DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley held a press conference in Des Moines, IA to frame the Republican candidates’ records and positions ahead of today’s caucuses.
In Iowa, the GOP candidates continue to move to increasingly extreme policy positions—relying on their flawed assumption that we can grow the economy by giving more tax cuts to corporations, millionaires and billionaires while doing nothing for the middle class.
Mitt Romney continues to hide from his record, which includes balancing the state budget on the backs of the middle class as governor of Massachusetts and flip-flopping on everything from guns and abortion to taxes and immigration. It becomes clearer by the day that Mitt Romney will say and do anything to get elected.
Below please find Chair Wasserman Schultz’s remarks as prepared for delivery:
Tonight, Iowa voters head to the caucuses. We know that regardless of who comes out on top this evening, all of the Republican presidential candidates support the same failed policies of past. And while Mitt Romney may have declared victory before the results come in, crawling over the finish line in Iowa after 5 years of efforts is coming at a price.
This is someone who’s been running for president for the past five years and has struggled to gain additional support, in Iowa or at the national level. We see that there is constantly an alternative candidate emerging – Bachmann, then Perry, then Gingrich and now finally Santorum.
The list of right-wing positions that Mitt Romney took in an attempt to win over Iowa caucus-goers who rightly harbor doubts about him has grown by the day.
Over the last year, Romney has scrambled to get to the right of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – and in a state with some of the most stalwart conservatives in the Republican nominating process, Romney’s showing can be attributed to his right-wing vision for America.
He is leaving Iowa with significant primary baggage that will weigh him down in the general election
He has belittled the President’s $1,000 payroll tax cut as a “Band-Aid,” despite the fact that his own plan offers typical middle-class families only $54.
He reiterated that he’d let Detroit go bankrupt and send 1.4 million American workers packing.
He said that he’d let the foreclosure process “hit the bottom” so that investors can come in and make a quick buck.
He signed on to a Republican budget in Congress that would end Medicare as we know it, gut Social Security, and slash funding for higher education.
And he criticized the President for ending the war in Iraq, saying that he’d leave 30,000 troops on the ground with no plan for withdrawal.
Mitt Romney also repackaged the same policies that led to the economic crisis and called it an economic plan. That includes cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations and making the middle class foot the bill, and letting Wall Street write their own rules and do whatever it can to make money – regardless of the impact on the middle class.
Iowa caucus-goers are supposed to be given the chance to lift the hood and kick the tires time and again before Caucus Day, with an opportunity to thoroughly examine the candidates’ records and leadership abilities. They didn’t get that chance with Mitt Romney.
That’s because Romney and his allies spent more than $4 million tearing down Newt Gingrich, while only a fraction of that amount promoted Mitt Romney’s record. Romney’s opponents, in a field widely recognized as weak, squandered the opportunity to point out deeply troubling issues in his record.
Iowans are heading to the caucuses not knowing that Massachusetts was 47th out of 50th in job creation under Mitt Romney. Or that his job in the “private sector” was a corporate buyout specialist who fired workers, outsourced jobs, closed plants, and deliberately bankrupted companies. Mitt Romney wouldn’t even disclose basic information that candidates in both parties have released as standard practice, like his tax returns, because he doesn’t want the middle class to know that he pays less taxes than they do.
What else don’t Iowa voters really know about Mitt Romney?
Romney says he is a conservative but he imposed fees on gun sales in Massachusetts as Governor, supported strict gun control laws, and gave free cars to welfare recipients. Don’t voters deserve to know that?
Do voters know that while Romney makes the claim that he was a budget-slasher, he actually balanced the state budget on the backs of middle class families by raising fees on Massachusetts residents more than 100 times?
And voters have heard Mitt Romney say he is pro-life. But do they know that during his run for Massachusetts governor in 2002, he told Planned Parenthood he supported Roe v. Wade and supported state funding for abortions?
Iowa Republicans should ask themselves, “would Massachusetts really elect a conservative Republican Governor? Romney’s entire candidacy is a charade. He’s turned into more shapes and forms than the wonder twins.
Mitt Romney has made it clear he will say and do anything to get elected – and that includes trying to cover up previous moderate-to-liberal positions he took as a Massachusetts politician to make sure voters never know the truth about his record.
That’s what Mitt Romney brings to the table. And the fact is that this election will be a choice about who will restore economic security for the middle class. There’s a reason no poll in recent months has shown Romney or any of the Republican candidates beating the President in Iowa after the millions of dollars they’ve spent attacking him there. That’s because he’s focusing on restoring economic security for the middle class, while they have been in a race to the right.
So while the Republican candidates pack up their offices tomorrow morning and head out of town, President Obama has made it clear he’ll still be here fighting for Iowa’s working families. For the President, the caucus is an opportunity to continue a conversation with supporters about what we’ve already accomplished together.
That includes winning the Iowa caucus four years ago, passing health care reform, ending the war, bringing the economy back from the brink and rebuilding it by making sure hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded. It includes helping the middle class reclaim the security they’d lost, making sure Wall Street plays by the same rules as Main Street, repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, breaking our dependency on Middle East oil, and so much more.
The President is also continuing to talk to Iowans about the things we want to accomplish together over the next year. Tonight, he is going to be speaking via live video to Iowa caucus-goers at sites across the state. And tomorrow, we’re going to emerge from the caucus with the strongest grassroots organization and infrastructure in place of any candidate going forward.
We’ve already been laying the groundwork for victory. Since the campaign launched in April, Iowa staff and volunteers have:
Opened 8 campaign offices across the state – in Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Des Moines, Waterloo, Davenport, Iowa City, Dubuque, and Council Bluffs
Held more than 1,200 trainings, planning sessions, house parties and phone banks
Made over 350,000 calls to supporters
Held more than 4,000 one-on-one conversations. These are actual face-to-face discussions with voters about what really matters to them and how they can be leaders for the campaign in their community. No presidential campaign has ever done this on the same scale, and most campaigns don’t do them at all.
This is the President’s battle plan for victory, so that he can keep fighting for working families here in Iowa and across the country.
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