SkimIt
Young Voters Speak Out: Each day, RR.com will spotlight politically minded youth writers from throughout the U.S. speaking their minds on Election 2012. First-time voters, student journalists and new graduates will debate the Obama vs. Romney race to the White House. Young Democrats, Republicans and ‘Undecided’ Americans are eager to play politics and choose the next Commander & Chief.
Read Samantha Schoenfeld's thoughts from a left-leaning perspective:
Mitt and Ann Romney are more fun than we all thought! Tuesday morning the couple visited Live! with Kelly and Michael, and revealed tons of personal tidbits: that Mitt stole Ann away from her date at a high school party; that Ann loves when her grandchildren misbehave: "and I look at them, and I look at their dads, and I go, 'oh, you deserve that'!"; and that Mitt wears "as little as possible" to bed. We even had the pleasure of watching Ann explain the now infamous story about her walking in on President George W. Bush getting a massage.
A deeper Mitt
We got a deeper, yet censored, look into the personal lives of the Romneys, showing their compassion and understanding for the hard times Americans go through with stories about her battles with cancer and MS and a story about Mitt bringing his boys to sit by the hospital bed of a local firefighter's 14-year-old son who had leukemia.
The appearance was fun and frisky, but it was void of any substance on how Mitt would run the country if elected.
What New Strategy?
Although it was reported that Mitt Romney's campaign would change its strategy to explain his policies, that change was clearly not applied to pre-taped segments. Instead, we got the Romney we're accustomed to: the Romney who doesn't show how he'll fix x, y, or z, or give any indication he has a plan on how to do so. In fact, when asked how he'd answer naysayers who don't think he understands their financial hardships, he said his professional experience would help him fix the economy. "I didn't just study the economy, I lived the economy. I know how it works." That is not a policy or an explanation.
When asked how he would create jobs, Romney gave a five part answer: "Becoming energy independent for North America," "opening up trade that will work for us," "fix our schools," "get America on track to having a balanced budget," and "champion small businesses and help them grow." That's all well and good, but how do you plan to do those things, Mr. Romney? You say the key to fixing healthcare is reducing costs, but you plan to repeal Obamacare, which has been proven to do just that in the long term. And you don't seem to understand the financial aspects of the law. Romney said he has a "better way of [cutting healthcare costs] than raising taxes and cutting Medicare." But this is at least partially a lie: while Obamacare does cut $716 billion from Medicare, the cuts come from health care providers, not the beneficiaries.
A Compassion of Non-sequiturs
After Monday's video gaffe calling 47 percent of Americans "victims" that depend on the government and don't pay taxes -- which hides that we don't know if he paid taxes -- it was rich to see an interview of him trying to relate to average Americans because of his wife's battle with MS. MS is an awful, debilitating disease that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and surely weighs hard on Mitt. But that doesn't mean he understands the economic hardships most of us face. But it does really sum up his campaign: he says he's compassionate and empathizes with Americans, but uses non-sequiturs to explain how, and to answer any question he doesn't like. This was on display in his best answer of the show. When asked what he agrees with President Obama on, he mentioned Osama bin Laden and the importance of family, praising Obama's job as a husband and father, but then veered off by saying that while they're both concerned about schools, healthcare, and the budget, they "have different approaches to [those] things." If that's not spinning a question, I don't know what is.
