Romney failed veterans
Yes, I’m blaming Romney for failing veterans. He ran a piss-poor campaign to attract veterans. It’s been eating away at me that half of veterans in Virginia voted for Obama, if Fox News is to be believed. Of course, veterans in Virginia are going to be the hardest hit when sequestration takes hold because of the large presence of defense contractors there and the fact that many veterans are on their payroll there. But, back to the campaign. To their credit, the Romney campaign asked for help from milblogs early on, well, they reached out to Blackfive who reached out to the rest of us. I pledged that I would comment on the campaign in regards to politics related to veterans. But, you know what? That was the last we heard from them. Maybe others heard about it, but TAH didn’t.
You might remember that I wrote a piece last month about the Romney campaign and veterans. That was because I had to pester John Noonan, the Romney campaign’s defense policy adviser, because he happened to be one of my Facebook friends. Yes, I had to get answers on Romney’s veteran policy on Facebook.
Most of the issues I asked Noonan about, I also had to provide links to news stories because he didn’t know what I was talking about. Most of the news stories links were already on TAH. For example, when I asked Noonan about the Obama Administration shutting down Tricare Prime, he admitted in the email that I published as a post that he didn’t know anything about it because the Obama campaign hadn’t said anything about it. Why would they admit that they were screwing veterans in their campaign? It was Romney’s job to point it out, but he didn’t.
Just like in the debate, when Romney brought up sequestration, Obama’s answer was that sequestration isn’t going to happen. That short answer to a complicated question. Apparently, defense contractors think it’s going to happen, they’re already laying off people in prepartion of it. But Romney let Obama get away with his lie that the law wasn’t going into effect instead of pressing the issue.
The weekend of Hurricane Sandy, I wrote to Noonan again on Facebook and told him that I knew the campaign was going to cease out of respect for the tragedy and that they should mount an offensive on the blogs and let us carry Romney’s water for him during the campaign blackout. I didn’t hear anything back from him, not a word. Well, except the one video he sent everyone about Bill Clinton, which I dutifully posted.
Now, I’m not so conceited that I think I can influence entire elections with my little corner of the internet, but, if political campaigns can’t take advantage of the reach some of us have, they really don’t want to win. Do you honestly think that Obama would have got half of the veteran vote in Virginia if they had heard that Tricare Prime was being shut down in five western states in April? Everyone on this blog knows it, why didn’t the Romney campaign know it, and once they were told about it, why didn’t they hit Obama with it?
Yeah, Romney failed veterans by taking our votes for granted and it may have cost him the election.
Category: Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan, Veterans Issues
Oh, PN, I’m thinking that if he said he did, he did. Figure that he and his wife decided that public acknowledgement of it would be less painful than trying to live with the dishonor of taking responsibility for things others were due especially since doing so would serve no useful purpose.
Whatever else happened, I still think the General did and will continue to do the honorable thing.
@100: I’m with you. Rich and powerful men often have “zipper malfunctions.” Hell, it was an old story in the time of Jezebel, Cleopatra and Bathsheba.
It’s also true that 2-term administrations often see an exodus before the 2nd term starts. And why not? I’m 50 years old and every 2nd term presidential administration I’ve seen (Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush II) was plagued by scandal, hearings, finger-pointing and forced resignations. Petraeus is smart enough to get out of dodge before the inevitable.
Yeah, the second term curse even afflicted Reagan…guess after so many years the pile of horse hockey gets way to high to keep out of sight. BO seems immune so far to scandal, he’s got a extra thick coating of teflon and the compliance of the media…we’ll see, about the 6 year mark wheels seem to fall off most 2 term administrations – public grows tired of you as well.
@103: That’s why the Presidential “hat trick” (3 successive presidential administrations under the same party) has only been pulled off successfully 1 time since the 22nd amendment was ratified (Bush I succeeding Reagan in 88.)
Holder is talking about leaving, also.
See here: http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/27791/holder_hints_he_may_leave_could_kick_changes_dhs
Hand up, anyone who thinks maybe they’re just getting out of the line of the sh and it rolling downhill?
@105: Another way to look at it is to say they’ve punched their ticket and there’s no reason for them to stick around any longer. Their CV will never be any brighter, this is the perfect time to jump ship and find that nice consulting gig, professorship, or TV commentator job.
@ 3 Harrisuck.
You my friend and your opinion can kiss my Royal Irish Ass.
Have a nice day!
2nd term? Let’s see, Jawn F’ing Kerry for SoS, Van Jones for Secretary of Business, or Business Czar, Janet the Nappy for AG, Chris Matthews for White House house keeper(he can get under the desk a lot that way). How about Representative Hank Johnson for SecDef, he’s totally qualified, he knows how many Marines it’ll take to capsize Guam.
@ 12 Harrison … you should have taken up a career in the food service industry. You seem to know more about the ice cream and chicken than you do political science.