I am sure that there are many people right now trying to give Barack Obama advice on how to take on Mitt Romney. But here is an essential strategy that I have not seen or heard mentioned. I hope that gets to his campaign. I hope someone reads it.
The way to deal with a liar, a snake oil salesman who says whatever is good at the moment, and brazenly disavows what he just said two minutes ago, is not to call him a liar, and it is certainly not to engage him on the particulars of his denials. No. Here is what you say.
The way to deal with a liar, a snake oil salesman who says whatever is good at the moment, and brazenly disavows what he just said two minutes ago, is not to call him a liar, and it is certainly not to engage him on the particulars of his denials. No. Here is what you say.
You make your point. Then you directly address Governor Romney and you say:
Governor Romney, this has been your position. This is what you said. You cannot talk your way out of it because we have the paper, we have reporters who witnessed your statement, we have the audio recording, we have the video recording, we have the evidence, Sir, and you cannot talk your way out of it.
You repeat this statement on every major issue, destroying Medicare, privatizing Social Security, women's rights to make health care decisions, letting Detroit go bankrupt, and refusing to go into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden.
In addition, on the issue of bipartisanship, you need to get the following statement across:
Sadly, it has been the Republicans who have killed bipartisanship. They stopped debating ideas and started personal character assassination. For instance, they have people in their party who constantly say that I was not even born in the United States. Well, I was born in the United States, and I am an American. I am a patriot and all my money is right here, in American banks. I not only say that I believe in America, but I put my money where my mouth is. I do not hide my money in Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands, so I can weasel out of paying my fair share to my country.
On the issue of unemployment:
Bringing the unemployment rate down to below 8% was an important milestone in the economic recovery of this country, but reports were that in some political quarters this was not happily received. Those who bet against America and wish for economic bad news for their own political gain will be disappointed because our people are strong, our economy will continue to improve, and the American people will see those who wish us ill for what they really are.
On Medicare and Social Security
You chose Paul Ryan as your running mate because he wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security. You cannot deny this because we have the record. We have the Ryan budgets. You cannot talk your way out of this. He wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security so that rich people can build more elevators for their cars and people like you can pay even less than the measly 13% in taxes that you pay now.