Now that the political conventions are over, the Obama and Romney campaigns will ratchet up the intensity with election day less than two months away. NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider sat down with Republican strategist Steve Some and Democratic strategist Leroy Jones about the presidential race post-convention.
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Jones called the Democratic National Convention, which wrapped up last night, a huge success and said it “galvanized and energized the base.”
While the Democrats may have put on a good show, Some says, in the end, it won’t really matter because it comes down to the economy. The latest jobs report, which came out today, showed an increase of only 96,000 jobs, far below expectations. Calling the new jobs figures “pitiful,” Some says the anemic economy reflects a record of failure by the Obama administration. “I think our convention and Gov. Romney focused on that and this election’s all about jobs and getting America back to a good solid economy,” said Some.
Jones said definitively that the country is better today than it was four years ago when the financial crisis began while someone else was in the White House. “The person who got us into this mess was a guy by the name of George W. Bush,” said Jones.
But Some says Democrats need to stop the blame game and put forth a policy that will put people back to work. What the country needs right now, he says, is a business person like Mitt Romney. He said “Romney’s got a great plan and we’re going to hear more and more about it.”
Some criticized the hope and dream theme of the president’s speech last night, saying “I don’t want to hear about dreams, people in the country don’t want to hear about dreams.”
Jones shot back that Republicans are “dream and hope killers” without a vision. “Their whole convention was about how to figure out how to love Mitt Romney,” he said. “They still haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”