There's one thing about Romney's speech this afternoon that I didn't mention in the previous post. At one point, he dings Obama for refusing to run on his record:
And while I understand why the President doesn't want to run on his record, he can't run from his record either.
The problem, as is often the case with Romney's rhetoric, is that it isn't true. Here is an excerpt from Obama's last campaign speech:
I ran for office not just to get back to the status quo; I ran for office – I ran for this office because we had not tended to a set of challenges that had been building up for decades. And that's why even as we were trying to right the ship and yank ourselves out of a potential depression, we did not take our eye off the commitments that I had made to you when I ran for office.
And that's why we fulfilled pledges to end "don't ask, don't tell," or to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act that ensures equal pay for equal work. That's why we followed through on commitments to invest in clean energy, and doubled fuel-efficiency standards on cars – and trucks – in an unprecedented fashion.
That's why we followed through on the commitment I made to make sure that people don't go bankrupt when they get sick and passed the Affordable Care Act. And already you've got 2.5 million young people who have health insurance because of it. (Applause.) And already, everybody here who has insurance has protections that are more robust than the patient's bill of rights that had been debated in the 1990s and that had never gotten done. And seniors are benefiting from lower prescription drugs because of it. And small businesses are getting subsidies so that they can provide health insurance to their workers.
That's why we followed through and ended the war in Iraq. That's why we followed through and targeted al Qaeda. (Applause.) That's why, with Osama bin Laden gone and al Qaeda weakened, we've been able to start ramping down our involvement in Afghanistan and provide transition, so that Afghans can take control of their own country. That's why we ended torture, and we put our fight against terrorism on a legal footing. And that's why we worked to restore our respect around the world.
I encourage you to read through the president's last few campaign speeches; each of them have a section where Obama touts his administration's policies in some way shape or form. Obama isn't just running against the Republican vision for America, he's offering his own administration as evidence of what he'll do if reelected.
