Obama/Biden 2012 released a “theatrical trailer” video in anticipation of the start of the republican National Convention in Tampa:

[Romney advisers believe he’s viewed as “stiff, aloof, and distant”

and that the GOP convention will be “a chance for a fresh start”

their plan includes mad men “slick packaging” and a “theatrical,” Hollywood-style reinvention.]

Narrator: In a world where thousands of jobs were destroyed by his corporate takeovers.

Worker: One day we had a job, the next day we didn’t.

Narrator: From a state where his economic record was a failure, he faces an election where the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Mitt Romney (r): This a battle for the soul of America.

Narrator: And he’s tried it all.

Mitt Romney (r): I love this state. It seems right here, the trees are the right height.

Corporations are people, my friend.

I stand by whatever I said, whatever it was.

Narrator: But nothing is working.

Pundit: Mitt Romney’s favorability rating is about half President Obama’s.

Second Pundit: fifty percent of Americans view Mitt Romney unfavorably.

Narrator: His only hope is a convention reinvention.

And an etch-a-sketch of epic proportions will be shaken to its core.

Mitt Romney (r): I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake.

Narrator: On August 30th Mitt Romney stars in The Do-over. critics have called his previous work “wildly misleading”, “four pinocchios”, “pants on fire”.

Rated N, for not gonna work.

[conventionreincention.com]

Heh. Turn loose sarcastic people who love and understand popular culture and work in politics and see what you can do?

You’ve gotta love the audio of the scratchy optical sound track at the very beginning. We are not worthy.  

Mitt Romney (r) has a sad.

The Obama campaign ain’t playing patty cake.

Barack Obama (D): I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.

David Muir: Was there ever any year when you paid lower than the thirteen point nine percent?

Mitt Romney (r): I, I haven’t calculated that. I’m happy to go back and look.

Narrator: Did Romney pay ten percent in taxes? Five percent? Zero? We don’t know. But we do know that Romney personally approved over seventy million dollars in fictional losses to the IRS as part of the notorious Son of Boss tax scandal. One of the largest tax avoidance schemes in history.

Isn’t it time for Romney to come clean?

A comment at Balloon Juice:

Hi, Mr. President.

Hey, good times, eh? Yep. Crazy campaign, huh. Compared with some others, I wonder how it stacks up. So the reason I called-

Hm, that was out of context? You were talking about infrastructure? Well, yes, but they say about politics, it’s not beanbag. But –

Yeah, I know – those Jeremiah Wright ads, and the Bill Ayres nonsense, and all those birther rumors, that doesn’t seem to have been very fair. So anyway –

What’s that? Swift Boats? Yeah, yeah, I remember those. Pretty effective – what? yeah, took some liberties with the truth, those ads. Yes, yes they did. And speaking of –

Huh? Gore being misquoted? Hm, yes, I seem to remember – something about laughing about him claiming he’d invented the Internet, which he’d never said. Yeah, well, that was a one-time thing, but sure, okay, and related to that –

Willie Horton? Remind me? Oh, right, when ads started claiming the guy running for President was to blame for some murder. Um, right. Yeah, yeah, that really was uncalled for.

So anyway, listen. About those ads you’re running saying I might have something to hide about my career in business that I’m making the centerpiece of the argument for why I should be elected? I kinda think they’re unfair. Could you stop them?

I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over all the laughing on your end. Was that a yes?

This.

“When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.” James Carville

So, any guesses about when Mitt Romney (r) releases the rest of his tax returns?

Here’s the Obama response to the “build it” splice and dice job Romney and co. are promulgating:

Key question from Stephanie Cutter: Does Romney even know how our economy works? Could also be asked about our Missouri businessmen who want to be government leaders, people like John Brunner and Dave Spence. When people want positions of leadership based on on some special expertise they claim to have and then propose to keep repeating failed experiments (trickle-down and voodoo economics are just old-fashioned ways to say you’re giving the store away to the “job-creators”), that question is more than justified.

Actually, come to think of  it, Brunner inherited his business and Dave Spence got his start working in his father’s plastics business – and grew his business by means of a government small business loan. So did they build it all by themselves?

Mitt Romney continues to Swift Yacht himself with his lack of transparency. From the Obama/Biden 2012 campaign:

Romney Can’t Run from Record as Corporate Buyout Specialist

“Mitt Romney can continue to run ads bemoaning serious questions about his career as a corporate buyout specialist, but he can’t run from his record of leading investments in companies that were ‘pioneers’ in outsourcing and investing in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts. It’s time for him to come clean about his involvement at Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002 and follow decades of precedent set by his own father and release additional tax returns. Only then will the American people learn about his motivations on critical policy matters and know whether he opened offshore accounts to avoid paying U.S. taxes or hedge against the dollar. Until then, we are left to wonder just what he is hiding.”

-Lis Smith, campaign spokeswoman

And we were so looking forward to perusing those tax returns. Drat.

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA GRASSROOTS EVENT

July 10, 2012

Dateline: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Venue Information: Kirkwood Community College

Road Map to Cedar Rapids Grassroots Event

President Obama believes our economy grows from the middle out. That’s why yesterday, he called on Congress to immediately extend the middle-class tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of this year and prevent a tax increase on the 98 percent of families who earn less than $250,000 a year.  That action would prevent a typical middle-class family of four from seeing their taxes go up $2,200. As President Obama made clear, if both parties agree that middle-class families shouldn’t face a tax increase, there’s no reason to delay providing them with the certainty that they won’t see a tax hike. At the same time, under the President’s plan the tax cuts that benefit only high-income taxpayers will expire. These steps are part of his plan to cut the deficit by more than $4 trillion by ensuring that everyone pays their fair share and cutting waste, so that we can invest in what we need to grow our economy and strengthen the middle class, like education and clean energy.  President Obama has already cut taxes for a typical Iowa family by $3,600 over four years, helping families afford to send their children to college, buy their first home, pay for health care and child care.  These tax cuts also helped the economy recover from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Previously:

President Obama in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – photos (July 10, 2012)

Iowa – full circle, of sorts (July 11, 2012)

President Obama in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – photos, part 2 (July 11, 2012)

President Obama (interviewed on Thursday) on CBS This Morning:

Charlie Rose: ….a political office. What, how do you take the measure of his business experience?

President Obama: I do not think at all it disqualifies him. But I also think it’s important if that’s his main calling card, if his basic premise is that, I’m Mr. Fix It on the economy because I made a lot of money, then…

Charlie Rose: But that’s not what he’s saying.

President Obama: Well, no, that is to, to some degree what, what he says is he understands the economy and the private sector.

Charlie Rose: And they built businesses and [crosstalk]…

President Obama: And, well, they invested, they invested.

Charlie Rose: …made them better. But invested and made them better is what they did.

President Obama: Exactly. So, so, that’s his premise. I think it is entirely appropriate to look at that record, uh, and see whether in fact his focus was creating jobs, uh, and he successfully did that and when you look at the record there are questions there that have to be asked. And [crosstalk]…

Charlie Rose: Like what, like what?

President Obama: Well, uh, look, uh, you know, as I said, uh, when some people questioned why I would, uh, challenge his Bain record, uh, the point I made there in the past is, uh, if you’re a head of a large equity firm or hedge fund, um, your job is to make money. It’s not to create jobs. It’s not create, to create a successful business. It’s to make sure you are maximizing returns for your investor. Now, that’s appropriate, that’s part of the American way,  that’s part of the system. But that doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole because, as president, my job is to think about the workers, my job is to think about communities where jobs have been outsourced and so it is not that he is disqualified because of what he’s done. It is if that’s your main claim, since he doesn’t talk about the fact that he’s governor of Massachusetts for four years very much [crosstalk]…

Charlie Rose: Or ran the Olympics.

President Obama: Or, or, then I want, uh, us to make sure that, uh, we know what your theory is about how to grow the economy. And, and that is a question that I think most Americans want to know as well. This is, uh, the nature of running for President.

And President Clinton, today, on NBC’s Today:

….Savannah Guthrie: Recently the, the Democrats have been emphasizing Mitt Romney’s personal investments, the fact that he has some accounts in Switzerland, in the Caymans, and I wonder whether you feel this is a legitimate line of attack against Mitt Romney, if you think this is relevant to his fitness to be president?

President Clinton: Oh, yes, I do, I think for one thing, just as relevant as the going over my record as Governor got when I ran for President. I had been governor for a dozen years. And because he’s put it at the forefront. He said basically, I, I’d be a better president ’cause I know how to create jobs ’cause that’s what I did. And, um, he’s gonna take credit for running a successful Olympics, for example. So when, when all your work life before you run for President is relevant. And I, I think that will be relevant. I am a little surprised that he only released a year’s worth of tax returns. That’s kind of perplexed me because this is the first time in, I don’t know, more than thirty years that anybody running for president has only done that. Uh, you know, it’s typical I think, we, we all release ten, eleven years. And I think Senator McCain released, uh, released over twenty years of tax returns. That I think has been, that struck me as a little odd.

Savannah Guthrie: Well, this has to do with whether or not he placed his own money in legal tax shelters overseas.

President Clinton: The public ought to know that. The voters can make up their own mind about whether they think it’s a good thing to, uh, for a person who wants to be President to minimize his own tax liability by putting the money in overseas tax shelters. And they can decide whether they believe that or not.

Savannah Guthrie: Lastly, I know you’re headed to Africa…

Heh. Message discipline.

Previously:

At the beginning of yesterday’s campaign event at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after the Pledge of Allegiance and before the introduction of President Obama, a high school student sang the national anthem. People in the crowd joined in:

Singing the national anthem before the introduction of President Obama

at the beginning of a campaign event at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on July 10, 2012.

Study that image carefully.

I first directly encountered then Senator Barack Obama as a candidate at the annual Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa in September 2007. Little did I know at the time that one small observation out of the whole would be a prophetic sign of our times:

Road Trip! – The Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – The speechifying (September 17, 2007)

….A singer performed the national anthem with pre-recorded accompaniment. Her rendition was heartfelt and definitely unique. Most people would have had difficulty singing along with her. I noticed that all of the candidates except Obama held their hands over their hearts. Obama held his hands folded in front of him throughout [This is not criticism – the “hand over the heart” looked awkward on the stage – I was standing in the same fashion as Obama]….

The right wingutosphere went insane:

Barack Obama and “The Star Spangled Banner” (October 24, 2007)

Of all the dumb things…

The Raw Story

…Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama is again facing questions about his patriotism from some conservative blogs — this time for apparently failing to put his hand over his heart during a rendition of the national anthem at an Iowa campaign event….

[….]

And, a day later:

Those who ignore history are, well….stupid (October 25, 2007)

[….]

WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ET AL. v. BARNETTE ET AL., 319 U.S. 624

Justice Jackson wote:

….As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. [319 U.S. 624, 641]  As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be….

[….]

….If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us….

Yes, we remember that right wingnut tempest in a teapot from 2007. It was then, and still is now, cynical hacks along with self righteous pearl clutchers using inconsequential cultural wedge issues to get stupid people to vote against their own interests.

Ironically, the photo above is the embodiment of real America, hypocritical right wingnut orthodoxy be damned.  

From the Obama/Biden 2012 campaign:

Al Sharpton: Now, Governor Strickland, uh, I was reading, uh, and watching a wise man. Uh, and let, uh, me read to you what he said about the President. He said, President Obama is betting on America and American workers and Mitt Romney is betting his resources in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Switzerland and god only knows where else. President Obama is the insourcer of jobs and Mitt Romney is the outsourcer of jobs. That wise man was you, Governor Strickland, introducing the President yesterday. Would you care to elaborate?

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D): Well, Reverend Al, I mean, we have two men who want to be the next President. And, uh, one of them, our President, our, our current President, has worked to build the middle class. Uh, he’s brought us out of this, uh, deep, deep recession and we’re moving forward. Uh, and on the other hand we have Mitt Romney, uh, a man who made great wealth, uh, as a result of the privileges that he had of living in this country. And, uh, what did he do with his wealth? Well, we don’t know everything he did with his wealth because he refuses to release his income tax returns. But we do know that he took part of his wealth and he invested that wealth in the Cayman Islands, uh, a recognized tax haven. Uh, he opened up a bank account in Switzerland. He established a corporation in Bermuda. Um, he, he went to South America when he formed Bain Capital and he got money from shadowy, um, uh, investors. Uh, some of them anonymous that we don’t know who they were. And, uh, and, and now he wants to be the President. And he says I’m the one who is worthy of leading this country because of my business experience. And I say give me a break. What is Mitt Romney hiding from the American people? Reverend Al, why isn’t he releasing his income tax returns? His father released twelve years of income tax returns when he ran for president. And Mitt Romney has released only one year. And, uh, we need to know, uh, more about this man’s business dealings. And, uh, he wants to be the President. The President, uh, has an obligation, I believe, to be candid and transparent and open with the American people. Someone said rightly that, uh, Mitt Romney is the most secretive, uh, American politician since Richard Nixon. And when it comes to his finances and what he’s done with his wealth, I think that’s absolutely the case.

Ouch.

Previously:

That’s a really good question (July 3, 2012)

That’s a really good question, part 2 (July 5, 2012)