So much for 'he made it worse'

[ProSense]

So much for 'he made it worse'

By Steve Benen

For the better part of the last year, there was one claim Mitt Romney made more than any other: President Obama, he said, made the economy "worse."

Reality makes clear that the dubious claim just isn't true, but the Republican presidential hopeful repeated it anyway, ad nauseum, in nearly every speech, interview, and public appearance. It became the central point of the former governor's entire campaign: Obama made the economy worse, and Romney would make it better.

As national conditions improved, the argument became untenable, and the shift in Romney's rhetoric tells an important story.

Mitt Romney on Thursday night admitted that the economy is improving. "I believe we're in a recovery mode, finally," Romney told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "I think it's likely things will get better."

This isn't the first time Romney has grudgingly acknowledged that the economy is improving. He started moving in this direction two months ago, slowly acknowledging the economic upswing, but urging voters not to give Obama credit for the better conditions.

At a certain level, that's not an unreasonable point of discussion -- if Republicans want to debate Democrats over how and why the economy strengthened, it'd be a debate worth having.

But to have that debate is to concede the underlying point that the economy has obviously gotten significantly better since Obama became president. For the GOP, that's extremely dangerous -- going into a presidential election, Republicans will find it very difficult to win if the larger dispute boils down to "the nation is better off, and Obama deserves a second term" vs. "the nation is better off, but vote against Obama anyway."

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/16/10716065-so-much-for-he-made-it-worse

[bigtree]

1. k&r

[Motown_Johnny]

2. He has gone back and forth on this a couple of times already

and he will say anything he thinks he needs to say at the time.

Eventually he will claim that the recovery is not as good as it should be and therefore "worse" than it would have been otherwise.

This ploy is fairly obvious.

[spooky3]

3. significantly better, DESPITE the Rep.'s blocking every Congressional initiative to help the economy

As soon as the general begins, one would expect Democrats to talk about how much better things could have been had the Republicans not done EVERYTHING possible to hold it back and why it's necessary to get more Dems. in Congress to help the President.

[FSogol]

4. K&R More Romney flip-flops. Does Romney EVER know whant he is talking about?