There’s no doubt the left will jump on any little thing that Romney does and try to portray it as indicative of some serious character flaw in the candidate. Case in point: Romney visited a flooded-out town today in Louisiana.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched the final leg of his quest for the White House by visiting storm-battered Louisiana on Friday. He drove through a town that was flooded by Hurricane Isaac in part because it’s still outside the vast flooding protection system built with federal funds after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Romney and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) spent close to an hour meeting with first responders and local officials. Romney shook hands with National Guardsmen outside the U.S. Post Office and talked with a local resident, Jodie Chiarello, 42, who lost her home in Isaac’s flooding.
“He just told me to, um, there’s assistance out there,” Chiarello said of her conversation with Romney. “He said, go home and call 211.” That’s a public service number offered in many states.
Chiarello said she will likely seek some other shelter because her home was submerged in the flooding. She expressed frustration about the town’s lack of flood protection.
“We live outside the levee protection that’s why we get all this water because they close the floodgates up front and all they’re doing is flooding us out down here,” she said. “It’s very frustrating, very. We go through Katrina and Rita and now we’re going through Cindy, Lee and now Isaac.”
Some lefty who dubs himself karoli at Crooks and Liars had this to say about Romney’s advice to the flooded-out woman:
I don’t know. When one loses their home in a storm and the GOP nominee for president comes to town with his entourage ostensibly to offer sympathy and rhetoric, I’d think they should maybe do that. If the idea is to look presidential, then Mitt Romney gave us a glimpse into the rather stern and businesslike president he would be.
Mitt paid a visit to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans Friday for the photo op and empathy moments. Only, it seems he kind of forgot the empathy moments.
Note that there is no description of Romney being “stern and businesslike.” Karoli pulled that out of a hat. In fact, the conversation comes to us second hand. The woman makes no mention of what else Romney may have said to her, much less his tone or demeanor. As far as “empathy” is concerned, Romney gave the woman the best help he could offer — call a number set up to help people in the disaster. How this translates into a lack of empathy — especially when the full extent of the conversation between the two is unknown — is a mystery.
Clinton was, indeed, a master at public empathizing. His performance at the memorial for those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing was pitch perfect and touchingly real. George W. Bush, on the other hand, braved the wrath — and the gratitude — of the families of the fallen in private. Ronald Reagan’s embrace of one of the Challenger astronaut’s crying children at that memorial service was a heartbreaking moment.
These displays of public and private empathy are important to how we see our president. In private, Romney has shown himself to be a very kind, empathetic man whose charitable works are nearly beyond belief in their scope and impact. A man like that doesn’t automatically become “stern and businesslike” when in public. Romney may be stiff, but he’s not brain dead. I’m sure he showed suitable and appropriate empathy toward the woman, and his suggestion was no doubt heartfelt. He was trying to help — and he did.
The left’s “cold-hearted capitalist” meme won’t resonate if the “real” Mitt Romney is revealed. Fortunately, Romney will have several hundred million dollars to get that done, bypassing the media and taking his case directly to the voter.
– Berlin in 2008.
Mr. Romney let the cat out of the bag yesterday, when he misspoke and called our country “a company.”
No mere slip of the tongue. It is a mindset, a way of life.
It follows that the American people, at least the little ones, are employees–with luck, working only for minimum wage with no benefits and, for Pete’s sake, no unions to make the first two less likely.
Thus, telling flood victim Jodie Chiarello to go home and phone 211 makes perfect sense. (At least, it would, if she still had a home or a phone.) Romney too used government subsidies and loopholes at Bain whenever he could find them. Only a stupid man turns down resources, for Pete’s sake.
Only thing, Jodie had better make that phone call soon. If Romney is elected, that emergency number and resources behind it, will be disconnected. Only the little people need such resources. The others live on hills, well above the floodwaters.
Romney. He’s running for president, for Pete’s sake.
I’d say “here’s a quarter, call someone who cares,” but instead I’ll just refer you to 211.
I’m ready for some taxpayer empathy.
Without some more of that, there won’t be any empathy for anyone in short order.
It’s not a matter of empathy.
If you view the President as your god-king, then you petition him for relief, charity, compensation. Even a Saudi shiek expects to be treated this way, and that is exactly the channel by which some compensation does flow in their society. It is an excuse for the shiek to have most of the community’s wealth.
So at the least you have to separate two questions, how much empathy do you want the individual to have – to have shown at some previous time. And separately, how should this manifest when he is doing the duties of the office?
Please tell me when, oh when, we have ever seen Obama in any public venue show any genuine or even feigned sympathy or empathy directly for any actual person. I cannot remember one such instance.
Does anyone remember any such incident from the Gulf oil spill? His visits were so tightly scripted and carefully staged, perhaps there was some ersatz empathy. But it escapes me.
As far as I know he completely ignored the flood victims in Tennessee and the tornado victims in Joplin.
Any scenes of him comforting those who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure or those who’ve lost their jobs come to mind? The closest I recall are those instances in which he trots out people whom his stimulus or HAMP program or some other government project has helped. That way he gets to claim credit.
Obama doesn’t do empathy, ever.
By the way, what did Karoli expect Romney to do for Chiarello? Whip out his checkbook?
Funny, that line about calling “211″ doesn’t appear in the following ABC account:
By Emily Friedman
@EmilyABC
Follow on Twitter
Aug 31, 2012 5:40pm
Romney Visits Storm Ravaged Area, Meets with Officials in Louisiana
Email8Smaller FontTextLarger Text|Print
KENNER, La – Mitt Romney traveled today in the storm-ravaged state of Louisiana, meeting with Gov. Bobby Jindal and surveying damage caused by Hurricane Isaac.
“I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going here,” Romney told Jindal. “So that people around the country know that people down here need help.”
Romney, staff members, the National Guard and a small group of press traveled in high water vehicles through flooded regions in Jefferson Parish, one of the hardest hit areas by Hurricane Isaac, passing submerged gas stations and flooded homes. The motorcade passed a sign on a home that read, “Where is our levee protection,” as well as people who watched Romney pass from small boats in the floodwaters that would usually be front lawns.
Romney asked Jindal about the number of people in shelters as well as where the bulk of the water was coming from – rivers, the sky or tidal surges – but their conversation took place out of earshot of reporters.
Then Romney spent 45-minutes in a closed-door meeting with Jindal, Sen. David Vitter and other local officials before emerging and meeting with several women who were standing in a parking lot barefoot in t-shirts and shorts.
Jodie Chiarello, 42 of Jean Lafitte, was one of the women who spoke with Romney and said she had told him, “I lost everything.”
“He said that he was going to do the best that he could for us.” Chiarello, a Republican who declined to say who she was voting for, said she was pleased Romney visited to be “supportive.”
“He’s good, he’ll do the best for us, he has our best interests at heart,” she said of the candidate, adding that he was different than she’d expected.
“I thought he’d be more like a politician, but it was more understanding and caring,” she said. “He was caring.”
Romney told the women that FEMA could point them in the direction of shelters.
During a September debate, Romney was asked what he thought should be done with FEMA, which has come under funding issues in the past year. Asked if he agreed with those who say states should take on more of role in federal disaster relief, Romney said, “Absolutely.”
“Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states that’s the right direction,” he said. “And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector that’s even better. Instead of thinking in the federal budget what we should cut, we should ask ourselves the opposite question, what should we keep. We should take all of what we are doing at the federal level and say what are things we are doing that we don’t have to do, and those things we’ve gotta stop doing.”
Romney, who announced his visit to the region earlier today, has been weighing a trip here all week. President Obama announced later this afternoon that he will travel to Louisiana on Monday.
Asked whether he thought it was inappropriate for Romney to have visited the region before the President, Romney senior adviser Stuart Stevens said he did not.
“I’ve never heard that being a factor in this at all. The convention’s over, this is happening. Now it’s not as disruptive because it’s not in the middle of the storm. And it’s important to see it and show support for the people. Get a briefing from the Governor,” said Stevens. “I think that it helps draw attention to these people, and their plight , and the situation, it’s a way for him to brief governor Romney and I think it’s going to take an hour and a half.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, asked earlier what a private citizen like Romney can accomplish on a visit like the one he made today, said that “it’s always important to draw attention to the fact that individuals and families and business owners are profoundly affected by storms like Isaac, and that’s an important thing to do.”
I want to compliment you on a very good get. The story you cite appears to completely contradict Karoli’s cockamamie complaint.
Barack Obama to distraught flood victims: “”.
Karoli has always been a nut, and, has often made things up out of her butt.
Off course, where’s Obama’s advice? Oh, right, he’s campaigning in another state.
How about showing some competence and ability instead of empathy? I would rather have a president ably handling a crisis, aiming to solve it in the best way for the nation and not to grab more power for self and government, then running around mugging for the camera hugging people with crocodile tears in his eyes.
That says a lot about the Democrat mind: that showy emotions are far more important than ability to get things done well and correctly.
Ronald Reagan used to deliver a five minute message each day on radio in the seventies… he didn’t speak of himself and what he was going to do for the public, he spoke in much larger terms of bringing awareness to the power reserved in our Constitution that enables us to be that bright light and a city on the hill that beacons to a dark and troubled world.. even in my ignorant state I realized that Ronald Reagan had actually read the Constitution..
however…
I have never heard one damn thing from Mitt Romney’s lips on the subject.. but maybe I am missing something.
I admit he delivered an emotional and effective speech promising a healing last week.
here’s the text..
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160357612/transcript-mitt-romneys-acceptance-speech
But in a free range patriot’s mind like mine I don’t believe we need another big government nanny.
In fact what we need is someone to give us an honest chance by reestablishing the concept of Federalism, the rule of Law and work in concert with the producers in America to shrink the impact of government on our daily lives.. the last thing we need is another federal program…
Here is an example of what Ronald the Magnificent said in his acceptance speech…
(he’s dead now, it’s o k to worship him)
http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReaganConvention1980.html
“Beyond these essentials, I believe it is clear our federal government is overgrown and overweight. Indeed, it is time for our government to go on a diet.
Therefore, my first act as chief executive will be to impose an immediate and thorough freeze on federal hiring.
Then, we are going to enlist the very best minds from business, labor and whatever quarter to conduct a detailed review of every department, bureau and agency that lives by federal appropriations.
We are also going to enlist the help and ideas of many dedicated and hard working government employees at all levels who want a more efficient government as much as the rest of us do.
I know that many are demoralized by the confusion and waste they confront in their work as a result of failed and failing policies”
I didn’t hear Mitt make that promise, did you? did he even mention the Constitution in that address?..
.. think about it.
that’s why I read the speeches instead of listen to the speeches… to filter out the emotional filler- and that speech last Thursday was nothing short of an emotional appeal based alter call.
I bet I have pissed off enough Republicans this morning and frankly I don’t give a damn other than to hope maybe I can provoke some curiosity.. but that’s what one gets for paying attention to detail I suppose.
wonder if my comments are going to be censored again… guess I will see.
Empathy and personable like-ability are WAY over-rated.
I live in Phoenix Arizona, home of America’s toughest Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. I’ve met Sheriff Joe. He’s not exactly the most likable guy on a personal level, yet get always gets re-elected by huge margins. Why? because he does what he says.