Mitt Romney's Moment

Townhall.com ^ | July 22, 2012 | Salena Zito

[Kaslin]

NORTH HUNTINGDON – Mitt Romney was fired-up.

“The president actually said, if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen.” He paused and threw his hands up before adding: “Really?”

Sitting in a small office attached to a local shale industry company for an interview with the Trib, Romney remained agitated and energized.

The agitation was personal because he is genuinely appalled by President Obama’s attitude toward business.

“I could not believe he said that. And it wasn’t just a twist of phrase, he actually goes on to explain what he meant by that,” Romney said, suddenly stretching forward as if finding it difficult to contain his feelings.

The energy came from what arguably was the presumptive Republican nominee’s best rally so far. More than 1,400 people packed a 4,000-square-foot warehouse – but it wasn’t the numbers, it was the event’s organic nature.

This was not a stacked rally, to which the usual GOP suspects bring a friend, or a ticketed event, for which you go to a local elected official to pick up a pass reserved for people who clap on cue.

This was the real deal – and the crowd, with nearly as many Democrats as Republicans, let Romney know they loved him and his message.

Bill Brasco of nearby Jeanette isn’t just a Democrat. He is an elected Democrat, serving as the local school board president for more than 42 years, the second-longest-serving board president in state history.

“Been a Democrat since I turned 21 and proud of it,” he said, adding that he will not vote for Obama in November.

“I just do not like the direction this country is going under the president,” he explained.

Brasco, 75, was one of many Democrats giving Romney more than a dozen standing ovations at the Westmoreland County rally.

“I could not have been more impressed,” he said. “I particularly liked when he talked about his five-point plan to get the economy roaring.”

Brasco, who spent most of his working career in sales, listed Romney’s points as if he himself had authored them: “Energy, trade, balanced budget, better education through training and skills, and economic freedom. … No, he was impressive, that was an amazing event.”

Who inspired whom more was difficult to determine: Did Romney feed on the crowd’s electricity, or did it feed on his?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that weeks of Obama's attacks on Romney’s time at Bain Capital and demands for the release of Romney’s taxes have not dissuaded the GOP base or soured swing Democrats or independents against Romney.

The effect, remarkably, has been the reverse.

The attacks on Romney as a businessman are ridiculous, said Mark Lisovich, who lives here. The 51-year-old father of five – including a wounded Navy combat corpsman – is another Democrat who voted for Obama but now supports Romney.

“Without private-equity firms like Bain, I wouldn’t have a job,” he said of the small business he works for that received start-up money from investors. “And what will the tax thing prove? That Romney is rich?”

Lisovich was optimistic that things would improve when he voted for Obama in 2008; now he knows better, he said. “Romney has the right vision for the country, and he understands that businesses small and large are what make America great.”

Democrats, nationally and locally, were strikingly silent about this event, held at a booming energy firm that grew in 26 months from 20 employees and two trucks to 130 employees, a fleet of trucks and salaries that start at $60,000 and, by the third year, top six figures.

Their only response was more demands for Romney to release his tax returns.

The TV networks, national press, Washington elite and establishment Republicans continue hammering that storyline, too.

All of them overlook how the tax-return issue and the attacks on an American business leave many Americans fuming with an intensity far surpassing 2010’s voter agitation.

At the end of his interview, Romney walked down a hallway, turned and said: “That was a great rally! What an incredible country we have!”

If the Obama team also overlooks what’s happening in towns such as North Huntingdon, it may do so at its own peril.

[txrangerette]

What state?

[txrangerette]

Never mind, I googled it.

PA.

[MuttTheHoople]

Romney was on fire last week. Dr. Limbaugh had excerpts of his speeches, and they were all what I've been wanting out of Romney the whole time. He needs to keep hammering Obama the same way he hammered Gingrich and Santorum.

Obama may have a minor bump in the polls because of Democrat James Holmes' (D-Aurora) attack on theatergoers last Friday. However, I think this Hail Mary attempt to re-energize the Obama Campaign will fail.

[nathanbedford]

“I could not believe he said that. And it wasn’t just a twist of phrase, he actually goes on to explain what he meant by that,” Romney said, suddenly stretching forward as if finding it difficult to contain his feelings.

God help us all.

If Mitt Romney does not understand the essential nature of his adversary after four years, how is he going to cope with Vladimir Putin?

Is Romney really so naïve that he believes that Obama is simply uninformed? I hope that Romney was consciously engaging in a bit of theater to express his dismay at Obama's remark without stepping into the minefield by calling him a Marxist. Surely, if Romney does not know that Obama is a Marxist he must understand that he is a unreconstructed Alinsky radical who is not blundering in the economy but systematically dismantling the American capitalist system.

I want a candidate who will expose Obama for what he is because Obamaism must be discredited and that means that Obama himself must be morally destroyed. I want a president who succeeds Obama in office to turn his attorney general loose and bring up indictments for every crime that might have been committed by the Obama administration. That not for revenge or out of pique but to discredit the Marxist virus which has infected about half our country.

If we do not discredit Marxism, which is now is on the threshold of becoming an nationally acceptable political philosophy, it will be combined as it is now with the racism of the African American voting block and the recipients of government largess, the "takers," and conservatism will be swamped in a demographic tsunami from which it may never be able to swim back to the surface.

[Patriot Babe]

Forgive me for asking this stupid question, but who is that person / photo?

[albionin]

I think he does know that Obama is not just ill informed but he can’t come out and say that. Many, many people may know on a subconscious level that Obama is destroying the country intentionally but they have not accepted it consciously yet or thought it out. They won’t accept that premise because they are too innocently naive. That is a hard pill to swallow. As much as you and I would love to hear him say it reaction would be very negative even though it is true.

[Sola Veritas]

“If Mitt Romney does not understand the essential nature of his adversary after four years, how is he going to cope with Vladimir Putin?”

He won’t!

Putin is attempting to rebuild a new version of the USSR. Plus, China is attempting to become a world power, not just economically, but militarily. They remind me of Japan in late 20s and 30s leading up to WWII.

The nation would never stand for it, but we need to restore our military (Army, Navy, Marines, & Air Force) to “Cold War” strengths and heavily garrison the Pacific.

[upchuck]

Good job. Great article!

[nathanbedford]

That is a photograph of Nathan Bedford Forrest; please see my "about page" for further information.

[nathanbedford]

The Bamster's "reset" approach to Russia has spectacularly failed and I do not think that Romney will duplicate that mistake. My question is what is in fact Putin's game, is he merely lashing out here and there opportunistically out of reflexive anger at the US or does Putin have mischief on a grand level in mind?

The troubling aspect of Putin's obstructionism over, for example, Iran is that it is coupled with an attempt to arrange a multilateral front against the United States involving China, the Marxists of Latin America, and Islamicists.

With respect to the need to restore the American Armed Forces to former more robust state of readiness, I agree completely but whatever is done must be done with due concern for the fiscal condition of the country. Further, it must be done with a view to two or three future generations of weapons systems which we must get absolutely right in view of our constrained resources. That means the militarization of space and, here again, Obama has taken the country in precisely the wrong direction.

Converting NASA to a Madison Avenue public relations vehicle for improving relations with the Muslim world will hardly enable us to survive cyber and space wars with the Chinese.

[Agamemnon]

Forgive me for asking this stupid question, but who is that person / photo?

As quoted directly from the guy's screename:

"Forrest became the head of the resistance movement-one might say terrorism cult-which sought to defeat the federal occupation of the South and undo reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan."

Yeah, OK.

Just the name of the guy I'd want to post under as a screen name on FR. (/sarc)

I guess he could have chosen Robert "KKK" Byrd (D-WV - deceased), too. But then if you did, you wouldn't have to ask.

FReegards!

[RipSawyer]

I have said it and had it said to me. I said before the 2008 election that his only real purpose in seeking the office of president is to destroy the USA. Of course we were doing a fair job of it before I ever heard of him but the work is proceeding at breakneck pace now.

[RipSawyer]

I have said it and had it said to me. I said before the 2008 election that his only real purpose in seeking the office of president is to destroy the USA. Of course we were doing a fair job of it before I ever heard of him but the work is proceeding at breakneck pace now.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Good review.

Except you leave out one point: we are handing the aggression to China. China is taking the initiative away from America.

China is locking down production, and de-industrializing America.

That must stop. Now.

[albionin]

you are right. I told a supporter of his that I worked with after the 2008 election that his presidency would be an unmitigated disaster. I had no idea it would be as bad as it has been. Some of us were awake before 2008 and I think a lot more are now. I just hope it is enough to counteract all of the zombies who are going to vote for him again.

[neverdem]

The troubling aspect of Putin's obstructionism over, for example, Iran is that it is coupled with an attempt to arrange a multilateral front against the United States involving China, the Marxists of Latin America, and Islamicists.

Islamicists might be a problem. They have been causing trouble in Russsia for a while.