The President cannot run from the economy.

[kentuck]

Nor should he.

Romney and the Republicans accuse the President and the Democrats of talking about Romney's tax returns because they want to divert people's attention away from the bad economy.

In my opinion, the President should say, "Let's talk about the economy." Do the Rove tactic in reverse. Take your perceived weakest issue and turn it into your strongest.

The President can be honest about where the economy is today. Unemployment is higher than we need it to be. The deficits are higher than we had hoped. However, the Republicans should stop demagoguing and help us get out of the hole that they helped to put us in.

When we walked into the White House on January 20th, 2009, we were losing 750,000 jobs per month. It wasn't your average Republican recession. At that rate, we would have lost 9 million jobs in a 12-month period. We were in a crisis. The stock market was dropping like a rock, from 14,000 down to 6500. People were losing their 401K's and their life savings. The banking system was near collapse.

It is easy for Mr Romney and the Republican to now say that we "should be doing better". We are doing better - much better than we would be doing if they were still in charge with the same policies. It doesn't help that Republicans at the state level have cut over 650,000 teachers, policemen, and firemen from their jobs. Since Bush left this Administration with a starting deficit of $1.2 trillion dollars, government spending is actually at the lowest level of increase, percentage-wise. in almost 60 years. The deficits we have accrued are primarily because of the bad economy, unemployment insurance payments, the Bush taxcuts, and the wars that we have been trying to end as quickly and responsibly as we can.

Mr Romney can continue to demagogue the issue on the economy or he could begin to offer some real solutions, rather than offering trillions and trillions more in taxcuts for people in his tax bracket. As we have seen, most of those taxcuts do not end up in our economy, in fact, they don't even end up in our country.

[Politicalboi]

1. Obama needs to explain

The party of NO! and the party of anit-abortion laws instead of jobs. Simple. Yes let's talk about the economy.

[kentuck]

2. Absolutely!

+1

[emulatorloo]

3. Romney has a glass jaw on this issue.

He has surrounded himself with Bush's economic advisors.

The tax returns play into as this is not a man we can trust with tax policy. He games the system and he wants to give the wealthy even more tax cut goodies, that he himself will benefit from.

He can claim this is a diversion all that he wants, but it gets to the heart of the matter = Romney is even worse than Bush on the economy.

[Life Long Dem]

4. Regardless of what Obama talks

the Republicans are just trying to take the focus off of Romney's tax returns. It's not like Obama doesn't talk about jobs and the economy. He also talks about Romney's tax returns. What's wrong with talking about both the economy and returns. The Repubs just don't want you to attack Romney.

[kentuck]

5. Personally...

I would like to see the President challenge Romney to release his tax returns to the Republican Party.

Then he could challenge the entire Republican Party to come clean.

[jmowreader]

11. There are other things they're trying to take the focus off

Massachusetts' God-awful 47th-in-the-nation job creation stats when Romney was running the place, for one thing.

And Romney creating jobs in places like China and Vietnam while destroying them here when he was running Bain Capital.

For that matter, was Romney running Bain from 1999 to 2002--or did he step down?

And if he DID step down, why do all the Bain SEC filings from those three years list Romney as CEO and sole stockholder?

More to the point: if Obama isn't doing enough to create jobs, as Romney seems to think, what will Romney do differently? (And "I'll give rich people tax cuts, and cut government spending" is NOT the right answer.)

[zbdent]

6. The problem is the "liberally-biased media" ... which parrots the RW talking point

"Obama keeps blaming it on others" ...

and forgets to mention that, even though (yet another RW talking point) "The Democrats controlled the house and the senate but didn't pass Obama's dictations", it took an unprecedented 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate ... especially when a Democrat was elected, but the Republicans were fighting to keep him from being seated (while said Republican opponent was waging a court battle to "win" "his" seat ... something that they attacked Gore for doing).

[kentuck]

7. very true.

The media are playing their part very well...

[ljm2002]

8. Your last sentence is a keeper...

..."As we have seen, most of those taxcuts do not end up in our economy, in fact, they don't even end up in our country."

I would like to see that used by the Obama campaign, it's short and sweet and right on point.

[kentuck]

9. They have been running some pretty good ads...

But Romney and the Repubs seem like a big target to me...

[ljm2002]

12. Yes they have...

...been running some good ads; and yes, Romney and the Repubs are a big target. But that sentence of yours, captures something that I've not seen before in any of their ads. It's hard to get people interested in economics as a topic, except insofar as it affects them personally, because it is pretty boring stuff really. It's hard to make sense of it at a very high level, and that is what the bastards count on.

Pointing out that the tax cuts that Romney and the Republicans push so doggedly don't end up within our economy nor even within our own country, is, I think, a good message. It makes the point in a very simple way and it appeals at a level that any of us can understand. And of course it has the virtue of being true.

[nanabugg]

10. Don't worry, I think he is saving this for the debates... He doesn't expose all his arrows. nt