Obama glossed over broken promises: Romney

2012-09-07 08:08

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. (AP, File)

Wolfeboro - Mitt Romney's campaign accused President Barack Obama of glossing over broken promises in his speech on Thursday, saying he offered "more of the same" instead of admitting failure.

"President Obama laid out the choice in this election, making the case for more of the same policies that haven't worked for the past four years," Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades said in a statement issued in the middle of Obama's speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

"He offered more promises, but he hasn't kept the promises he made four years ago," Rhoades added.

"Americans will hold President Obama accountable for his record. They know they're not better off and that it's time to change direction."

Obama implored Americans to grant him a second term in the world's most important job, as he cast himself as a realist and said the US recovery was bound to be hard after the worst recession in generations.

"The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades," Obama said at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina.

'No more promises'

Romney, who has repeatedly accused Obama of failing to bring about the hope and change promised in his historic 2008 campaign, said voters deserved an explanation for the sputtering economic recovery.

"Over the last four years, the president has said that he was going to create jobs for the American people, and that hasn't happened. He said he would cut the deficit in half, and that hasn't happened," Romney said in Concord, New Hampshire on Thursday before returning to his vacation home in Wolfeboro.

"He said that incomes would rise and instead incomes have gone down. And I think this is a time not for him... to start restating new promises but to report on the promises he made."

Asked if he would watch Obama's speech, Romney said: "Don't plan on it."

Obama reminded Americans that he rescued them from a second Great Depression, and warned that Romney's policies would only risk repeating the 2008 disaster.

Under pressure to lay out the specifics of what he would do in a second term, Obama offered a blueprint for recovery and the creation of millions of new jobs.

'Are Americans better off?'

"I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy," Obama said.

"The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I'm asking you to choose that future."

Romney, who accepted his party's nomination last week to run in the 6 November election, said before the speech that he would "love to watch" Obama if he delves into his own presidential record.

"But if it's another series of new promises that he's not going to keep, I have no interest in seeing him because I saw the promises last time [and] the American people deserve to know why he did not keep his promises."

The Romney camp this week has relentlessly asked whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago, reprising a line made famous by Republican icon Ronald Reagan in his successful 1980 White House campaign.

Bill Clinton, the last Democratic two-term president, on Wednesday said the country was indeed better off, having pulled itself out of a near-depression and stemmed the massive job loss that Obama inherited from George W Bush.

Criticism

But Republicans have mocked such claims, saying Obama's economic policies have ballooned the debt, forced millions more Americans onto food stamps and failed to alleviate poverty.

Conservative leaders lined up to offer criticism after Obama's speech, including Republican National Committee chairperson Reince Priebus, who called the president's address "one last plea to a country ready to move on".

"Tonight's speech from the president had the trademark soaring rhetoric but was devoid of any sense of responsibility for the disappointments of the last four years," Priebus said in a statement.

- AFP