Romney is determined to run a campaign that will reveal as little about himself as possible. Hoping instead to turn the election into a referendum on the incumbent. Will it work? Doubtful since Obama's personal favourables have always been higher than his job approval (given all the problems he faced when he started in 2009, I thought he'd be as popular as 'Tricky' Dick Cheney by now! ;-). So that's a win! Plus, POTUS is starting to make some signifiicant headway in some significant swing states! Let's see if it continues...

Romney has said government stimulus was necessary in 2009, although he would have done it differently from Obama.

"...the perceived success of the auto bailout..."

You still don't get it...

Congratulations Joe Klein

You have won the “Swampland Shiny Object Gold Award.”

You’re Number One

 The “Shiny Object Award Program” was created to recognize the TIME Journalist who achieves the highest score in the writing of “Shiny Object Stories”.

Shiny Object Stories are stories that, rather than talk about the important issues related to the Presidential election, choose to write about subjects of minor importance. These stories are designed to take the pressure off President Obama on the big issues such as Jobs, the economy and his record and to aid him in his re-election campaign. They also show how much in the tank a TIME Journalist is for Barack Obama.

Again congratulations Joe. You must love that thrill that runs up and down your legs.

This guy Sollmann is a joke, living in a land of delusion created by the cult that is the current GOP.

Capitalism left to its own devices would have devoured itself generations ago. Government oversight and  proper regulatory controls have saved big business from itself. What the current GOP needs is the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt carrying the big stick to knock some sense into them. But then the  second coming of TR would probably  be as a progressive Democrat. That's how much the GOP has gone over the edge.

Joe, I know you like to show Obama as arrogant, but perhaps you can relate to someone taking several non-consecutive from a column of yours and paste them together and eliminate the point to which you were building. The conclusion of Obama's talk doesn't seem as arrogant as Mr. Sollmann does.

"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the G.I. Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together."

Also, you will recall that Mr. Sollmann's business has had many contracts with institutions that rely on government funding. Another curious choice for Romney.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Romney isn't very popular here in Ohio. With 1 in 8 jobs here tied to the auto industry and our economy picking up, Romney is seen as part of the problem, not the solution. We've also got an extremely unpopular republican governor that isn't helping Mitt. Ohio goes to Obama in November and with it, the Presidency.

Not out of context. It's how he really feels about business, entrepreneurs and the free enterprise system.

Four Little Words

Why the Obama campaign is suddenly so worried.

The Wall Street Journalist

What's the difference between a calm and cool Barack Obama, and a rattled and worried Barack Obama? Four words, it turns out.

"You didn't build that" is swelling to such heights that it has the president somewhere unprecedented: on defense. Mr. Obama has felt compelled—for the first time in this campaign—to cut an ad in which he directly responds to the criticisms of his now-infamous speech, complaining his opponents took his words "out of context."

That ad follows two separate ones from his campaign attempting damage control. His campaign appearances are now about backpedaling and proclaiming his love for small business. And the Democratic National Committee produced its own panicked memo, which vowed to "turn the page" on Mr. Romney's "out of context . . . BS"—thereby acknowledging that Chicago has lost control of the message.

The Obama campaign has elevated poll-testing and focus-grouping to near-clinical heights, and the results drive the president's every action: his policies, his campaign venues, his targeted demographics, his messaging. That Mr. Obama felt required—teeth-gritted—to address the "you didn't build that" meme means his vaunted focus groups are sounding alarms.

The obsession with tested messages is precisely why the president's rare moments of candor—on free enterprise, on those who "cling to their guns and religion," on the need to "spread the wealth around"—are so revealing. They are a look at the real man. It turns out Mr. Obama's dismissive words toward free enterprise closely mirror a speech that liberal Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren gave last August.Ms. Warren's argument—that government is the real source of all business success—went viral and made a profound impression among the liberal elite, who have been pushing for its wider adoption.

Mr. Obama chose to road-test it on the national stage, presumably thinking it would underline his argument for why the wealthy should pay more. It was a big political misstep, and now has the Obama team seriously worried. And no wonder. The immediate effect was to suck away the president's momentum. Mr. Obama has little positive to brag about, and his campaign hinges on keeping negative attention on his opponent.

For months, the president's team hammered on Mr. Romney's time at Bain, his Massachusetts tenure, his tax returns. "You didn't build that" shifted the focus to the president, and his decision to respond to the criticisms has only legitimized them and guaranteed they continue. The Obama campaign's bigger problem, both sides are now realizing, is that his words go beyond politics and are more devastating than the Romney complaints that Mr. Obama is too big-government oriented or has mishandled the economy.

They raise the far more potent issue of national identity and feed the suspicion that Mr. Obama is actively hostile to American ideals and aspirations. Republicans are doing their own voter surveys, and they note that Mr. Obama's problem is that his words cause an emotional response, and that they disturb voters in nearly every demographic. It's why Mr. Obama's "out of context" complaints aren't getting traction.

The Republican National Committee's response to that gripe was to run an ad that shows a full minute of Mr. Obama's rant at the Roanoke, Va., campaign event on July 13. In addition to "you didn't build that," the president also put down those who think they are "smarter" or "work harder" than others. Witness the first president to demean the bedrock American beliefs in industriousness and exceptionalism. The "context" only makes it worse. This gets to the other reason the Obama campaign is rattled: "You didn't build that" threatens to undermine its own argument against Mr. Romney.

Mr. Obama has been running on class warfare and the notion that Mr. Romney is a wealthy one-percenter out of touch with average Americans. Yet few things better symbolize the average American than a small-business owner. To the extent that Mr. Romney is positioning himself as champion of that little business guy and portraying Mr. Obama as something alien, he could flip the Obama narrative on its head. It would be all the more potent were Mr. Romney to use "you didn't build that" to launch his own economic narrative.

One unexpected side effect of "you didn't build that" is that it has emboldened the GOP to re-embrace and glory in free enterprise (so abused since the financial crash). And the president's disparaging attack on business has also made voters more open to a defense of it. Meaning, it's a perfect time to marry emotion with some policy. Mr. Romney has explained why the president doesn't get it. The next step is to explain why his own tax policies, regulatory proposals, and entitlement plans are the answer for those who actually do the building. The president is on defense. We'll see if Mr. Romney can keep him there.

http://online.wsj.com/article/...

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012...

What all this copy and you still can't say it? Romney is a liar. 

The pundits are wrong. This election will not be about the economy. It will be about Mitt Romney and his inability to find his true self because there isn't one. Romney is shifting sand, a man of weak convictions, and that defect is becoming apparent to average voters.