Mitt Romney’s ‘you didn’t build that’ moment

President Obama accurately explained in a recent speech (used out of context by the right for political gain) that the people who start businesses rely on the infrastructure that “We the People” have built. In a civil and democratic society, we collectively build the roads, bridges, schools and employ the teachers that make it possible for anyone with a dream to pursue it and start a business. Remove politics from the equation and you won’t find many who would disagree with this, but there are many who forget it when they say government is the problem, not the solution. This is not a zero sum game. The success of business, the economy and capitalism itself can be achieved through hard work in both the public and private sectors.

• • •

Romney says he’s ‘convinced’ Obama ‘wants Americans to be ashamed of success’

Last week President Obama said, “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in the roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” For anyone who actually watched that entire section of Obama’s speech it was obvious the “you didn’t build that” line was referring to roads and bridges, not the business. It certainly wasn’t Obama’s most eloquent sequence of words, but there’s no mistaking the point he was making unless you are trying to distort what he said to mislead your audience. This is where Fox News comes in. They had no problem creatively editing together a few lines of Obama’s speech and then getting all their pundits to pounce all at once.

• • •

Romney’s Unpredictable Surrogate – Donald Trump

Recently, several prominent Democrats have come out against President Obama’s ads attacking Mitt Romney’s relationship with Bain Capital, a private equity firm. For its part, the Obama campaign has defended its ads and have tried to bring these Democrats back in line with the campaign’s message. Surrogates are beneficial to campaigns, but they also come with some measure of risk. In the Romney camp, Donald Trump is their principle high risk, high reward surrogate.

• • •