1. "Romney has a plan to create 12 million new jobs."
- Actually, according to economic forecasters, our economy is already on track. The American people are set to create 12 million jobs in the next four years without Romney doing anything.
- When you hear Romney’s claims about jobs numbers, ask yourself: can you really trust a guy who made his fortune sending American jobs overseas and whose tax plan is "mathematically impossible"?
- Here’s the reality: we already tried Romney’s plan to double down on trickle down under Bush — it led to the worst job growth since WWII. We can’t go back.
2. "If Obama is reelected, taxes will go up on the middle class."
- President Obama has cut the typical middle class family’s taxes by $3,600 over the past four years — that’s a lot of car payments and trips to the grocery store. Now he wants to end the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% so everyone can start paying their fair share.
- Romney has a $5 trillion tax plan favoring the wealthy that’s paid for by raising taxes on the entire middle class. It’s basic arithmetic — that’s the only way his numbers work.
- Which America do we want: a country where everybody pays their fair share — or where working families pay more just so the richest few pay less?
3. "Romney wouldn’t ban all abortions."
- Mitt Romney would ban all abortions — he needs the extreme ideologues controlling his party to deliver votes and help him maintain power.
- That’s why he would sign any law they put in front of him, including a bill to not allow any abortions "at all, period." He said so himself, repeatedly.
- What’s worse than an ideologue as president who’s out of touch and out of the mainstream? A weak politician at the bidding of extreme ideologues, even on the most fundamental of issues.
4. "Romney will bring Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done."
- We need leaders committed to representing all Americans and bringing our nation together. Romney divided America into halves and wrote off one half — the 47% — as irresponsible victims not worth his time.
- For his VP, Romney picked a politician who met with other Republicans in Congress on President Obama’s first day to plot to take him down — by taking the economy down with him.
- Washington isn’t Massachusetts. If Romney can’t stand up to the extreme ideologues in Washington, how is he going to work across the aisle or stand up for ordinary people?
5. "Romney understands entrepreneurship and our nation’s small businesses."
- For a guy running on his corporate experience, Romney doesn’t seem to understand how to encourage risk takers and job creators in America. He never had to worry about personal financial risk because his wealthy family had his back.
- It’s a good bet that when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were starting out, they worried about their start-ups surviving and how to find skilled employees if they did — not the marginal tax rates they might pay decades later if they struck it rich.
- But instead of encouraging entrepreneurs, Romney would tilt the playing field in favor of big corporations. He’d give them special tax breaks and legal loopholes at the expense of the real job creators — small businesses and working people.
Reminder Talking Points
Voters who are still undecided this late in the game are not ignorant.
- Voters are busy people raising families and living their lives — politics is not their top concern.
- With so many political ads and complex challenges facing the country, sometimes people want to use all the time they have to make their decision. Why shouldn’t they?
- Actually, many of these voters are women and Independents — we insult them, or any voter, at our peril. Romney taught us that lesson well.
Voters who vote against their own economic interests are not ignorant.
- Actually, we have plenty of leaders like President Obama and Warren Buffett who vote against their own economic interests all the time for the good of the country.
- Romney is an example of why trust and values matter to voters. Can you really trust a guy who keeps getting caught showing scorn for ordinary people?
- It’s up to us to communicate our values and vision for the country — an America where we’re all in this together and everyone gets a fair shot.
6. "Obama’s second term would be a rerun of the first and our country can’t survive that."
- It’s as if Romney doesn’t want us to remember that our economy was in free fall when Obama took office — the worst recession since the Great Depression.
- We have a lot more work to do, but under Obama, we’ve created jobs for 31 straight months — putting five million back to work — despite Republicans in Congress who’ve put political gain ahead of putting people back to work.
- We’ve come too far in the past four years to switch to Romney and repeat the mistakes that led to the Great Recession in the first place.
7. "Obama will make our future less certain by cutting our military."
- This is coming from Romney, who calls Russia our #1 foe and complains that our Navy isn’t more like it was in the days of horses and bayonets. Romney’s out-of-touch at home and out-of-depth abroad.
- Not understanding modern threats must be why Romney wants $2 trillion more in Pentagon spending our military leaders don’t want. The world has changed, and so have the tools we need.
- America’s future depends on our economy and our national security — and a president who can make the right calls on both. Thanks to the President, bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.
8. "Democrats are blaming everything on Bush."
- Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but Romney wants us to repeat Bush’s blunders rather than remember them.
- He’s hoping voters won’t remember Bush — so he can keep pushing the same failed trickle down policies that got us into this mess and attacking the President for not cleaning it up fast enough.
- Tax breaks for the wealthy and going easy on Wall Street led to the worst economic mess since the Great Depression. Been there, done that. Why repeat those failed policies?
[Strategy Tip: Stick to reminding voters in the middle about the obvious blunders of the Bush years — rather than dissing Bush’s intelligence.]
9. "Obamacare cuts $700 billion from Medicare benefit for seniors."
- With claims like this, who should you trust? The party that created Medicare and fought to protect it for half a century — or Romney, who turned down Medicare for himself and wants to privatize it?
- Actually, the health care law guarantees Medicare coverage for life and preserves every dime of benefits. By getting rid of $700 billion in waste, Obamacare also put Medicare on stronger footing.
- Romney’s plan, on the other hand, privatizes Medicare and ends traditional Medicare, too — making seniors go fight with the big insurance companies to get coverage with a little coupon.
10. "To protect America’s health care system, we must repeal Obamacare."
- The health care law means that you’re guaranteed health coverage, even with a preexisting condition. It means that insurance companies can’t rip you off anymore and it keeps the President’s promise that no one in America should go bankrupt when they get sick.
- Romney’s repeal plan means higher costs for families already with insurance, 45 million more Americans with no health insurance, and thousands dying before their time.
- For people with preexisting conditions, people who will end up changing jobs or still can’t find a job and can’t get coverage — this election could be a matter of life or death.
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