You would expect that Mitt Romney would know enough not to make campaign promises that are blatantly false and in no conceivable way could be acted on. But that’s exactly what he did this past Friday when explaining why college students should vote for him:
Kallie Durkit: “Relatability has been a large issue for you on this campaign trail, and as a college student many people in my generation find it especially hard to relate to you as a candidate,” said 21-year-old Kallie Durkit, who attends Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “Why should we mobilize for you as a candidate instead of Obama, which we did in 2008?”
Mitt Romney: “What I can promise you is this – when you get out of college, if I’m president you’ll have a job,” said Romney. “If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job. That’s the reason I will hopefully get young people who are in college is to say, You know what, I understand what it takes to get jobs in America.”
The most ridiculous part about this statement is that he ‘promises’ poor little Kallie Durkit that she won’t get a job if Obama is reelected. It’s not like he’s just asserting that he can do a better job than Obama, but that voting for Obama is equivalent to economic apocalypse — a world where all college students are unemployed.
This is not a one-off gaffe. Instead, it follows a long line of distortions and flat out lies made by the Romney campaign in their quest to dupe the American public into voting for him. The media has to keep Romney accountable for saying auch transparently false statements. It’s absurd enough already that he has maintained an aura of integrity and consistency for so long when nothing could be farther from the truth.