Romney Outspends Competition, Panders to Far Right to Try to Win Illinois
Key Point: Mitt Romney is outspending his competition and alienating the voters he’d need to win in November.
Mitt Romney has been pandering to his party’s extreme-right flank to win today’s Republican primary in Illinois. Romney and his allies have been carpet-bombing the airwaves, outspending the competition more than 7-to-1 in Illinois and alienating the voters he’d need to win in November.
If Romney wins tonight, it will be because he and his allies outspent Rick Santorum and his allies by more than 7-to-1 in Illinois and nearly 21-to-1 in Chicago alone. Romney has been flooding the airwaves with negative advertising.
But Romney’s negative campaign is hurting him among moderate and independent voters.
Even Karl Rove recently called the past few weeks some of the “worst moments for the Republicans.”
Romney’s extreme-right views continue to alienate the voters he would need to win the general election. . Just yesterday, Romney told women they are on their own to shop around for life-saving breast and cervical cancer screenings. This comes after Romney:
Said last week that he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood, which is a vital health care provider for 75,000 Illinois women and families.
Recently embraced the Blunt Amendment, which would take women’s health decisions out of women’s hands and give it to their bosses.
Said he would have supported a so-called “Personhood amendment” in Massachusetts to define life as beginning at the moment of conception. It could have taken away a women’s right to choose and likely banned many common forms of birth control.
Romney’s economic policies are full of lofty rhetoric, but he never gets into specifics about what he’ll actually do or how he’ll actually pay for things. The American people want to hear from the Republicans how they would restore economic security for the middle class, but the Republicans have failed to answer that question at every turn. Instead the Republicans are fighting over divisive issues like whether women should be able to make their own decisions about their health.
Romney already cares more about picking up delegates than connecting with voters, and it shows. The New York Times wrote last week that “no other candidate has become as swamped by the delegate message as Mitt Romney” – and this will only continue.
Please see this New York Times article on the subject.
Ryan, Romney Budgets Not So Different, Both Are Bad For The Middle Class
Key Point: The Ryan budget plan is the same as Mitt Romney’s: bad for the middle class.
Congressman Paul Ryan released the Republican budget plan today. It shares key elements of Mitt Romney’s budget plan:
Turning Medicare into a voucher program.
Increasing health care costs to seniors by thousands of dollars.
Making arbitrary cuts to programs essential to middle-class families like education and clean energy.
Giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and protecting taxpayer subsidies to oil companies and hedge fund managers.
Please see this side-by-side comparison of the two budget plans.
Romney has said he is on the same page as Ryan – even “applauding” today’s budget – so America’s seniors and the middle class need to take note of what this budget means for them.
The Romney and Ryan budgets would turn Medicare into a voucher program. What does this mean for seniors and middle class families?
Over time, traditional Medicare would wither on the vine, risking the guaranteed coverage seniors have earned and paid for.
Seniors would be forced into private plans and pay more for their health care.
At the end of the day, Ryan’s plan – which Romney has called “bold and right” – would end Medicare as we know it for millions of seniors.
That’s not the only similarity between the Ryan and Romney budgets. Neither the Ryan nor Romney budget plans ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share. President Obama has proposed the Buffett Rule, which asks the wealthiest to pay their fair share and not pay a lower tax rate than middle-class families – but both Ryan and Romney oppose it.
And even as the Romney and Ryan budgets make deep cuts that both cost jobs and hurt average Americans, both budget plans keep in place:
Needless taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas companies that are making record profits.
Tax loopholes that let some of the wealthiest on Wall Street get away with not paying their fair share.
While Romney’s budget and tax plans will either explode the deficit or destroy the middle class’s economic security, President Obama’s do the opposite.
He actually reduces the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years – while Romney and Ryan’s proposals would increase them by trillions of dollars.
His budget reduces the deficit in a balanced way that asks millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.
The President’s blueprint is for an economy built to last, where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, where everyone does their fair share, plays by the same rules and gets a fair shot at the American Dream.
We can’t do the same thing and expect a different result – and today’s embrace of the Ryan budget proves once again that Mitt Romney would implement a carbon copy of the policies that led to the economic crisis.
# # #
César J. Blanco | Western Political Director | Democratic National Committee
202.716.4510 (m) | 202.488.5095 (o) |202.572.5872 (f)
Share this: