The Debate: Their Attack Playbook

Share: http://bit.ly/QPI6g0 | Facebook   | Twitter

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

1.     This election is a choice between two very different visions for our nation's future.

• That's right -- this election is a choice.
• It's a choice between "we're all in it together," with citizens lifting up and taking responsibility for one another and for themselves -- or "you're on your own."
• It's a choice between an America that works for all of us -- or one that works for the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.
• It's a choice between a country where everybody pays their fair share -- or a country where working families pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires.
• It's a choice between moving forward to put Americans back to work -- or going back to the trickle down that led to the economic crisis to begin with.

POLL: Whether it's investing in America's home front, fixing a tax code rigged for the wealthy, or putting Americans back to work, the American people overwhelmingly side with Obama's vision for America than Romney's.

2.     Too many Americans are still struggling in the Obama economy. Obama is a nice guy, but what America really needs is more jobs.

• Here's the Republican argument against the President's re-election in a nutshell: we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.
• We have been there, we tried it their way, and it didn't work. We can't go back.
• Moving forward means putting more people back to work and leaders putting the American people ahead of themselves. Romney, on the other hand, said it's not his job to worry about struggling families.
• When Republicans in Congress are this determined to keep millions of Americans jobless just to put one man out of work, is it really surprising that our recovery isn't going faster?

POLL: Most Americans believe that President Obama inherited the country's current economic problems and blame George W. Bush and Republicans instead.

3.     Obama's vision for the country is a government-centered society.

• This is coming from the guy who got $1.5 billion from the federal government during his Olympics job -- not to mention the millions of federal bailout dollars he got for wealthy investors in his corporate job.
• But when it's ordinary American workers on the line instead of himself, Romney likes to attack our leaders for taking action -- like when he pushed to "let Detroit go bankrupt."
• The President is right: America was built by Americans -- our people, our government, and our businesses working together to solve problems none of us can solve alone.
• It's time politicians stopped running for or against government and started running it well.

FACT: 96% of Americans have been lifted up by what all citizens provide to each other through our government, like education and Medicare. The other 4% are just too young to have benefitted yet.

4.     We're worse off and America is in decline. America can't afford four more years like the last four years.

• Are we better off than we were when the President inherited an economy in free fall, losing almost a million jobs each month? The answer is yes.
• Is the progress we've made so far good enough? No. Obama would be the first to say that we have to do more.
• This is America -- we've gone through tough times, but we've always stood back up. Like the President keeps saying, Americans are exceptional -- not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things.
• What America can't afford is even one more year of Republican sabotage. We need more jobs and fewer politicians who'd rather have the President fail than put Americans back to work.

POLL: Half of Americans believe that Republicans are intentionally sabotaging the economy to ensure President Obama isn't re-elected.

5.     Romney supports the 100% -- Obama is the one who's out of touch.

• Romney was caught telling to his wealthy donors behind closed doors that it's not his job to worry about half of Americans.
• It's no wonder he's got a tax hike waiting for the entire middle class, including half the country he insulted as irresponsible dependents. Or that the Romney-Ryan agenda gets over 60% of its funding cuts from programs that serve struggling families.
• It's as if Romney thinks that struggling people aren't struggling enough and our middle class isn't already bearing enough of the burden.
• Whether your contribution is teaching, raising children, providing food, healing the sick, making useful products, guaranteeing our safety, or running businesses that keep our economy going -- America needs us all. And we need leaders who recognize that.

POLL: The American people believe that Obama, not Romney, cares about ordinary Americans and better understands their economic problems. In contrast, most people think Romney favors the wealthy.

POLL: By a two-to-one margin, voters had a negative reaction to Romney's behind-closed-doors comments writing off half of America as irresponsible victims.

6.     Obama likes to attack success and job creators.

• The real job creators are working people with money in their pockets -- customers who keep our businesses thriving and hiring.
• Americans applaud financial success. But the truth is that no one in America makes it without the rest of America.
• Even Romney admits that "a lot of people help you in a business" -- the "people who provide roads, the fire, the police." His own wealth proves the President right, too -- we all built the America that made it possible.
• People who do well in America ought to do well by America. Instead, Romney would give the already rich like himself even more special tax breaks they don't need and make it harder for parents to take their kids to the doctor or send them to college.

FACT: Romney's definition of "small business" includes hedge fund managers and half of the 400 richest people in America. Even under that definition, the President's tax plan would affect only 3% of "small businesses."

7.     Obama increased middle class taxes and plans to raise them more.

• Actually, Romney admitted that the President "has one thing he did not do in his first four years": "raise taxes." Once in a while even the shiftiest politicians accidentally let the truth slip by.
• Here's the truth: Romney's agenda would raise taxes on the entire middle class.
• It's basic arithmetic -- the numbers in Romney's tax plan only work if he raises taxes on the middle class -- including all those Americans he insulted as irresponsible victims who he doesn't think pay enough taxes already.

POLL: The American people overwhelmingly sides with President Obama's tax policies than Mitt Romney's.

8.     Obama raided Medicare by $700 billion to pay for Obamacare.

• Let's be clear: Obamacare preserves every dime of Medicare benefits and guarantees your Medicare coverage for life. Romney-Ryan does not. In fact, their plan would have massive cuts to Medicare -- to pay for more tax giveaways to the already-rich.
• It takes some brass to attack a guy for what you did, but that's exactly what Romney is doing when he attacks Obamacare for the same $700 billion savings from cutting waste -- which he supported. Except now he'd put that waste back into Medicare, shortening the life of its trust fund.
• In fact, Romney would end Medicare as we know it. He wants to stick seniors with a voucher to get either a privatized plan or something they'd call "traditional" Medicare -- but would cost far more while providing far less.
• So their claims about preserving traditional Medicare don't hold water -- because by changing Medicare to a voucher system, they'd end or undermine the things that define traditional Medicare:
• The health and financial security that Medicare guarantees you for life;
• Medicare's massive negotiating leverage to keep costs down; and
• Medicare's same guaranteed benefits for everybody, no matter how sick you are or where you live, starting by taking away Obamacare's new Medicare benefits.
• What all this means is that Romney wants to give seniors a little coupon and make them go fight with the big insurance companies to get coverage.

POLL: The American people overwhelmingly oppose the Romney-Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it by restructuring it into a voucher system. Instead they trust the President on Medicare.

9.     Obama's spending and debt is failing American families.

• The best way to deal with the deficit is to put Americans back to work.
• Working people with money in their pockets are customers who keep our stores thriving and hiring -- and taxpayers who pay into the home front investments that keep our country going.
• Romney's own party pushed for the Bush policies behind today's deficits -- including the wasteful Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% and the recession that threw taxpayers off their jobs.
• When your family needs money to repair the roof, you stop handing out gifts to your millionaire uncle instead of raiding your child's college savings. But when a wealthy politician's worst financial days are most average people's best days, it's no surprise he doesn't get it.

POLL: The American people overwhelmingly believe that the economy and jobs are far more important priorities than the deficit.

10.  Obama wasted $800 billion on the failed stimulus.

• Romney should try telling that to the millions of Americans who have jobs because of the stimulus. In fact, he can just try talking to his VP pick Paul Ryan, who sought the same stimulus cash he now criticizes just to score political points against the President.
• Even the top economist to the last presidential election's Republican nominee says that it's  "intellectually dishonest" to attack the stimulus like Romney's doing.
• Look, Republican politicians like to use this attack because they want to keep President Obama from putting Americans back to work with his American Jobs Act -- the same plan that economists say would've put two million Americans back to work.

POLL: Despite all the right-wing media and Republican politicians' hypocritical attempts to attack the stimulus, a strong majority of Americans who've heard about it say it was the right thing for the country.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.