Obama advisor: Romney 'performance' Gantry-esque

Calls debate a 'brazen' rewrite of history

Washington – Senior Campaign advisor David Axelrod summoned up the image of the famous Sinclair Lewis huckster evangelist Elmer Gantry in a description of the “trouncing” dealt the president by Governor Mitt Romney.

In response to piercing questions from Bob Schieffer and other CBS anchor types, Mr. Axelrod characterized the Romney affect as a “performance” rather than a fact-filled tour de force as described by more conservative pundits and talking heads.

“The president showed up with the intent of answering questions and having a discussion, an honest discussion of where we will go as a country, and Romney showed up to deliver a performance, and he delivered a very good performance,” Axelrod said. “It was completely un-rooted in fact, it was completely un-rooted in the positions he’s taken before and he spent 90 minutes trying to undo two years of campaigning on that stage, but he did it very well.”

Mr. Schieffer asked a follow-up question. Was he saying Romney “lied or was dishonest?”

“Well, yeah, I think he was dishonest,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I’m saying he was dishonest in his answers, you can characterize that any way you want.”

In the case of a tax cut promised by Mr. Romney, Axelrod stuck with the president's estimate of a $5 billion bonanza for the very wealthy that would fall on the shoulders of middle income earners. He said there is just no other place to make up the difference other than to increase taxes on middle income workers.(click)

What Mr. Romney actually did was to deliver a “Gantry-esque” bully pulpit performance that amounts to a “rewrite of history,” said Mr. Axelrod. He said he means Mr. Romney's personal history of various tax proposals.

The fact that certain conservatives have labeled the unemployment figure dipping below 8 percent for the first time since 2009 as “cooking the books,” he dismissed as a “lunatic fringe” conspiracy theory.

Why didn't the president address the “47 percent” remarks Mr. Romney made in a private Beverly Hills setting prior to the debate?

Mr. Axelrod was quick to characterize the Romney position as holding that 47 percent of the population is “shiftless.” He said, “The president obviously didn’t see the appropriate opportunity. The president was earnestly trying to answer questions that were asked on the topics that were being discussed, and he didn’t find the opportunity to raise it, and it’s obviously well known,” Axelrod said.

Obama, Axelrod said, “was a little taken aback by the brazenness with which Gov. Romney walked away” from his past positions and his record.