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The Creepiest Thing About the Joe Soptic Ad

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I know that the Bill Burton/Joe Soptic “Mitt Romney Killed My Wife!” ad is growing distant in the nation’s rearview mirror, but it brought us a revelatory moment that we should not forget.

In the ad, laid-off union man Joe Soptic accuses Mitt Romney of being indifferent to suffering and destroying Soptic’s employer. That cost Soptic his health insurance, and ultimately his wife, who died of cancer. So the accusations are: Mitt Romney killed Joe Soptic’s job, which resulted in the death of Mrs. Soptic. Fade to black.

The ad manages to get every single relevant fact wrong. Here’s the timeline: In 1993, Mitt Romney was head of Bain Capital, and that company became majority owner of Soptic’s employer, GST Steel. Bain bought into GST to try to save it, as it did with other struggling companies. Romney left Bain in 1999 to save the Salt Lake City Olympics. Two years after Romney left Bain, in February 2001, GST filed for bankruptcy and Soptic was among the 750 who lost their jobs as a result. A full five years after that, Soptic’s wife was diagnosed with late-stage cancer and she passed away.

Soptic’s story is a sad one, but not uncommon. In real life, our problems don’t get solved in a half-hour sitcom format and there aren’t all that many stories that end happily. We live, we work, we raise our families, we experience delights and tragedies, we pass on and are largely forgotten on this earth. Believers point to a brighter day on the other side of our last “amen,” while life on this earth remains a hardscrabble thing for most of us worrying about that next bill or how we’re ever going to be able to afford to retire. Life is often cruel and unfair. But to blame Mitt Romney for any of what happened to Joe Soptic is either delusional or dishonest to the point of sociopathy.

It’s one thing for political operatives to shade the truth to gussy up their party or their policy case. It’s never a good thing, but it happens all the time. But Joe Soptic is no political operative. He is just an ordinary man, or was. For an ordinary man to blame the death of his wife on another man who bears no culpability and who has done Soptic no wrong is bizarre. But grief makes us do weird things sometimes. Festering rage and the unfairness of life can turn the straightest arrow a little crooked.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Romney taunts China over moon landing, Olympic medals

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In this humorous speech at a campaign stop this week, Romney taunted China over the US’s medal count and moon landing.

Romney calls Obama ‘angry and desperate,’ but still won’t ask for college records

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Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

Mitt Romney lashed out at President Obama with some of the harshest rhetoric of his campaign at a Tuesday night rally here, accusing Obama of leveling “wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.”

The already divisive presidential contest took on an even uglier tone after Romney seized on the latest campaign-trail skirmish — a comment at a Virginia rally by Vice President Biden that Romney’s plans to loosen Wall Street regulations would “put y’all back in chains” — to go after his opponents.

“This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like. President Obama knows better, promised better, and America deserves better,” Romney told a roaring crowd of about 5,000 supporters in Chillicothe. “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”

Romney added, “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”

Throughout the summer, Romney has taken umbrage at the tone of the Democratic advertising barrage, but this week he ratcheted up his criticism. He and his advisers wrote much of the speech Tuesday on his campaign bus riding between stops in Ohio.

Read more from this story HERE.

RNC picks Chris Christie to give keynote in Tampa

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Photo credit: IowaPolitics.com

Chris Christie, the sometimes abrasive but always entertaining governor of New Jersey, is set to be announced Tuesday as the keynote speaker for the Republicans’ national convention later this month.

Christie, who considered a 2012 presidential bid of his own before endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is already at work on his speech to the convention in Tampa, Fla.

His record of cutting his state’s budget, curtailing public sector unions and dealing with a Democratic legislature with disarming and combative confidence all were expected to be on display as he looked to fire up his party’s base.

The scheduling decision was first reported online by USA Today early Tuesday and confirmed by Republican officials directly involved in convention planning. The Republican officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement was not planned until later Tuesday.

“I’ll try to tell some very direct and hard truths to people in the country about the trouble that we’re in and the fact that fixing those problems is not going to be easy for any of them,” Christie told USA Today in an interview announcing his speech. He said he will describe his experiences in New Jersey as evidence that “the American people are ready to confront those problems head-on and endure some sacrifice.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Another view: Ryan’s pick plays directly into Obama’s hand

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Photo credit: Majordomo2012

Mitt Romney’s pick of a Democratic punching bag, Paul Ryan, as his vice president, enables Obama and the Democrats to shift the debate from jobs and the economy to pushing grandma off a cliff. The latter actually took the form of an anti-Republican ad on Medicare from a “progressive” group supporting Obama. It has now been resurrected for dramatic effect.

Bulletin News, a good summary of how the major media are framing the campaign, reports, “The consensus media view on both TV and print is that Ryan’s selection is likely to spark a prolonged debate on his budget plan, diverting the public’s attention away from the economy and thus boosting the President’s reelection hopes.”

In order to counter this liberal media bias, Romney and Ryan went on one of the top liberal shows, the CBS News “60 Minutes” program, to defend their proposed reform of Medicare. It was nearly the equivalent of Sarah Palin going on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to discuss her reading habits. As Palin herself has written, that was done at the suggestion of a John McCain adviser, Nicole Wallace, who used to work for Couric and CBS News. It was a trap designed to carry on a narrative about what the liberal media wanted the public to believe about the Republican ticket. That narrative then was that Palin was not qualified to be vice-president.

The narrative has now been changed from jobs to entitlements, a shift that could cost the GOP many thousands of votes from seniors scared of losing their benefits. Liberals are gleeful. Many conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, are falling in line behind the Republican ticket.

The problem in 2008 went beyond advisers, as the HBO film “Game change” made clear. Despite elements of Palin-bashing, it accurately depicted McCain as a candidate who did not want to take the gloves off when attacking Obama. McCain was shown being offended when Republicans suggested Obama and/or his associates were anti-American or had Muslim sympathies.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Ryan sparks split on immigration

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Rep. Paul Ryan could be Mitt Romney’s olive branch to voters who want to see illegal immigrants gain legal status, with the Wisconsin Republican having repeatedly backed legalization efforts and cast himself in the mold of former President George W. Bush, who fought a battle with his own party on the issue.

But in the first few days since Mr. Ryan was announced, a split is developing among immigration reformers. Those in the business community say they are thrilled, while those who approach the issue from an immigrant-rights stance reject him as a salesman.

Mr. Ryan’s record is decidedly mixed.

As a staffer in Washington, he worked for Jack Kemp and Sen. Sam Brownback — both of whom were part of the Republicans’ pro-immigration wing, and who fought crackdown efforts from within their own party.

As a congressman, he voted for a 2002 legalization bill, praised the 2006 Senate immigration bill backed by Mr. Bush and co-sponsored a 2009 Democratic bill that would have legalized immigrant farmworkers. Each time, he was in a minority of Republicans.

But he also routinely backed the House Republicans‘ enforcement bills, including voting for the Secure Fence Act and for a 2005 bill that would have turned being an illegal immigrant from a civil violation to a criminal charge. Most recently, he voted against the Dream Act to legalize young adult illegal immigrants.

Video: Palin weighs in on Ryan pick & hits McCain campaign

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Sarah Palin weighs in on Romney’s vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan, and talks about her experience as McCain’s running mate in 2008, all within the first three minutes of this video. At the end, she asks for prayer warriors to get behind Ryan and Romney.

Video: Hilarious – Jon Stewart hits Romney AND Obama

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I don’t watch much of the Daily Show, but the following short clips are hilarious. The first makes fun of Obama’s and Romney’s recent verbal sparring, followed by VP sweepstakes role-playing on The Colbert Report:

Also, click here for Jon Stewart’s “Mitt Romney killed that guy’s wife!!!” video.

Video: “Mitt Romney killed that guy’s wife!!!” & the Redneck Olympics

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Here’s another short clip from Jon Stewart’s show where he highlights the idiocy of an Obama PAC ad that blames Romney for a woman’s death followed by a short clip on the “Redneck Olympics.”

And here’s the offensive ad itself (watch at your own risk):

 

Finally, click here for a hilarious clip where Jon Stewart rips both Obama and Romney.

Romney’s VP pick is Paul Ryan

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With the retired military battleship Wisconsin as a backdrop, Mitt Romney will announce Saturday that House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan will be his running mate, multiple news sources reported Friday night.

Speculation had swirled around Ryan, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty for many weeks, but aides kept the decision under wraps, insisting that the former Massachusetts governor’s supporters would be the first to know through a special smartphone app.

Instead it was NBC News that broke the choice late Friday night on the eve of a bus tour that will cross some of the most important battleground states: Virginia, Florida and Ohio.

Ryan, of Wisconsin, is a bold choice for the ever-cautious Romney campaign. The wonkish House budget chairman, 42, won the admiration of conservatives after championing major tax budget cuts while advocating deep changes to Medicare, the popular healthcare program for seniors — long viewed as a third rail of politics.

The choice promises a fierce debate over the size and role of government in America over the next few months, and Democrats are relishing the chance to take on that fight.

Read more from this story HERE.