100 Reasons to Vote for Mitt Romney and Against Barack Obama

Recently, I was listening to Hugh Hewitt on the radio, and he cited 100 reasons why you should vote for Mitt Romney and against Barack Obama for president on November 6.  I’ve listed those 100 reasons below, because it’s a very good list.  There are some reason that are stylistic; there are others that are substantial; there’s foreign policy reasons and economic reasons, and competence reasons.

This list if far from comprehensive, and there are some that you might think, “That’s a stupid reason,” but you only really have to agree with one reason on this list to vote for Romney or against Obama. At times, I’ve added links to news stories or blog posts, for your enjoyment.  Here’s the  list:

1. Mitt Romney believes in a second American century, like the 20^th century was the American century.
2. Mitt Romney is very good man who has a good character and a great vision for the country.
3. Romney is a turnaround specialist, that knows how to prioritize tasks and attack the most important problem first. He’s actually turned around companies.
4. President Obama is the least generous political person I’ve ever seen in American politics at the national level. To those who oppose him, to those across the aisle from him.
5. He is the most partisan president that we’ve had in recent history. We’ve always passed large pieces of legislation with at least some opposition support. He wants no part of bipartisan governance.
6. President Obama acted in a very unpresidential way when he attacked Paul Ryan’s budget when it was unveiled. He invited him to sit in the front row of a speech, and then castigated him about his budget, while Ryan was sitting directly in front of him.
7. Obama made the statement: “I won.” Made to Eric Cantor and other Republican leadership when they came to him with ideas on how they could work together.
8. President Obama’s full-throated attack on Roman Catholics, especially in regards to the HHS mandate that all Catholic organizations must provide sterilization, morning-after pill, etc., in opposition to their closely-held beliefs.
9. He will not, cannot, never has accepted responsibility for any of the fiascos that have been made in the course of his presidency. He refuses to accept responsibility for anything.
10. Barack Obama blames straw men. He invents arguments that are not made, by people that do not exist. He never takes on the actual arguments that are made, but instead lines up the straw men, and lights them on fire.
11. Obama won’t deal with the truth. He gave, for example, a massive stimulus to the Congress. He’s responsible for its failure. Nobody knows where all the money went. That responsibility lies with Obama, and he won’t deal with it.
12. Van Jones and the other czars. These unaccountable and unsupervised attempts to broaden his executive power are reason #12.
13. Solyndra. The recipient of $500 million in a sweetheart deal ended up in bankruptcy. An epic waste.
14. The Boeing plant in Charleston, SC. The National Labor Relations Board said “No” because the unions in Washington didn’t want the plant built in a “right to work” state.
15. Remember the raid on Gibson Guitars? They took everything that Mr. Gibson had made in his plant, accusing him of illegally importing some wood from India.
16. Mitt Romney has successfully raised a wonderful family, along with Ann Romney. What does this tell you about his character?
17. Mitt Romney has held a government job, but he’s never gotten a government paycheck. As governor of Massachusetts, he didn’t take a salary, and he won’t as president.
18. Mitt Romney can read a balance sheet. Do you think that Barack Obama can read a balance sheet?
19. Mitt Romney has run a very complicated set of businesses.
20. Ann Romney. She’s remarkable. She’s overcome incredible trials in her own life—MS and breast cancer. She’s raised 5 boys.
21. Paul Ryan. It shows that Romney’s judgment is reliable. It also says he’s very serious about the budget, deficit and debt.
22. Joe Biden. It shows that Obama doesn’t have very good judgment. He’s a national joke. Most people love Joe for his smile and effervescence. You don’t want him to be president. He’s the guy Obama picked first, which says something about Obama’s judgment.
23. Israel. If you are a supporter of the state of Israel, you really cannot support President Barack Obama. It’s not just Obama’s testy relationship with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama’s hostility from Day One to Israel has been omnipresent. He simply does not like the state of Israel.
24. Obama’s particularly tense relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. He left Netanyahu in the basement of the White House, saying, “Let me know if anything changes.” He also refused to meet with Netanyahu while he was at the U.N., even though he had time to play golf and do an appearance on The View.
25. What happened when Iran revolted? Obama did nothing for the Green Revolution. People on both sides of the political spectrum urged him to stand by those who were standing up for democracy in Iran, but he did nothing. The Iranian revolution was suppressed by the radical Iranian government.
26. The “leading from behind” doctrine. The president invented a new approach in foreign affairs called, “leading from behind.” This lead to months of chaos in Libya, which gave birth to the killing of our ambassador in Benghazi.
27. We see leading from behind from Obama in Syria. He held up the Assad regime as being a model partner in peace. Everyone knew that Assad was a butcher, and that Syria was a police state. Everyone knew that Assad was our enemy, except Barack Obama. Tens of thousands are now dead.
28. The bow to the Saudi king. Stylistic, but important.
29. The bow to the Japanese emperor. Stylistic, but important. He does not seem to realize that when he goes abroad, he represents the full power of the United States. This subservience in protocol telegraphs an appeasement in policy.
30. There’s been no progress in regards to North Korea. It’s arming the world’s despots and crazies, and is completely immune to Barack Obama. Not only have they not disarmed, they are increasingly marketing their arms of death.
31. There’s been no progress in regards to Russia, either. Barack Obama thought he could talk to Putin. He whispered to Medvedev that he will have more flexibility after the election.
32. President Obama screwed Poland. Romney will redeploy the missile defense in Poland. We’d done that deal under the Bush administration, and without notice, Barack Obama screwed the Polish government and the Czech government. This was a horrific foreign policy mistake to two of our most treasured allies.
33. He screwed the Czech Republic (see above).
34. He pulled down our nuclear deterrent. The cuts in our nuclear deterrent have been deep under President Obama. We’ve cut our deterrent to the bone. We have to remodernize. President Obama has not done that.
35. President Obama has abandoned Iraq. Even if you believe that the Iraq war was ill-advised, when it was over, it was won. The surge worked. We had won the war. Commanders suggested to Obama that 10,000-15,000 troops remain in Iraq to help with the peace, but Obama ignored them. When confronted with a modicum of difficulty, Obama got mad, and ran away from Iraq. Since we left, Iraq has been periodically rocked with sectarian violence. That’s Barack Obama’s responsibility. He cut and ran from Iraq.
36. President Obama has announced a firm withdrawal date for Afghanistan. He’s put the Taliban on notice about how long they have to hold on before they can take the country back. Barack Obama is getting out, date certain, regardless of the recommendations of his commanders. He does not listen to his generals on the grounds.
37. Barack Obama cut the F-22 program. This air force fighter is the most superior airplane in the world. There will be nothing that will equal it in a generation, and President Obama closed the program down. We had air superiority for the foreseeable future, and Obama ended it. It was supposed to be replaced by the F-35, but the delivery of the F-35 (a cheaper aircraft) has been stretched out as well.
38. President Obama has threatened our naval power. Our national security depends on our naval superiority. Our navy is supposed to be at a minimum strength of 313 ships, at a minimum under Obama it’s at 282 ships. It might go as low as 250 ships, if Barack Obama’s spending plans are kept.
39. President Obama cut the Marine Corp by 20,000 marines.
40. President Obama cut the Army by 80,000 troops. Our military is being cut down to the bone. The defense policies of Barack Obama are undermining our national security. Mitt Romney has promised to restore our military to where it needs to be to ensure our national security.
41. Mitt Romney experience at Bain Consulting and Bain Capital. The records of both are extraordinary. Bain Capital was perhaps the most successful investment firm in the 1990s, when Romney was at the helm. Successes like Staples. This experience taught him about creating jobs and about the economy.
42. Mitt Romney has a lot of church experience. Everyone’s probably aware that he’s a Mormon, and did a 2 1/2 year stint as a missionary. He volunteered a lot, even with small kids, as an executive, as a governor, and throughout the Salt Lake Olympics. He volunteers his time. He has given and given and given.
43. Mitt Romney’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. George Romney. Lenore Romney ran for Senate (and lost). You may know whether you had good parents or bad parents. Mitt Romney had two of the best parents. George Romney was an extraordinary American. He had a deep sense of public service, and this shows in Mitt Romney.
44. Mitt Romney’s charitable giving. It’s huge. He’s given away $30 million over 20 years, and that’s not counting what he might have made if he’d kept that money (the opportunity cost of charitable giving). Mitt Romney is the most generous of any presidential candidate. And it’s not timed for political gain. His giving goes back 20 years. He gave sacrificially even when he was poor and in business school.
45. Barack Obama’s gaffes. They embarrass me. Everyone makes a gaffe every once in a while. But he can’t help but fall on his face. Corpse-men. 57 states. We can put an end to this in November. He’s as gaffe-prone as Joe Biden. These are the types of gaffes that make you really hope
46. President Obama has deceived the country about the deficit and debt and his plan to raise taxes. He’s insisted that the deficit and debt can be solved by raising taxes on people making $250,000 or more. That’s a lie. Some people say that it will raise 10% of the deficit. Some say that it will completely collapse economic growth. But no one says that it will raise more than 10% of the deficit.
47. President Obama’s treatment of President Bush. Not that he doesn’t call him for advice, or stuff like that. Just his constant whining and blaming of President Bush. It was cringe-inducing in the first year. But now, he continues to blame George W. Bush for his failures. It teaches (especially young people) never to own what they’ve failed at.
48. President Obama’s refusal to do anything remotely approaching a realistic budget. Year after year he sends up budgets that his own party will not vote for. This year, the Democratically-controlled Senate did not get ONE vote for his budget.
49. President Obama’s refused to do anything about Social Security. Everyone knows how to fix Social Security, but President Obama won’t do anything about it. Social Security remains on the rocks.
50. President Obama has refused to do anything about Medicaid. It’s bankrupting the states. The states can’t take care of their poor under this program. President Obama has done nothing, because it involves tough choices.
51. He won’t speak the truth about the Fort Hood massacre. It involved a Muslim doctor that no one would blow the whistle on, because of political correctness. President Obama still refuses to speak truth about this issue.
52. The president’s elitism in things as small as how he pronounces “Pakistan.” This pronunciation reminds that the president thinks he’s just smarter than everyone.
53. An aggravation: his pretended touch about sports. He can’t name one favorite White Sox player, even though it’s supposedly his favorite team. He has time to do his brackets during international crises, but it’s this attempt to be all things to all people at all times.
54. His paralysis in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill. He didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. Louisiana begged him for permission to do something to save their coast lands, but he was absolutely paralyzed. Also on the killing of bin Laden. Why did it take so long to green-light that mission?
55. His over-reaction to the Gulf oil spill. After the situation was resolved, then he acted to shut down drilling in the region. The gulf oil rigs moved away, and tens of thousands of jobs were lost.
56. He embarrassed us in England, when he gave the Queen an iPod of all his speeches.
57. The Cairo speech. He was going to reset relations with the Muslim world. This speech was perceived as weakness, and has brought home seeds of havoc and cruelty across the Muslim world, and now the Muslim Brotherhood rules in Egypt. He has lost Egypt. He began his foreign policy with a repudiation of George W. Bush with his speech in Cairo, and now he cannot go to Cairo, because it would be too dangerous.
58. Enormous spending. He’s spent more in 4 years than George W. Bush did in 8 years. He’s irresponsible beyond any measure of responsibility.
59. Dodd-Frank. It’s been a death-knell for small banks. It has stalled the growth of small businesses across the United States. His assault on the banking sector has been unprecedented.
60. Fast and Furious. The idea of walking guns into Mexico is absurd. And it killed a U.S. border agent, as well as at least 16 Mexican nationals (that we know about).
61. The cover-up of Fast and Furious. He is working with the Department of Justice in order to prevent the release of documents related to the program. He’s still trying to dodge questions about Fast and Furious. He insists it wasn’t his fault, and trying to blame it on Bush.
62. Barack Obama still wants to close Gitmo. He still refuses to recognize that the international terror threat is still alive and well, even though Osama bin Laden is dead.
63. President Obama wanted to, and indeed allowed, the trial of one terrorist in New York. He got a conviction on one count, instead of many. He wants to criminalize terrorism. President Obama would like to bring all trials of terrorists into the United States.
64. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Whether you are for or against the act itself, you’re probably on the side of the Constitution. If a bill is passed by Congress and signed by the president (Clinton), and hadn’t been struck down by any appeals court in the United States, the executive branch should continue to defend the law in court. President Obama has stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act. The Act hasn’t been repealed, and it hasn’t been overturned by the Supreme Court.
65. Recent executive order on immigration. Immigration law is set and passed by Congress. The current law doesn’t allow for an exemption for those children that came with their parents at a very young age. In addition to lessening the job prospects of citizens and legal immigrants, the order runs roughshod over constitution prerogative. Obama has been making up the laws as he’s been going along.
66. Justice Sotomayor – lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Has voted with the far left, and will continue to vote with the far left for the rest of her lifetime.
67. Justice Kagen – lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Has voted with the far left, and will continue to vote with the far left for the rest of her lifetime. There will be retirements ahead in this term. These two justices are an indication of what President Obama could do in the next four years with one, two, or three more appointments to the Supreme Court.
68. President Obama jammed Obamacare down the throat of America after Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat specifically to provide a 41st vote to kill it. Despite enormous majorities against Obamacare, the president pushed it through. What does it say about his indifference to the people he leads?
69. President Obama chose to tax inactivity with Obamacare. The Supreme Court has now ruled that it’s a tax. It’s a tax on people who just sit at home and do nothing. You don’t have to do anything to get hit with this tax. Imagine the far-reaching effects of this choice. Now that the president has been blessed in this regard, imagine what he will do with it.
70. The decision to give the IPAB board control over health care decisions. This board is going to decide what’s going to count under Obamacare and be reimbursed, and what’s not. And if they decide that something’s not worth covering, then you’re out of luck. If they don’t want to give you chemo drugs, then it won’t be reimbursed, which will drive some chemo drugs out of the market. If the IPAB doesn’t think that a baby or small child with some disease or birth defect isn’t worth paying for, then you’ll be out of luck.
71. When he had the chance, when he could have done it easily, he did not reign in the trial bar. He didn’t add medical malpractice reform to Obamacare, which could have made it bipartisan.
72. He did not remove a single barrier to the interstate commerce objection to the trafficking in health insurance plans across the United States. There are legal barriers to selling health insurance across state lines, and they should have been removed, but they weren’t.
73. President Obama cut Medicare by $760 billion. The system is broken, and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have said that the program must change for those who are under the age of 55. They are going to put the money that President Obama looted from the program.
74. Obamacare itself is a failure. Tens of millions of Americans will not get insurance under Obamacare, or will lose the insurance coverage that their employer currently offers them. It’s not universal health insurance. It doesn’t fix the problem is said it would fix. It won’t ease emergency room congestion. It’s a big government disaster.
75. Mitt Romney works pretty well with Democrats. He was elected in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and he worked effectively with the Democrats in the legislature to fix education and health care in Massachusetts. He can and will work effectively across the aisle. He won’t end up in the partisan gridlock that’s come along with the Chicago politician who hasn’t had to work well with others, and can’t work well with others.
76. Mitt Romney deals candidly with issues. He gets datasets. He consults experts. He was elected by Democrats because they had a huge deficit, and he dealt with the issue quickly.
77. Mitt Romney answers questions. He answers every question without reservation. He doesn’t have a story to keep straight.
78. President Obama filibusters in press conferences. His average answer is more than 7 minutes. He won’t answer questions, because he’s afraid of the answers he’s obliged to give. He’s so insecure of his own positions that he rambles on and on.
79. President Obama blew the Chicago Olympics. He brought back contempt. He should not have lobbied for a city that was not prepared and not going to win.
80. President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He ought not to have accepted a price for that which he could not bring and has not brought: peace.
81. The Chinese have been manipulating their currency for a decade. The president did nothing about it until Romney started campaigning for it consistently. It drains jobs. The president finally brought a trade case, but it’s too little, too late.
82. President Obama has done nothing in China to stop the suppression of the Christian house church movement in China. Our human rights record on this issue is horrible. We’ve done nothing to protect those churches under President Obama.
83. President Obama lied about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi in a Univision interview, long after everybody (including Susan Rice) had admitted it was a terrorist attack. We know that it was a terrorist attack, and the president continues to try to place blame elsewhere.
84. President Obama hides from the media. He will not engage in the kind of press conferences that are routine. Every time he does, he absolutely falls on his face, so his response is to hide. He ought to be doing a lot more than he does. When was the last time you heard him on talk radio? I thought he was president of the entire nation.
85. Mitt Romney is routinely willing to take the tough questions from the media.
86. He sent back the Winston Churchill bust. It’s small, but it happened. He denied it, but it happened. Then he retracted.
87. Jay Carney and Robert Gibbs. Robert Gibbs was perhaps the worst press secretary in the history of press secretaries. His relentless partisan and acrimonious comments set a horrible tone for Washington.
88. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Those are the president’s friends. You’ve never heard the president rebuke either of them. Pelosi’s “we have to pass it to see what’s in it” comment. Reid’s lying about Mitt Romney’s tax records. Reid’s refusal to pass a budget. Pelosi for her incessant demonization for people that disagree with her.
89. President Obama let’s the National Education Association obstruct education reform. The NEA also holds back pension reform, even for younger teachers.
90. The president likes to say that he saved the automobile industry. That’s not what he did. He saved the UAW union. That, more than anything, grates on the people who held bonds in the old GM and Chrysler. He spent $85 billion save the union workers pensions. In a regular bankruptcy, the unions would have gotten 75-90 cents on the dollar for their share, and the bondholders would have gotten a haircut, but they wouldn’t have been totally crushed, as they were under the president’s bailout. The president sold out to the UAW. And, GM stock is not remotely close to paying back what the U.S. taxpayers paid for it. He’s hanging on to a bad investment so he doesn’t have to face the music about a failed intervention.
91. He hasn’t cut one department or bureau. He’s been president for 4 years, and has run up trillions of dollars in spending, and he has not found ONE department or bureau to shutter. If he had, don’t you think you’d have heard about it?
92. We are continuing to fund the national public radio system and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, even though they are now unnecessary and we don’t have the money to continue to do it.
93. EPA War on Coal – is trying to crush the use of coal in the U.S. because of their cross border pollution rule. The president admits it. The EPA enforces it. It’s forcing thousands of coal workers out of work, and thousands of workers who are involved in the production of electricity out of work as well.
94. EPA has declared war on fracking–the ability to drill down and sideways to extract natural gas–even though there’s no environmental impact. Their objection is theoretical: they don’t want the use of carbon at all in the energy resources in the U.S. They don’t want the economic boom in North Dakota to continue into Pennsylvania and Ohio. They want to stop it in its tracks.
95. EPA is attempting to impose cap-and-trade by regulation. Cap and trade is so radical and so inefficient that it could not get out of the super-majorities that were in place in the first two years of Obama’s term. So, he’s trying to impose it through executive branch regulation, and that will roll forward in the blink of an eye as soon as his second term starts.
96. President Obama blames George W. Bush for everything. Everything that goes wrong in his presidency he blames on President Bush. Aren’t you tired of it?
97. 8% unemployment for 42 consecutive months. His Council of Economic Advisors promised that if Congress passed the stimulus package the unemployment rate would not go above 8%, and in fact it’s not been below 8%. The largest extended period of massive unemployment in the U.S. since the Great Depression.
98. Mitt Romney will slash the size and scope of the federal government. He will start to reform the federal mandates. He will begin the long and arduous process of reforming entitlements.
99. Mitt Romney is committed to 340 ships in the U.S. Navy. In a speech to the Citadel last year, said that we’ve got to go to 340 ships, we’ve got to build 9 per year instead of 5, and we’ve got to build the sort of ships that we need, instead of the types of ships that President Obama is deploying. We’ve got to maintain a blue-water navy that is second to none.
100. The People’s Republic of China – they are large and growing, they are not our friends. They are bent on domination of the east and beyond. They are building a blue-water navy with assymetrical warfare capabilities. They manipulate currency. They manipulate trade. They steal intellectual property. They aggressively persecute minorities in their nation. They are doing whatever they can to intimidate Japan. If you think that the PRC is just fine, by all means vote for Barack Obama, but if you think that is a threat not just for the next five years, but for the next fifty, and that someone has to look at it clearly and coldly and do something about it, then vote for Mitt Romney.