MEMO
from
Romney for President
July 19, 2012
MEMORANDUM
To:
Interested
Parties
From:
Brett
Doster and Alberto Martinez, Florida Senior Advisors
Re:
Obama
in Florida: Money for Nothing
To View This Memo
Online, Click Here: http://mi.tt/NWdinN
"I
own a small business, and my husband and I are doing fine. We're okay,
but the future of this economy worries us a lot," said Miami
businesswoman Doris Del Toro, 52, a Cuban-American independent who
voted for Obama four years ago and is undecided this year. "I'm just
not happy with what Obama has done. He's moved way too far to the left.
He spent too much time on health care when the economy should have been
his priority." (Adam C.
Smith, “Presidential
Race
In Florida A Coin Toss” Tampa Bay
Times, 07/14/12)
Since
June 1, President Obama or a major campaign surrogate (including the
Vice President and First Lady) have held more than 20 events in
Florida. They’ve taken airboat tours of the Everglades, attended ritzy
fundraisers with pop music stars, held college campus campaign rallies
and given commencement addresses.
Meanwhile,
the Obama For America campaign has plunged more than $17 million into
television ads in Florida, blanketing the airwaves with negative and
misleading ads. In Orlando
alone, President Obama and his liberal allies spent nearly $5 million
dollars on more than 4,000 mostly negative ads in just May and June.
Despite
the time, money, and effort being expended by the Obama Campaign,
President Obama and his policies remain unpopular, and he has not seen
any movement in re-election polls:
|
April 2012 |
June 2012 |
July 2012 |
Gov. Romney |
47% |
49% |
48% |
Pres. Obama |
45% |
45% |
45% |
(Source:
Purple
Strategies polls)
A
Mason-Dixon Poll in Florida finds that the despite the President’s
Sunshine State Assault, neither he nor his policies are getting any
more popular:
• 54 percent of
likely Florida voters say the country is on the “wrong track” with
Obama at the helm.
• 41 percent say
President Obama’s policies have made the economy worse.
• 52 percent
oppose Obamacare and 50 percent of Florida voters want to see it
repealed.
Digging deeper still,
the President’s 2008 base – represented in Florida’s diverse
communities - is crumbling.
According to Gallup, the President’s support
among Jewish voters has fallen by 10 points, and enthusiasm from the youth
vote
is down 20 points from 2008 levels.
According to Mason-Dixon, Florida Hispanics have
fled President Obama, who is down 9 points from the 58% he received
from Hispanics in 2008.
An incumbent
struggling to stay at a 45 percent, should be worried.
An
incumbent struggling to stay at 45 percent - after plowing through $20
million in negative advertising, and holding more than 20 major
campaign events in one state - is in trouble.
So why is President
Obama in trouble in the Sunshine State?
Floridians Are
Suffering In The Obama Economy
Despite
a pro-growth Governor and Legislature that is laser-focused on job
creation, Florida like the rest of the nation is saddled with President
Obama’s job-killing and business-discouraging economic policies which
are acting like an anchor around our economic recovery.
The four areas
President Obama will visit have all lost jobs during President Obama’s
time in office:
Jacksonville: Lost 9,400 jobs since Obama
took office (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
West Palm
Beach/Boca Raton/Boynton Beach: Lost 15,800 since Obama
took office (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
Fort Myers/Cape
Coral: Lost
3,400
jobs since Obama took office (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford: Lost 14,400 jobs since
Obama took office (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
The
unemployment rate in these areas are also still well above the 8
percent President Obama warned of when he rammed through the $800
billion stimulus.
Jacksonville: The unemployment rate is
at 8.3% (Bureau
of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 07/19/12)
Fort Myers/Cape
Coral: The
unemployment rate in May 2012 increased from 8.6 to 8.7 percent (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford: The unemployment rate in
May 2012 increased from 8.2 to 8.3 percent (Bureau
Of
Labor Statistics, Accessed 7/17/12)
Orlando: Hispanic unemployment
soared to 16.6 percent in 2011 (Economic
Policy
Institute, Accessed 7/17/12)
West Palm Beach: The unemployment rate is
8.5% (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Accessed
07/19/12)
In addition, hopes of
faster economic recovery were dimmed by a report from The
Legislative
Office of Economic and Demographic Research
which estimated that Florida's unemployment rate of 8.6 percent would
be 9.5 percent if workers who have stopped looking for jobs were added
to the picture. The figures were in keeping with national data that
show that the slow decline in unemployment is due to “a smaller labor
force and not to job growth.”
Foreclosures
also continue to be a persistent problem in Florida. In April 2012, the
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metropolitan areas had the second highest
metropolitan foreclosure inventory in the nation, with 12.2 percent of
all homes with a mortgage in some stage of foreclosure. (Press
Release,
“CoreLogic Reports 63,000 Completed Foreclosures In May,” CoreLogic,
6/29/12)
Rather than being
focused on the economy, Floridians see President Obama as someone who “spent
too
much time on health care when the economy should have been his
priority." In addition to skipping Jobs
Council
meetings to attend fundraisers with
Marc
Anthony, the few times President
Obama has focused on the economy, his policies have been
counter-productive.
Just last week, the
President announced he would raise taxes on small business owners. The Orlando
Sentinel
looked into that position and found that “a quarter million Florida
households would see their taxes rise” as a result of that tax. It’s
just the latest sign that the President doesn’t know how to fix our
economy.
Obama’s Policies
Are Unpopular
In addition to poor
Obama Economy statistics above, the President’s policies are proving to
be deeply unpopular in Florida.
A 2010 poll found more voters think
the President’s $800 billion stimulus hurt the economy more than it
helped.
In a poll taken after
the Supreme Court’s decision to rule it constitutional, more
than
half of Floridians said they opposed the President’s signature
legislation, ObamaCare. More
troublesome for the President, 55 percent of independents said they
opposed ObamaCare.
Floridians Are
Rejecting President Obama’s Dishonest Campaign Ads
While
numerous independent fact-checking organizations have looked into the
Obama campaign’s false and negative attacks, there’s evidence that the
President’s ads are backfiring here in Florida, too.
Fort Myers NBC’s Andy
Pierrotti looked into the claims made against Gov. Romney about
outsourcing and found
the
Obama campaign’s claims to be false. The President’s spokesman
Stephanie Cutter even tried to plead her case on the station, but facts
are stubborn things.
The
past five presidential elections in Florida have been decided by an
average of roughly 3 points. Despite the deep challenges facing
President Obama in Florida, this will be a tightly contested race, and
the Romney for President campaign will fight for votes in every corner
of the state.
Still,
after nearly four years of suffering the broken promises and failed
policies of President Obama, Floridians are looking for real change.
Governor
Romney’s proven record and positive vision to grow our economy and
create jobs for Floridians is more powerful than President Obama’s
negative and dishonest campaign, and the millions he is spending to run
from his failed record. We believe more than anything else, that
dynamic alone will prove decisive in Governor Romney’s favor.
###