Romney Adopts Harder Message For Final Stretch

The New York Times:

Mitt Romney is heading into his nominating convention with his advisers convinced he needs a more combative footing against President Obama in order to appeal to white, working-class voters and to persuade them that he is the best answer to their economic frustrations.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

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• Ron Paul

  "Politically, I think that would help him," Paul said in a interview with <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78599.html#ixzz20w7ycTBE" target="_hplink">Politico</a>. "In the scheme of things politically, you know, it looks like releasing tax returns is what the people want."

• Richard Lugar

  "I have no idea on why he has restricted the number to this point," <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57474352/pressure-mounts-on-mitt-romney-to-release-more-tax-returns/?tag=socsh" target="_hplink">Lugar said</a>.

• George Will

  "I don't know why... he didn't get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest," Will said on ABC's "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/15/george-will-mitt-romney-bain_n_1674513.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FPolitics+(Politics+on+The+Huffington+Post)" target="_hplink">This Week</a>." "He's done nothing illegal, nothing unseemly, nothing improper, but lots that's impolitic."

• Bill Kristol

  "He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It's crazy," Kristol said on "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/15/mitt-romney-tax-returns_n_1674325.html" target="_hplink">Fox News Sunday</a>." "You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two."

• Robert Bentley

  "I just believe in total transparency," Bentley told <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/gop-governor-calls-on-mitt-romney-to-release-additional-tax-returns-and-show-he-has-nothing-to-hide/" target="_hplink">ABC News</a>. "In fact, I was asked today that question -- do you think that Governor Romney should release his tax returns? And I said I do. I said, I release my tax returns. I may be the only public official in Alabama that does, but I release mine every year and I just believe that people should release their tax returns. And if you get them out and just get past that, it just makes it so much easier."

• Haley Barbour

  When asked on "<a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/barbour-romney-should-release-more-tax-returns-20120710" target="_hplink">The Situation Room</a>" if Romney should release more returns, Barbour said, "I would. But should it be an issue in the campaign? I don't think it amounts to diddly."

• Michael Steele

  "If there's nothing there, there's no 'there' there, don't create a there,'" Steele said on MSNBC.

• David Frum

  "Tax returns the next problem. Releasing returns under pressure: more weakness, more pain," Frum <a href="https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/224509505973661696" target="_hplink">tweeted</a>.

Comments

[fredslice]

07:02 AM on 08/28/2012

Romney: Registered Pet Offender

[IFany]

08:40 PM on 08/27/2012

Romney and citizens united money are out to drive perceptions, and their out to use racism, class, and greed to motivate their base. within this base we have the top 1% and their serfs and the ignorant racist, basically all of the same people that voted for McCain/Palin the first time around. Now Mitt will have to sell stupid to anyone else he can, because he has nothing whatsoever that politically viable as a platform. Face it basically it I've lost so pull out all stops and let's get as nasty as we can. In hopes he can bring the vote within range to steal it.

[fredslice]

06:49 AM on 08/28/2012

You nailed it, dude. The next two months are going to be interesting.

[keats2]

03:48 PM on 08/27/2012

Here's Mitt Romney's world..........I just received the magazine Robb Report, grandly announcing the entire redesign of the Rolls Royce Phantom series, which range in price from $137,000 to $470,000, give or take a few bucks............the factory says it is gearing up to fulfill unusually high orders from the U.S. Think unemployed people in Ohio have one on order, Mitt? People in the U.S. are losing their houses, while Mitt's 1% (who need their taxes cut, by the way) are buying cars that cost enough to buy 2-3 houses...........is something wrong with this picture? Wait, wait.............Uncle Mitt will photoshop the picture until we all believe we are not worthy of those Phantoms......also, another huge jump in personal jets being purchased from a Wichita, Kansas, factory........then being retrofitted with beds, bathrooms, ports for the kids' toys.....so while one kid is jetting overhead of another kid who can't sleep on an empty stomach, what do we all think the GOP can do to change something THEY CREATED!!??

[godsgrace12]

02:13 PM on 08/27/2012

According to Mr. Romney’s team their belief is that “if Mr Romney can change perceptions about himself, then the environment takes hold, and if the environment takes hold, they win.” What ludicrous, the environment, I guess, they mean the American people, who have seen and heard Mr Romney changed perceptions of himself once too often, we are sick and tired of his ecth a sketch moments. Honesty is the best of policy and this man indulged himself in lies and deceptions about our President. His disrespect and prejudice towards President Obama is deplorable. True Effective Leaders were born and not inherited from legacy. The American people are grateful to President Obama, for restoring human dignity back to a great nation of people whom the Republican Government and their horrendous policies had shipped wreck and abandoned and still desires to sink the ship even deeper. The Republican believes they are hurting President Obama when they decided not to work with him on important issues regarding the important factors that would change our economic dilemma and bring prosperity for all people and not only “to a selected few.” They have trampled the society in the past, now God is doing the restoration.

[Kalin Persuation]

01:49 PM on 08/27/2012

The biggest welfare moocher of them all is Mittens Rmoney who kept un-taxed monies in illegal offshore banks and failed to pay his fair share of IRS federal taxes for 12 years. Mittens: "We can't tell them the truth, otherwise they won't vote for us."

"Nunquam dico occultus specialis super rutilus patella vel vestri miseratio reverto."
"Never tell hidden secrets about the golden plates or your tax returns."

[Copyright]

11:46 AM on 08/27/2012

Let's Play Hardball!

[TomUpton]

10:33 AM on 08/27/2012

Romney should get a job at the airport as a wind sock.

[janelucy]

09:06 AM on 08/27/2012

Direction of Country 8.27.2012

ABC News/Wash Post

Right Direction 29, Wrong Track 69

Wrong Track +40

WOW!

One of the highest since Obama took the WH!

[dalwayshnh69]

07:29 AM on 08/27/2012

romney doesnt have a clue just look at the extremists he has speaking at the rnc and the worst has got to be trump.

GOBAMA

[bynddrvn5]

06:42 AM on 08/27/2012

Mitt Romney needs to explain how he won't balloon the deficit with his economic plan.

He is planning on cutting taxes for billionaires, greatly reducing the total amount of taxes our government pulls in.

Then Romney will boost military spending by a few trillion dollars. http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/romney-defense-spending/index.htm

Romney's economic plan would add 3 trillion of dollars in debt to the National deficit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/02/29/romneys-tax-plan-would-add-3t-to-deficit-over-a-decade/

"So, Mitt, what do you really believe?
Too much about the Republican candidate for the presidency is far too mysterious" - http://www.economist.com/node/21560864

One clear way forward - Obama/Biden 2012!

[henrybjennings]

05:41 PM on 08/27/2012

You will be told after the election;

[janelucy]

06:14 AM on 08/27/2012

NYT ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha....................

[Lightoward]

03:20 PM on 09/02/2012

I can see by all of the Favs that there is overwhelming agreement with you on that.

[janelucy]

03:07 PM on 09/03/2012

I actually work for a living. Two jobs because of the failed Obama economy. Why
don't you get off the tax payer dole ............you would feel better about
yourself. It's so sad you're so worried about what others think. You're just the
empty chair Obama loves.   

[crabbyoldart]

03:24 AM on 08/27/2012

Romney appears a puppet chosen from the military industrial complex to continue the Bush doctrine of war-for-profit...gutting middle class opportunities to dumb down America in their use of fear-mongering intolerance and hate-driven diversity to control multi-national wealth and keep those earnings overseas -they will remove the elderly through death, so that no one remembers how collaborate work creates greatness. The GOP T-party is stripping America of our liberty to grow as a strong, healthy, clean, educated, productive nation.
The GOP will take us to Syria, to Iran while our bridges fall, our roadways collapse, our energy stops, our water and food are tainted, our homes destroyed and our social systems removed. We will have NO safety nets for anyone...and they will continue to say the rich will create jobs when in 4 years, the rich have created NO jobs within the US, but instead overseas, and have obstructed job creation.
They hoard, sign pledges rather than honor their oaths of office - through treason and treachery - they have attacked America and its people - and they always will.
Romney, simply put, is a self-serving, soul-less opportunist aligned with the GOP so that he can call himself President. Such an understatement to say He and the GOP are not to be trusted. Instead, beware.

[RobertHenryEller]

03:18 AM on 08/27/2012

Romney's "harder message' is that President Obama is Black, a Muslim and not an American.

And every other lie Willard apparently has developed admirable gag reflex control for uttering.

I'd rather show pornography to school children than expose them to Romney.

[shortysboardsskt]

04:24 AM on 08/27/2012

Take a second to think about what your last line means. I don't like Romney, but you are a sick man. How could you say such a thing?

[RobertHenryEller]

01:05 AM on 08/28/2012

Sex is natural. Romney is a liar and a thief. Check your ten commandments, and tell me which sins are listed.

[JoeBiding]

03:13 AM on 08/27/2012

He needs to beat the Obama camp to death with the worst record in the history of the presidency.

Obama was disaster. Just keep reminding us of why we need a change.

[TS]

03:36 AM on 08/27/2012

I'm fairly certain returning to the same policies that caused the economic collapse and a thirty year decline in income equality in the US isn't the change we need. Why do you think it is?

[janelucy]

10:13 AM on 08/27/2012

Romney has his own GREAT ideas.

Look at the polls......Obamas lies about Romney have failed.

ROMNEY / RYAN 2012

[henrybjennings]

05:43 PM on 08/27/2012

Aw yeah Romney in 2012.

[cbwHouston]

03:08 AM on 08/27/2012

I fail to see the logic in returning the reigns of American governance to the very same party which plunged it into it's worse-ever "Great Recession" since the 1929 "Great Recession.

This in particularly of a party now promises to subscribe to the same zany and absurdly failed supply-side economic policies... "Trickle-down-deregulation-voodoo-economics, which dragged America kicking and screaming to the precipice of total financial absolution.

Despite of the $17-trillion dollar in national worth lost... IRAs, 401Ks, and other retirement investitures, Republicans dare ask of the American Republic for one last chance to derail the American economy for perpetuity.

While their remedies to the destructive economic chaos their previous tenure within the Oval Office and in control of Congress cost America, Republicans have the unmitigated timidity to return to the scene of the crime as if they themselves weren't the engineers.

Given the degree to which I love America… one anticipating a burial many years from hence beneath it’s rich soil, I kid you not: America is just “two-steps” or “two heart-beats” away from an economic an unfathomable scale curtsey of Republican orthodoxy holding hostage a Romney-Ryan presidency [Lord forbid], buttressed by a LDS Church an Grover Norquist shadow presidency.