Campaign Ad Video: Romney Campaign Uses Obama’s “The Private Sector Is Doing Fine” Bungle in Ad
On Friday President Barack Obama handed the Romney campaign an early Chistmas gift by saying “the private sector is doing fine” in a press conference. Some have compared this to George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner on the Iraq war (let the “false equivalency” wars begin). But one thing is for sure: it was a major campaign stumble and gave Republicans a sound bite they will use over and over and a statement Mitt Romney will use against Obama in debates – -forcing Obama to go on the defensive at any moment to explain it (Obama has since tried to clarify what he meant)..
Here’s the first Romney campaign ad using the statement:
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Just like John McCain said ‘The fundamentals of our economy are sound” and he believed that to be true, so does Obama believe the private sector is doing fine.
What we forget is these people in governmental service do not live in the same time warp we live in. Our lives may be in the dumps, the private sector may be in the dumps, but as long as the Washington DC and surburban areas are doing fine, then everywhere is doing fine from their perspective.
And remember, home prices in the DC area are doing fine, unemployment percentage is doing fine, income is rising and most people in the surburban areas of DC are confident the economy is OK. Those that live in DC and attend public schools are always overlooked, so they do not count when asking how things are going.
If I may may make hay out of a fairly innocuous sentence, and in the contextual framework of his talking about the public sector’s situation, Obama spoke the truth.
Aha, but only in his mind is he totally correct, since his priority, correct or not, is that we must invest in firemen, policemen and educators to protect and educate the public, forming the bedrock foundation and springboard for a greater society.
Then after that is all well we can concentrate on the private sector. Look at his background, public community organizer, in contrast to Romney’s trust in the private sector, which he believes is the springboard, and his background as investor and private profit organizer.
Conclusion: Therefore, I believe Obama made a Freudian slip.
Yes, his statement isn’t ‘wrong’ but worded badly. Corporate profits are at near all-time high (if not at an actual all-time high) and the private sector created 82,000 jobs (still too small a number, but at least it’s a gain). The public sector is losing out though and this is what he’s getting at. It’s still a bad way to word it. Much like McCain’s “the fundamentals of the economy are fine” (in his defense, it wasn’t known yet just how badly those ‘fundamentals’ actually were) and Mitt’s “I’m not worried about the poor.”
While politicians are known to stumble like this, I’m surprised to see an accomplished speaker like Obama do this.
Obama’s comments should be taken in context. The GOP is making hay about it but I doubt Obama thinks the private sector is fine. It was a rare gaffe from Obama though.
Boy, watching the Sunday shows this AM can Obama find a worse spokesman than Axelrod? He’s claiming the GOP is focusing on Obama’s comment to avoid the jobs debate. The GOP would love to focus on jobs since that is an obvious Obama weakness no matter how he tries to spin it. And Axelrod’s argument that we need to spend more money on the public sector to save the private sector is going to be a tough sell.
Ha. As has been pointed out, the private sector is creating jobs (sustained employment growth for 30 months or so), companies are making profits and the stock market has more than doubled under Obama.
Even in an economy with full employment there will be people looking for work and anyone can find struggling people to say the statements in the video. Personal testimony is powerful and about the only way to counter this video is with facts about corporate profits and job growth, compared to Bush’s record.
Federal, state and local governments continue to layoff people (and Romney wants to lay off more firefighters, teachers, police). And no doubt Romney wants to distract from this position of his.
I think the most that can be said about Obama’s comment is that yes, compared to government jobs, the private sector is doing fine. However it’s not doing great. Companies should be hiring more people, rather than focused solely on corporate profits.
So I watched the ad, and my first response was…”really?”
Granted, the “private sector is doing fine” counts as a minor gaffe, but does the Romney campaign seriously expect people to believe they’re trying to find jobs for the folks in the video?
I’d classify this in the same category as Romney’s “not concerned about the very poor.” Although I defend some of Romney’s other gaffes as having been taken out of context, I was critical of him on that one. It’s not that I really think he doesn’t care at all about poor people, but it reflected his focus: that he did not consider it important to consider the state of the poor.
Similarly, I think we can agree that Obama doesn’t really think the private sector is “fine”, but the statement is a reflection of his focus: on public-sector jobs. I think the statement is worthy of criticism in that context.
Phffft. Just more out of context blather from the usual suspects.