RNC: A Night Avoiding “Better Off”

Chairman Rob Gleason

In the days leading up to this year’s Democratic National Convention, Obama campaign officials and their allies promised a substantive discussion of important issues.

OFA Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter vowed, “This week will not be about personal attacks or gauzy platitudes or trying to rally our base.”

Chalk that up as yet another broken Obama promise. Democrats did exactly what they promised not to.

The speeches on the convention’s opening night were clearly an effort to rally the dispirited Democratic base. Note:

  • Not a single speaker said we were better off than we were four years ago.
  • A majority of speakers didn’t even utter the word jobs.
  • Zero speakers offered any sense for what the Obama Administration would do to turn the stalling economy around in the 2nd term.

Recent polls show Democrats have a major enthusiasm gap. So instead of reaching out to undecided voters, they launched hyper-partisan attacks to assuage the party faithful. Speech after speech contained a slew of nasty, petty, misleading attacks on Gov. Romney.

The Democrats presented no substantive plan to get our economy back on track or to create the millions of jobs our country so desperately needs.

They repeated their slogan about moving “forward,” but they offered no proof that they actually can take the country to a better future.

That’s because we’re not better off. We’ve endured 42 months of unemployment of unemployment over 8 percent. More Americans are living in poverty than when President Obama took office. Wages are shrinking, and prices are rising. The national debt has surpassed $16 trillion.

This is not what Americans voted for in 2008. It’s not what Democrats promised at their Denver convention. They promised hope and change and unity four years ago. They arrived in Charlotte bearing division and distractions.

Not only do Democrats not seem to understand the economy, they also showed they don’t understand government.

They began the convention with a bizarre video saying, “Government is the only thing that we all belong to.” What followed was a parade of speakers advocating the same big government policies that haven’t worked the past four years.

No, we don’t belong to government; government belongs to us. And, any party that thinks otherwise has no idea how to fix this economy.

No wonder we’re not better off.

Thankfully we can elect a President who won’t offer the same despair four years from now — Mitt Romney.