Romney: Obama (and Biden) Never Worked a Day In the Private Sector; Obama Just Doesn't Understand The Basics of Capitalism or a Free Economy

This is a good exchange, demonstrating Romney at his best. He's tough on Obama -- yes, he agrees with Rush Limbaugh's assessment that Obama is the first president running against capitalism -- he attacks Obama's lack of experience in business and lack of any level of business knowledge, and he even tosses in flattery about the hard-workin' habits of the American worker.

Video below, Hot Air has quotes not contained in the video, concerning a defense of Bain.

“With regards to Bain Capital, they just put a report out about their record, the Bain Capital guys did, they noted they’ve made about 350 investments since the beginning on the firm, and of those investments, about 80 percent grew their revenues. So I’m pretty confident that the overall record of the enterprise I helped begin is pretty solid,” Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, told Fox News.

He also notes that of Bain's investments in largely failing companies, only 5% went bankrupt.

Even in his early debates, when I kind of hated him, I often had to admit that Romney had patches here and there where he was a pretty good debater and pretty good candidate. I'm just speaking of pure candidate skills, not stuff like his actual ideology.

He is still prone to shakiness and minor gaffes, but he has improved, and continues to improve. I would say at this point he's actually a good campaigner, verging on quite good.

He still has to learn to do something productive with his temper. When he's challenged, he gets very testy. And in the second clip below, when Obama's attack against him is played, Romney keeps a big broad smile on his face.

I kind of don't mind the smile -- it has a Here He Goes Again feel -- but I'm guessing that a lot of people are going to call it arrogant and condescending.

Not sure what else you can do, though. He certainly doesn't want to look grave when Obama's talking nonsense, as if he's shaken by Obama. He doesn't want to look glum.

So, being persnickety here: Basics of the smile response sound, but he's got to train his face to make a different smile? I don't know. I think there are limits to how far a human being can conform himself to a PR expert's vision of a Perfect Candidate.

I don't want to steal everything from Captain Ed so go over to his post to find, at post's end, a link to a flier promoting Obama's appearance at a socialist rally in 1996.

Longer clip, which includes the above clip. The whole appearance is a good one. At the end he switches to attacking Obama on education.

posted by Ace at 01:08 PM

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