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Romney for President

"A Few of the 23 Million" +
  3:59 web video from May 15, 2012.

[Music] Deborah Ragland: “Every week it's harder at the grocery store. You stay the same, everything goes up so you’re falling behind every month.”

Male Announcer: “Millions of Americans are struggling under the Obama economy. Here are a few of their stories.”

Troy Knapp: “In Webster City, Frigidaire was there for a hundred, you know a hundred years or whatever and they just up and said hey, we’re done here, you know?”

Jason Clausen: “When the economy went bad a month after my divorce, I lost my job, I lost my house.”

Ragland: “Everybody’s looking for ways to cut costs I guess.”

Male Announcer: “This is Deborah Ragland, of Webster City, Iowa.”

Ragland: “I’ve been looking for a job for two years. Haven’t found any. My unemployment benefits did run out and we’re just trying to get by.”

Clausen: “There’s two things in this world I care about. It’s going to work and paying my child support.”

Male Announcer: “This is Jason Clausen of Mason City, Iowa.”

Clausen: “I kept working. It’s the last remaining Frank Lloyd Wright-designed hotel in the world. I had to rebuild all the staircases in there, and I got to the last stair and I took out my Sharpie and I wrote J. Clausen, and I wrote father of Eva Grace Clausen.”

Knapp: “To grow up around here you know everyone. Everyone looks out for you.”

Male Announcer:  “This is Troy Knapp of Alden, Iowa.”

Knapp: “My dad doesn’t like me getting unemployment. He hates it. Because he grew up in that mentality you don’t get unemployment. You don’t live off the government. You do everything, you pay for everything your own way. My neighbor across the street’s the same way. I end up going over and helping Damon in Iowa Falls, he’s a good friend of mine. He does moving and storage, and then I help him dig graves on the side. But I’ve probably dug a couple hundred graves.”

Clausen: “The Des Moines Register reporter was there. In passing, I gave him the story about that step, how my daughter’s name was under there. That was the front page of the Des Moines Register. To this day, my daughter and I, when she’s feeling down, we go to that step. I call it our step.”

Ragland: “It’s hard to know where to put your trust. It’s going to get tougher I think.”

Knapp: “That’s the problem. A lot of people around here when Barack, ya know, was running and all that. Everyone believed, everyone had hope. They all thought ‘man, this guy’s gonna get something done.’”

Knapp: “When he is in office now it just seems like nothing’s getting done. It seems like it’s all talk. You can say whatever you want. But it’s not about saying what everyone wants to hear, it’s about doing it.”

Male Announcer: “Hope and change has not been kind to millions of Americans, but they still believe in this great country, and deserve a leader who believes in them. Mitt Romney.”

Ragland: “So we’re just going to sit tight and see how things go, and see if the next president turns it around.”


Notes: Simple piano music contributes to the somber tone.  Very atmospheric, all sorts of incidental close up shots.  One thing that seems to be missing is the sunny optimism of Reagan.  Romney was in Iowa on the day this video was released and spoke on the economy (prepared remarks).  

The Romney campaign's description states, "Today, in the Obama economy, twenty-three million Americans are out of work, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work. These are the stories behind the statistics. These are a few of the twenty-three million."