Firstly Romney finally told us how rich he is. He had
revealed some numbers in September but only became clearer on things when he
became the candidate and HAD to reveal his earnings. The debate was never if he
was rich (his family background in automobiles and his work in management consultancy
for Bain never left that in doubt), but more how rich. Now, having refused to
show his financial results for ages, we have found out that he is worth up to
$250m after selling most of his overseas shares. That, I don’t need to tell
you, is a massive amount of money and it means he is able to contribute large
amounts to his election war chest.
That for me though is not the issue. Last month Romney
actually outdid Obama in fundraising for the first time in the campaign (an
ominous turn of events for a President who is well known for his fundraising abilities)
and so money is not an issue for him (clearly!) or his campaign. For me the
greater issue is the contrast with Obama, whose net worth is between a mere $2.6m
and a much larger $8.3m. Whilst not even close to an average person’s wealth,
Obama will still be able to play the ‘Romney is out of touch’ card with these
figures. A man with such wealth (and who earlier on, in the primary campaign,
placed outrageous wagers and talked about the cars his wife owned) cannot be in
touch with the common American. In contrast, Romney could bury the story or,
more likely, use his wealth as the sign that he is the man to hold the tiller
of the SS US Economy as it goes near rocky territory.
The second story reported on Friday is Obama’s loose tongue
on the economy. In a laid back moment he stated that ‘the private sector is
doing fine’,
a ludicrous comment when workers in the private sector has faced pension cuts,
job losses and personal bankruptcy and when the federal jobs survey recently reported
the weakest one-month job growth in a year. Clearly wanting to deal with
the issue Obama held a press conference as soon as he could to try and
communicate what his comment meant and others, including David Axelrod, Obama’s
campaign manager (his Bruno Gianelli for you West Wing fans) were mobilised on
damage limitation duty with major media outlets. Granted Obama can claim that
the private sector has shown some positive signs but his comment has been used
well by the Romney campaign which has already produced 2 videos highlighting
the issues and claiming Obama is out of touch. All this has not been helped by
former President Bill Clinton making similarly outlandish statements whilst
claiming to be well informed.
This election will be about the economy, what the candidates
have done in the past, how they understand the situation now and what they plan
to do in the future. Both have recently faced problems in this area. Only time
(and an election!) will tell us what the American people think and what
direction their country will travel
Debate warmly encouraged
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