The shine came off this newly-minted campaign of “big ideas” today, as the usual political sparring between the Obama and Romney campaigns devolved into a fit of name calling and ginned-up outrage.
Paul Ryan joined the fray during a rally in Colorado, accusing President Obama of trying to “distort” the truth about Ryan’s budget overhaul proposals and “divide” the nation.
“From hope and change to attack and blame,” Ryan said. “But here’s what’s a little more concerting in my opinion about this. He’s speaking to people as if we’re divided from one another, not unified. He’s speaking to people as if we’re stuck in our station in life. Victims of circumstances beyond our control and that only the government is here to help us cope with it.”
Those words came just hours after the man whose job he’s trying to take, Vice President Biden, campaigning in Virginia, said that Mitt Romney’s plan would “let the big banks again write their own rules.”
“Unchain Wall Street!” Biden hollered, his face turning red. Then, after a beat, he warned the audience: “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
The Romney camp called it “a new low… Whether it’s accusing Mitt Romney of being a felon, having been responsible for a woman’s tragic death or now wanting to put people in chains, there’s no question that because of the president’s failed record he’s been reduced to a desperate campaign based on division and demonization.”
Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter snapped back, calling comments “hypocritical, particularly in light of their own candidate’s stump speech questioning the president’s patriotism.”
Biden, she said, was simply underlining “the need to ‘unshackle’ the middle class. Today’s comments were a derivative of remarks [made by Republicans regarding the private sector], describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families.”
While their campaigns exchanged talking points, the candidates were talking, too, about energy policy to heavily-invested crowds in Iowa and Ohio, respectively.
Romney was in coal country — Beallsville, Ohio – where he declared this “a time for truth.”
“If you don’t believe in coal, if you don’t believe in energy independence for America then say it,” Romney said, before turning his attention to Obama. “If you believe that the whole answer for our energy needs is wind and solar, say that. Because I know he says that to some audiences out west.”
Obama, who during his last state of the union address promised investment in a wide range of energy options, including coal. But his push to implement so-called “clean coal” technologies has flopped about as badly with environmentalists as it has mining communities from Ohio to West Virginia.
The president, meanwhile, spent the afternoon in Iowa talking about the economic benefits of embracing wind energy options. He said tax credits the White House is leaning on Congress to extend help to support 75,000 jobs across the country.
“Over the past four years, we’ve doubled the amount of electricity America can generate from wind from 25 gigawatts to 50 gigawatts,” Obama said. “That’s like building 12 new Hoover Dams that are powering homes all across the country.
He also took a jab at Romney, who once said, “you can’t drive a car with a windmill on it.”
“Now, I don’t know if he’s actually tried that,” the president said, laughing. “I know he’s had other things on his car.”
In 1983, Mitt Romney strapped the family dog, an Irish Setter called Seamus, to the roof of his station wagon as his young family drove from Boston to Ontario.
Obama first made reference to the dog during his speech in Oskaloosa, then again, hours later, at another Iowa rally, this one a little more than 60 miles south in Marshalltown.