Massachusetts under the microscope

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Greg Sargent reports at The Plum Line today that the Obama campaing is opening a new front against the Romney campaign by putting his record as governor of Massachusetts under the microscope. Romney has studiously avoided his tenure are governor and does not want to talk about it, so this should get interesting:

Job One for the Obama campaign is to undermine what appears to be a widespread presumption of Romney’s economic competence, and ABC News reports that the Obama team is redoubling their efforts on this front, by launching a new and aggressive campaign targeting Romney’s economic tenure as Massachusetts governor:

The Obama campaign is opening a new front in its war against GOP rival Mitt Romney, ABC News has learned, with planned attacks to begin this week on Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and the campaign promises Democrats say he left unfulfilled.

Team Obama will point to Romney’s rhetoric on job creation, size of government, education, deficits and taxes during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign and draw parallels with his presidential stump speeches of 2012. The goal is to illustrate that Romney has made the same promises before with unimpressive results, officials say…the latest line of attack will be a major focus from now through the election.

This again points to Obama’s core challenge. Romney wants the election to be all about the President. As Steve Kornacki put it recently, Romney’s pitch is: “If you don’t think the economy’s in good shape, don’t ask questions – just vote the guy in charge out.” Obama needs to persuade voters to do more than simply accept Romney as an alternative to the economic status quo who’s worth taking a flyer on. He needs to get them to look past general impressions of Romney’s competence and to realize that Romney is offering an actual set of policies and ideas about the economy that have been tried before. His “Mr. Fix It” aura — which is rooted in the pitch that he can translate private sector know-how to the public sector — is belied by his actual record as a public official.

The point the Obama campaign needs to drive home is that Romney has already tried to bring his private sector experience to bear on the public sector, even if he isn’t eager to talk about it. Hence the broadening of the case against Romney that we’re about to see.

[To that end] the DNC’s new Web video features footage of Romney’s Republican rivals mocking his job creation record as Governor — and pairs it with his tone deaf remarks about liking to fire people — another sign that his Massachusetts tenure is becoming more central to the Dem effort to undermine presumptions of Romney’s economic competence.

Video "Mitt Romney: Little to Like," below.

On the vulture capitalist Bain Capital front, the Romney campaign takes yet another hit for its prolific lying:

Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler demolishes the latest Romney/GOP Bain talking point: That eighty percent of the companies Bain invested in grew, proving Romney was a job creator.

There’s really no end to the dissembling here. Romney and his allies previously have made a series of ever shifting claims about the number of jobs that were “created” by Bain, whether it’s been “over 100,000,” “tens of thousands,” or mere “thousands.” Despite getting called out by fact checkers, Romney keeps doing this — which suggests he won’t be dropping the 80 percent figure anytime soon, either.

Jamelle Bouie writes at the American Prospect, Why the kid gloves for Team Romney?:

Which brings me to this point—if there’s anything remarkable about the Romney campaign, it’s the extent to which the core arguments for his candidacy are either false or impossible to substantiate. The claim that Obama is responsible for net job loss? False. The claim that Obama has gone on an unprecedented spending spree? False. And the claim that Romney created 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital? Impossible to prove.

Despite this, the press continues to treat Romney with kid gloves. The question is why? What does Romney need to do to receive any scrutiny for the mendacity that has defined his quest for the presidency?

The feckless corporate media are failing in their obligation to inform the public.