Mitt Romney Believes in America and So Should You!!: Part 2

***This is part 2 of a post on Mitt Romney's campaign ad, "Believe in America." If you haven't yet had a chance to read part 1, you can scroll down and find it on the right hand side under "Blog Archive."***

So as it turns out, Romney’s campaign voluntarily admitted the full context of Obama’s comments in a blog post written by Gail Gitcho, a Romney spokeswoman, the very same day the ad was released:

“Three years ago, candidate Barack Obama mocked his opponent’s campaign for saying ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.’ Now, President Obama’s campaign is desperate not to talk about the economy…Now, the tables have turned – President Obama and his campaign are doing exactly what candidate Obama criticized. President Obama and his team don’t want to talk about the economy and have tried to distract voters from President Obama’s abysmal economic record.”

From this statement, it seems that Romney’s campaign is suggesting that their ad is actually pointing out the hypocrisy of 2008 Obama’s criticism of McCain in light of the fact that 2011 Obama is ‘desperate not to talk about the economy.’

But am I honestly supposed to accept that Romney’s campaign sincerely believes the American public would pick up on that subtle, highly implied criticism in a 60-second TV ad? Or, just as unlikely, that more than a few thousand voters will read Gitcho’s full explanation of the ad? No. The reality is that the Romney campaign’s intention was to make Obama look bad in the eyes of the general American public, while pre-empting the response from the Obama camp and generating extra media attention in the process. A media strategist might say that they achieved their goals. But as a citizen interested in seeing more honesty and integrity in our politics, I am irritated—though sadly, not surprised.

Look, I’m not trying to make Obama into a saint on this matter. His 2008 comments on McCain’s campaign strategy were sensationalized and somewhat decontextualized in their own right. We can debate who was more deceptive, but the bottom line is that we need to learn to think for ourselves. Rather than take politicians’ words at face value, we need to critically examine their statements, their sources, and their motives. It is the responsibility of both the public and the news media to avoid being manipulated by highly-paid political strategists and well-crafted rhetoric. 

We are accustomed to throwing up our hands and saying, “That’s politics for you!” We label idealistic (or worse, naïve) those people—like me—who believe that we can cultivate a political system grounded in honesty and transparency. But collectively, we have the power to hold accountable those who prevent this very system from taking root.