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CHARLOTTE, N.C.–Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, framed Mitt Romney Sunday as a backward-looking candidate, blistering his acceptance speech as laying “out the policies of Ground Hog Day.”
Emanuel discussed the upcoming Democratic National Convention with David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he was introduced as an “architect” of Obama’s first term policies.
“If people want to know about the first term? Very simple. General Motors is alive and well. And Osama Bin Laden is not. And that’s what got done,” Emanuel said. “Because the president did deal, and they know in fact what he inherited and what he is trying to fix.”
Emanuel flies to Charlotte on Tuesday, delivers a convention speech on the opening night of the three day event–and is tentatively booked to make the rounds in a Wednesday morning show blitz.
“He basically laid out the policies of Ground Hog Day. Which is, we are going to go back to the very things that led to a recession, led to a middle class that for the first time in American history in a decade, actually saw their economic security decline,” Emanuel said.
In making the argument that Romney’s candidacy is a look back, Emanuel is underscoring the Obama 2012 “Forward” slogan. I write about the Obama “Forward” strategy in my column today.
Gregory ask about Clint Eastwood’s bizarre speech Thursday night–where the actor usedan empty chair to depict Obama–before Romney took the stage to accept the GOP presidential nomination. Emanuel noted that Eastwood proved a distraction to Romney.
“There is nothing memorable about Mitt Romney’s speech. There is not a memorable line, not a memorable philosophy. All he advocated was a policy that led to an economic recession,” Emanuel said.
The Romney team said Eastwood’s speech–no matter how orthodox–rallies their troops and will turn out to be a plus. Emanuel disagreed. “Coming out of a convention, they didn’t want a debate about Clint Eastwood. They wanted it about Mitt Romney’s ideas.”
(please check back, updating….)
Here’s the complete interview:
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