Romney accuses Obama of not standing up to China

By Glen Johnson

July 27, 2011

3 minutes to read

[fragment number=0]

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is out today with a new web video offering a fresh angle on his criticism that President Obama has failed to sufficiently focus on job creation.

The piece, titled “Take China to the Mat,’’ recalls the Democrat’s observation at a 2007 AFL-CIO candidates’ forum that the United States needs a leader who will stand up to the Chinese when it comes to negotiating trade deals.

If necessary, Obama says, a president must “take China to the mat.’’

Instead, the video declares that Obama has insufficiently protected intellectual property rights, impinging job creation by allowing US companies to be usurped by Chinese copycats.

Twisting Obama’s 2008 “Yes We Can’’ campaign motto, the video states “Yes. We. Do.’’ after repeating the president’s observation that the country needs to take a tough approach toward China.

In a final dig, the screen fills with the message “Nov. 6, 2012,’’ the date of next year’s general election.

The video release coincides with Romney’s visit to Ohio today, as well as the announcement he is being endorsed by former Ohio governor and US Senator George Voinovich and a number of local legislators.

It features Steven Cohen, president of Screen Machine Industries, which Romney is visiting today. The Pataskala-based company “is one of the largest manufacturers of portable crushing and screening plants in North America,’’ it says in its website.

“There doesn’t seem to be any effort at all to combat intellectual property theft in China. Without this protection, you’re going to find American companies such as us very leery about opening up business in China. Our company has a strong desire to want to create jobs because we believe in the American manufacturing idea of building the better product here. We want to maintain and create these jobs,’’ says Cohen.

“What we have with the Obama administration are not helping our company expand and are not creating the atmosphere to allow us to create new jobs,’’ he adds.

Democrats noted that Screen Machine Industries has benefitted from the Obama presidency, at least in one respect: the manufacturer received $218,000 worth of federal contrats under the administration’s stimulus bill.

“It should be no surprise that a compulsive flip-flopper like Mitt Romney would use a company that has benefited from President Obama’s economic policies as the backdrop for a campaign event to attack the president,’’ said Bill Burton, a former White House spokesman who helps run a pro-Obama advertising group called Priorities USA Action. “Considering his willingness to take different positions for different audiences, maybe today Romney will repeat his original statement that the stimulus ‘will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.’’’

The Democratic National Committee harked back to Romney’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts, when one ranking pegged the state as 47th out of 50 in job creation.

“With a job record like Mitt Romney has, it’s no wonder he’s doing everything he can to avoid talking about it during his trip to Ohio today,’’ said a DNC statement. “Now he is trying to take his failed economic policies nationwide.’’

The video offers an array of perspectives on Romney’s highly polished campaign operation.

His schedulers are seeking to dovetail his fund-raising with battleground state appearances that buttress his main campaign theme: job creation.

His production team is turning out videos – and “broadcasting’’ them for free via the Internet – in a near real-time fashion. Cohen was interviewed a week ago today, and other videos have appeared within a day of taping.

The delivery also underscores Romney’s effort to control his message, speaking largely through videos and op-ed columns rather than numerous public appearances.

Sometimes, the effort backfires, as it did last week in Los Angeles when local leaders criticized him for highlighting the challenges of a mall they say was more devastated by an earthquake than Obama’s economic policies, as Romney alleged.

Largely, though, Romney is taking his fight to Obama – and ignoring the rest of the GOP presidential field – on his own terms. The president, meanwhile, is stuck in Washington, fighting to break a stalemate with Romney’s fellow Republicans over raising the country’s debt limit and cutting the federal deficit.

He is unable to travel or raise money for his campaign, like his potential opponents.