In the spring and summer of 1932, the Bonus Army – 43,000 marchers including 17,000 World War I veterans – gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand immediate cash payment of their service certificates. Attorney General William Mitchell ordered the police to remove the Bonus Army veterans from their camp. In the midst of the eviction two army veterans were shot and later died. When told of the shootings, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to enter the camp and evict the Bonus Army from Washington. Later, a campaign aide informed then Democratic nominee Franklin Roosevelt about the actions of the Republican President, Roosevelt simply replied – “this elects me.”
Many pundits, strategists, and political watchers must be wondering if candidate Mitt Romney is an unofficial member of the Obama campaign. After a plethora of damaging statements on the campaign trail – “I’m not concerned about the very poor”, “I like to fire people”, or “It’s hard to know just how well the Olympics will turn out” – Romney continues to deploy words of mass destruction that will ultimately elect Obama to a second term.
Romney’s latest gaffes – a premature statement about the horrible murder of four American citizens in Libya, and then a secret video revealing some inappropriate comments made at a campaign fundraiser last May. Only one can wonder if Obama is leaning back in the Oval Office with a smile and thinking – “this elects me”.
In the video, Romney highlights that 47% of the nation’s citizens do not pay income taxes, which is a half true statement; most of these people do pay federal payroll taxes and state income taxes. Romney goes on to imply “these people are dependent on government and felt like victims”. Romney further proclaims, “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives”. Of course, it is the President’s role to care for all voters and lead the entire nation, and that includes the 47% who may not vote for Romney in November.
However, I watched the video several times, and it appeared Romney was responding to a question from the audience about his strategy to win election. Romney’s strategy as a candidate seeking to become President is not synonymous with how he will govern if elected. In fact, candidate Romney’s inappropriate comments hastily reminds us of then candidate Obama in 2008, when he stated “blue collar voters cling to their guns and religion”, an inappropriate statement shared in a room full of campaign donors.
Nevertheless, Romney’s misstatement regarding 47% of this country’s citizens reveals a darker issue. Our election system rewards candidates for double talk. Candidates must do all they can to raise money, excite the base, and win election – but then once elected be forced to govern differently than campaign promises made to voters. The last four years with Obama demonstrates this point, candidate Obama made several promises – closing the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, immigration reform, and unemployment below 8%. The reality of the office made it far more challenging for him to achieve these policy goals than he first estimated as an inexperienced candidate.
The other more unfortunate reality is that Republicans must find a way to communicate its message of limited government, personal freedom, and individual empowerment to all members of this great country, not simply to those voters who are already doing well. The conservative ideology is one that can provide hope and encouragement to the least of us, but GOP leaders routinely fail to communicate the message in such a way where it engages all voters. Quite frankly, most in the GOP have simply capitulated to solving this challenge, and often surrender this disenfranchised voter demographic to the Democratic Party. The party of Lincoln, Douglass, and Reagan can and must do better.
Undoubtedly, we still have a lot of time between now and November 6, Election Day is a lifetime away in our hyper sensitive 24-hour news cycle. Romney can still turnaround his campaign with three debates coming up and some weeks to deploy an aggressive media strategy. Mr. Romney is a self-proclaimed “turnaround specialist”, well I believe its time for him go to work on his campaign, unquestionably he has already done plenty for his opponent.
