the most uneducated voter who supports them, and the even the Democratic Media complex couldn't spin that level of stupid.
 @RN1 Imagine, Romney telling the voters what he thinks they want to hear, whether it would actually work or not is beside the point.
 @alexcrowley And of course Obama is a model of transparency, because even his award for open government was closed to the press. College transcripts? Birth certificate (even if we stipulate it's authentic, it was like pulling teeth to get it, when it should have been a "yes, of course" no brainer)?
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Romney's not my fav, but a random redneck small business owner from Hicksville could likely do quite a bit better than Obama.
Oh he'll create 12 million new jobs all right...in China, and India, and Pakistan, and Mexico, and Bangladesh, just like when he was at Bain. The only American jobs that will come out of a Romney presidency will be repo men and mortgage foreclosure reps as more good American jobs are shipped overseas in the name of corporate profiteering.
Why Mitt would choose the number 12 million? Perhaps it is because the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the total number of unemployed Americans 12.5 million. I wish him luck, should he be elected because that will be a tall order.
I can see how Obama won in 2008!
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Gas was $4.20
UE was 8.1%
The President had added debt at the rate of $1.25 trillion per year
Total debt was $16T
The labor participation rate was 63.5%
On January 1, 2009 the largest tax increase in the history of the Republic was to occur
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Sorry, Sid's TimeMachine5000 went on the fritz. Apparently, this all happened under Obama. My bad.
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I think Jason Sudeikis has a better shot.
 @LockesChild @RN1 @justsayin @sentryoneÂ
If I can summaraize each of your posts.
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"WWWAAAAAAAAAA. The mean press is telling people all the stupid stuff we are saying and doing. Its a conspiracy......"
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... with reality.
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Ever watch a football game where the sports announcers do nothing but heap praise on the opposing team? Â Where they single out past highlights and speak gushingly about their quarterback?
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Sure you have.
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Have you seen a similar occurrence with ABC, NBC, and CBS? Â The President of NBC and CBS have both held fund-raisers for Obama. Â When our regular TV stations push one side, it is an uphill fight in any campaign.
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Step back from emotions.  We have two completely different American men.  One had someone pay for his college and his current multi-million dollar home while he has gotten caught up in TV appearances, adulation, hob-nobbling with TV stars.  The other one paid for his own college, came up with an idea with four friends (like Bill Gates) and became a multi-millionaire.  No one gave him any special treatment to buy a house or reduced the actual valuation enabling him to buy.
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Romney, like bill Gates, is every American man's dream.  "I wish I could have...  "I wish I would have ...  Man, had I done better, I could have ...".  Romney worked to get where he is.  He didn't sit around and smoke dope, associate with radicals, and enter politics. Â
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One became successful then went into politics. Â He cannot be bought - he has his own money. Â The other one surrounded himself with others who paid his way, paid to get him into the White House, and he became rich while being a sitting-President. Â Unheard of.
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 @sentryone you are delusional. "he cannot be bought".... sure. he's already owned....
And so the narrative machine drives on. Write it as if Mitt is gaffe-tastic and losing steam, must change direction because his current actions are failing, and The Chosen One is imperfect but doing better than anyone else might possibly have done, and dress it up in just enough fact and innuendo to make it sound plausible and defensible, so the low-info who only reads headlines and occasionally the first paragraph gets the impression that re-election is inevitable, and they should vote with the winning team. Â Ignore the utter failure of the current administration that Romney is reacting to. Spin and misuse facts, omit relevant facts, and win one for the team. The Associated (with terrorists) Press does it again.
Seriously, Obama doesn't have a chance, the liberal media can try to brain wash us all they want, everyone moderate I know is voting for Mitt and Ryan. Smear them all you want Obama is still going to lose and he knows it.
You just have to love the Democrat press. "Struggling campaign" indeed. With the highest gas prices, most unemployed, uncontrolled deficit, foreign policy failures, and complete disconnect with the values of Americans the Obama campaign is the one that is reeling. But the AP is busy taking its cues from the DNC on how to frame the election.
"We'll add 12 million new jobs in four years." Ummmm, Mitt? We need the jobs HERE, not in China. Now, I know this might effect your bottom line and put a small dent in your offshore accounts, but this "middle class" you speak of no longer exists. You, Obama and your ilk have seen to that. Both of you SPEAK volumes, but your words and promises are as empty as your heads.
I think all these criticisms that Romney has not been specific about how he'll govern are unfair. It's pretty clear he's been on the record as stating that he and his fellow Republican lawmakers will pin the economy down on the ground and forcibly cut off its hair.
 @PilonidalCyst Jobs created:
Republicans: 24 million.
Democrats: 42 million.
 @rockguy  @PilonidalCyst The only jobs the government CREATES are government jobs, and those are paid for by taxes from people doing PRODUCTIVE work that people actually want, and most government jobs are put in place to slow down and prevent people from doing things.
 @RN1 "The economy is slow, so if we just jack up taxes on job creators"
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Taxes are at an all time low on the "job creators."
Wall street is up, Corporate profits are up. General Electric paid zero taxes last year.
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are the farking jobs that have been promised from "trickle down"
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Your theory has been proven wrong, you are blindly repeating talking points becuase you live in an echo chamber. Your entire argument is invalid.Â
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Thank you and have a nice day with that trickle.
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 @RN1  @T H I S "If the government/president creates jobs"
And you say that government does NOT "create" jobs...so - why is Willard trying to run on a promise that HE will "create 12 million jobs"...?
 @rockguy  @PilonidalCyst Yah, let's do that. The economy is slow, so if we just jack up taxes on job creators and give it to the unproductive so they can buy more made-in-China stuff, that'll get things going for sure! Great plan! I mean, none of those rich guys and functioning businesses would ever change what they do in response to such a thing, right? That's just crazy-talk.
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(/sarcasm)
 @RN1  @PilonidalCyst With government not creating jobs, we should get rid of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The Bush tax cuts were sold as a jobs program. That money could be used to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 @T H I S Look at that chart. They ARE rebounding, but very much more slowly than is typical, BECAUSE of government interventions, not IN SPITE of government interventions.
 @RN1 "things NEVER rebound on their own"
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So things are rebounding,or they are terrible.
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Once again, get your farking story straight man.
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 @T H I S And, of course, after a stock market panic or an economic downturn, things NEVER rebound on their own, of course. Except for teh fact that they pretty much always recover FASTER than this.
http://summiteconomics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Recession-Time-to-Employment-Recovery.bmp
See, I can find cool graphics too.
 @RN1Â
the story is straight
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3u7j7UhdK1qzsnxyo1_400.jpg
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 @T H I S If the government/president creates jobs, then Obama owns this economy right now, and it is sucking pond water.
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If Obummer ISN'T responsible for the current mess, than neither is Clinton. Get YOUR story straight.
 @RN1Â
Conservatives:Â Democrats are wrecking the economy.
Reality:Â Â 42 million vs 24 million
Conservatives:Â Government does not create jobs
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Can you please get your farking talking points straight.  Its like watching a merry go round with you guys.
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This guy is a train wreck - period. Lip service about jobs & the economy. No explicit details as to how he expects this to be completed. Which in realistic terms all politicians are guilty of. Now there is internal strife amongst the Right. Letting his pie-hole run recklessly after the tragedy in Libya, he has only confirmed that he knows zero about foreign policy. Then there's Paul Ryan who makes me want to throw up. Hey... how much success have you had convincing your second wife to perform on you at sex clubs in NYC & NOLA? My real grief is... I don't think I can tolerate Obama and socialist antics any further. Bailouts... infusion of $$ we don't have. I am beside myself.... Gary Johnson save us!
@d_2 Seriously Obama is moving us forward into communism there is the train wreck. Romeny has saved Bain Capital from a train wreck, the Salt Lake Olympics from a train wreck and Massachusetts. What has Obama done. How many unemployed? How much debt? He is a loser. Look at Europe and all the financial mess, that is where we are heading under Obama.
 @justsayin  @d_2 @justsayin... You want me to defend Obama? Isn't going to happen. I am pointing out that the so-called new solution is bupkiss too. Romney has some successes in the Private sector. However he has not had the opportunity to do it with the 2 other branches of Gov't impeding his policies. I do know that Romney is on the ticket much to the behest of the uber Conservatives. Neither one in my opinion is the answer. Time to introduce a third solution.
 @RN1  @justsayin http://redalertpolitics.com/2012/09/15/young-ron-paul-supporters-express-support-for-gary-johnson-say-romney-obama-the-same/
 @RN1  @justsayin Exactly... which is working like designed. The result > lame duck. Might I remind you... that they are often times (recent times) only successful when one or the other has the balance. It benefits neither as it is equally applied. Get a third party in... one that is not (hopefully) influenced by outside interests. All I know is this... neither one is the answer.
 @d_2  @justsayin Yah, about those two other branches impeding him - the DEM senate that hasn't proposed a budget in more than 3 years, and a SCOTUS that upheld his gigantic middle-class tax hike called Obamacare. Yah, LOTS of opposition there. Our system of government was DESIGNED to have each branch impede the others, it's a *feature*, not a bug, because the founders knew that government intervention all to often made things worse. Smart guys, those founders. Not perfect, and living in imperfect times, but very, VERY smart.
FTA:
""We'll add 12 million new jobs in four years.""
ANd how "specifically" are you going to do this
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also
""Obama's entire foreign policy is in flames. The economy is terrible. Let's get a little distance from the convention," top strategist Stuart Stevens wrote in an email Sunday morning, seeking to counter the notion of a campaign in a downward spiral."
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"The entire foreign policy is in flames? "
OK specifics? Bin Laden is dead, Iraq has wound down, and he is looking at winding down Afganistan.  In other words, he has spent the last four years cleaning up after the last republican
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"The economy is terrible."
And what specificaly has Obama done to make it "terrible"Â
Again, specifics.  Anad again, he has spend the last 4 years cleanng up after the last republican.
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http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3u7j7UhdK1qzsnxyo1_400.jpg
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It is like his whole campaign has been run by emails that start with "FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD:"Â
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But then, look who has been running that campaign.
Stuart Stevens is widely beleive to be the major flaw in Romney's campaign, and this statement proves that.
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http://gawker.com/5943743/stuart-stevens-is-the-reason-mitt-romneys-campaign-is-terrible-according-to-sources-in-the-romney-campaign
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@T H I S It is not Bush's fault that Obama sucks. Obama is leading us into communism, the slogan Weath Resdistribution is all about communism it was used 50 years ago in Cuba. Now putting things in context, our foreign policy is a joke. No way would have Obama gone after Osama, unless Bush did what he did to set it up. Obama just carried it out. Look at what Obama is doing to the military? Please leaving Libya's embassy without armed Marines? Obama is responsible for those deaths because he does not protect our servicemen or diplomats. Him and Hillary are idiots.