Why Obama and Romney wont stop poking each other despite not talking
President Obama likes to remind people that he has run his last campaign, but he cant resist an occasional dig at the man he beat in 2012.
My opponent in that last election pledged that he could bring down the unemployment rate to 6 percent by 2016, Obama said on a recent trip to Cleveland, before delivering the punch line: Its 5.5 now.
Mitt Romney is almost entirely out of politics, but that didnt stop him from second-guessing the president just hours before Obamas prime-time address on the Islamic State last fall. Obamas foreign policy, he said on Fox News, had put us in a place of danger unlike anything we knew.
In the 21/2 years since the former rivals had lunch at the White House after Obamas reelection win, they have had no direct communication, and aides to both insist theyve moved on from a campaign that was notable for the level of hostility and personal attacks it provoked. But the residue of their antipathy remains apparent in their verbal shadowboxing and their determination to keep on keeping score.
On Friday, Obama will make his first appearance in Utah since taking office, speaking on the economy in Salt Lake City, not far from where Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and his wife Ann built a retirement home in Holladay. Romney has deep ties to the area, as a member of the Mormon Church and as the former head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Obamas ties are not so deep. Utah is the 49th state he will have visited as president with just South Dakota remaining and there may be a good reason that he hasnt been in a hurry to get there: The deep-red Beehive State gave Romney his largest margin of victory over Obama in 2012, 73 percent to 25 percent.
Though Romney will be in the area on Friday, the White House did not invite him to attend the presidents event at Hill Air Force Base. Administration aides said the stop in Utah has nothing to do with Obamas former challenger.
But Obamas latest stop in a national tour to highlight differences with Republicans and more forcefully claim credit for the nations economic gains has nonetheless irritated former Romney aides.
I dont like refighting old wars ... but its also important to set the record straight, said Eric Fehrnstrom, Romneys campaign strategist, when asked about Obamas boasts about the falling unemployment rate. Mitt Romney said during the campaign that the economy goes through up-and-down cycles and that it would eventually come back as it always does. His criticism of President Obamas policies is they had unnecessarily prolonged the recession.
Fehrnstrom added that considering the high number of marginally attached workers still in the workforce this is not the time for self-satisfaction or victory laps.
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Why Obama and Romney wont stop poking each other despite not talking