A look at the political hubbub in Iowa yesterday and today…
Obama is flying in to Bettendorf today to tout his job creation record at the Alcoa aluminum plant, Sarah Palin will be in Pella to preview her new movie, and Michele Bachmann announced her presidential candidacy in Waterloo yesterday.
Adding to the mix, the Des Moines Register conducted a telephone interview yesterday with Mitt Romney. The Gov underscored Obama’s anti-business policies:
Romney: Obama created uncertainty for U.S. businesses
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes President Barack Obama has promoted a series of policies “that have done the one thing employers can’t deal with, and that is he’s created more uncertainty.”
“The first thing I plan to do is reverse the course of the decisions of the past 2½ years,” Romney told The Des Moines Register in a telephone interview Monday.
[...]
Americans’ uncertainty about the economy has dominated Obama’s domestic agenda and threatens his re-election efforts. As the economy continues to send mixed signals, Obama has been traveling the country in recent weeks to highlight job-creation initiatives.[...]
[...]
Obama will visit the Alcoa Davenport Works today, which makes parts for the aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co.Boeing is embroiled in a dispute over allegations the company wants to move a Washington-based assembly line for its 787 airliner to a new nonunion factory in South Carolina in retaliation for past strikes in Washington.
Romney on Monday took at swipe at the National Labor Relations Board, which launched a complaint against the aircraft manufacturer.
“The decision slanted the field toward labor bosses, and that creates uncertainty,” said Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts. “We have to abide by the rule of law, and the president’s NLRB is carrying out a power grab which violates that principle.”
Obama’s close relationship with “union bosses” threatens jobs, Romney said.
“Boeing has been dealt a ruling which is favorable to the union bosses that helped elect president Obama, and by the president kowtowing to the union bosses, he puts at risk the jobs of American workers.”
(emphasis added)
Mitt Romney shakes hands at a rally with then- Iowa gubernatorial hopeful Terry Branstad. Romney provided mid-term campaign support for Branstad, his running mate Kim Reynolds (Lt. Gov) and other Iowan GOP candidates. October 25, 2010
On Monday he said he doesn’t know if he’ll be here before the Aug. 11 debate because he’ll be outside the country and then on vacation for a week with his family.
The Boston Globe reported last week that Romney will be in London to solicit campaign contributions from Americans abroad.
A Des Moines Register Iowa Poll published Sunday shows Romney has a loyal core of supporters in Iowa, with 22 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers naming him as their top choice.
Asked about the theory that if he doesn’t nurture that base, some followers will drift away and give his GOP opponents opportunity to build momentum in Iowa, Romney answered: “I will work hard to receive support from Iowa voters. I would like to have the support of people across the country and because Iowa is first, Iowa’s support means a great deal to me as I’m sure it would to anyone else, so I intend to be in Iowa and campaign.”
Read more here.
Added note: The poll conducted last week for the Des Moines Register showed Gov Romney with support from 23 percent of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers.
UPDATE
To read related info from Romney: Believe in America click here.
If Iowans are representative of any Republicans east of the Mississippi or west of the Missouri Rivers a very important question was: “Regardless of whom you support now, do you think there is at least one Republican candidate in the field who can defeat Barack Obama?”
The answer? 86 percent of those polled believe Obama is beatable by at least one of the GOP candidates already in the field.
On the fiscal v social conservative axis, the poll found that 62 percent of Iowa Republicans think being a fiscal conservative is most important, while only 20 percent believe being a social conservative is more important.
(emphasis added)
► Jayde Wyatt
The Boeing issue is Obama, period. It should have been highlighted as an example of an American business growing despite hard times. Had Boeing built the plant in China, Obama’s hacks would have been looking for another large business to attack to appease his liberal base.
I would not be surprised to see Obama film himself in the White House to raise campaign funds. ……. NO…..even Obama would not sink that low. LOL
Jim Demint, “I’m working with people in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, to try to get a lot of people to hold back and not commit so we can see how they respond to this debt ceiling, the balanced budget and some of the things that we’re going to face here over the next few months,” he explained. “I think we’ll know who our candidate is by how they lead based on what we’re doing here.”
@Sean Oliver NC
Boeing isn’t hiring locally for the SC plant and they are paying little more than China wages. They have acted aggressively to eliminate unions, for example after the white collar workers at the Wichita, KS plant voted in a union Boeing sold the division to a Canadian company, and that’s undemocratic. If those white collar workers thought they were being fairly treated, they wouldn’t have voted in the union in red state Kansas. Boeing has really, really bad management issues and it’s attempts at public relations are awful.
I agree with Mitt however, that with Obama you never know what you are going to get.
I am pro union as long as the union is promoting quality over trying to create artificial wages. My father was union for 40 years. He was never without work because the union sold quality. He did not drink, the union provided insurance, training, and quality work. He loved the union and was not afraid of competition. He was routinely called by the union at age 75.
Marilyn, I agree with you that I do not care for companies that have no respect for unions.
Every once in a while I need to be reminded what the union did for my family. You did it well.