Party-crashing bus full of useful idiots heading for Mitt Romney

Massachusetts liberals aiming to chip away at GOP prez hopeful’s veneer

By Chris Cassidy
Monday, August 13, 2012

Boston Herald:

Beacon Hill Democrats are launching themselves across battleground states as attack dogs for President Obama, on a mission to tell undecided voters all about GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s faults and failures, but Republicans say the liberal naysayers are wasting their time — swing states won’t buy that blue state shtick.

Riding a Democratic bus down the Atlantic Seaboard from Virginia to Florida this weekend on the Romney Economics: The Middle Class Under the Bus tour, state Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick) and Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, a former state representative, told local crowds that Romney turned his back on average Bay Staters when he was governor. State Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein (D-Revere) flew into Washington, D.C., to catch the bus to Virginia and North Carolina.

“The things he was saying in Massachusetts, campaigning as governor, are the same things he’s saying campaigning across the country,” said Reinstein, who stumped for Obama in Wisconsin and Iowa in June. “We’re here to say, ‘Yup, he said it and he didn’t do any of the things he said he would do.’”

The bus serves as a sort of anti-Mitt advance team, hitting states a day ahead of Romney and running mate Paul Ryan. The Democrats cruised through Virginia on Friday and North Carolina on Saturday, moving on to Florida yesterday. State Rep. Martha M. Walz (D-Boston) will board a bus in Ohio today — 24 hours before Romney and Ryan arrive.

The Democrats’ claims: Mitt was an absentee governor, more interested in running for president. He raised fees. On his watch, the state’s cost of living went up while median income went down. And, they say, he had an abysmal record on job creation.

But conservatives said the lawmakers’ road trip is a parade of empty suits.

“I don’t think the Massachusetts political class enjoys an especially strong national reputation,” said Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com. “How many of your House speakers have gone to jail?”

For the record, only one: Salvatore F. DiMasi, for corruption. His predecessors, Tom Finneran and Charlie Flaherty, pleaded guilty — obstruction of justice and tax evasion, respectively — but served no time.

“In general, it’s something people are going to shrug off,” GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said about the tour. “We’re at the stage now where records aren’t as important as Romney and Ryan being able to tell people what they’re going to be able to do over the next four years. Voters know the blame game.”

The Democrats counter they’ll clue in the electorate on some hard truths.

“Those of us who were in the Legislature at the same time Mitt Romney was governor have a unique perspective that we can bring to other states,” Walz said. “Voters in other states should understand what he was like as governor because it’s the best window into what he will be like as president.”

Expect local Democrats to keep racking up the miles through the fall, Democratic National Committee regional press secretary Kevin Harris said. “We absolutely will recruit folks to keep him honest and tell the story of what really happened in Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts.”