A Frontrunner’s Closing Argument

In major speech Tuesday in Bedford, Romney frames 2012 as "a choice between two destinies" — Obama's "entitlement society" and his "opportunity society."

Bay Stater: "But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama.  Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities.  President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes."

Chicago fires back: "Only a candidate like Mitt Romney could give a speech like this with a straight face."

Read the Obama campaign's full response below.

Ben Labolt: "Only a candidate like Mitt Romney could give a speech like this with a straight face. Governor Romney claims to want to level the playing field to create opportunity, but all his policies do is stack the deck against the middle class. He has repackaged the same policies that caused the economic crisis and led to the insecurity middle class families have been facing. The President is fighting to build an economy where hard work and responsibility are rewarded, everyone plays by the same rules whether on Wall Street or Main Street and economic security for the middle class is restored.” – Ben LaBolt, Press Secretary, Obama for America"

TOP TEN WAYS IN WHICH MITT ROMNEY WOULD STACK THE DECK AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS

— Extending massive tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations while only offering the typical middle class family a $54 tax cut
— Letting Wall Street write their own rules again, putting taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts and middle class security at risk
Repealing the Affordable Care Act, allowing insurance companies go back to the days of dropping coverage when you get sick, double digit premium increases or denying coverage because of a preexisting condition
— Privatizing Medicare and telling seniors they’re on their own to pay for their health care coverage
— Rubberstamping the Republican budget plan that would lead to deep cuts in Social Security and wipe out investments in education and programs essential to creating jobs for the middle class while refusing to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share
— As corporate buyout specialist, firing thousands of workers, closing dozens of plants and outsourcing jobs to China to boost profits for himself and his partners
— Letting Detroit go bankrupt instead of extending a rescue loan to the auto industry that saved 1.4 million jobs and the auto manufacturers from liquidation
— Letting the foreclosure process “hit the bottom” so that investors can come in and make a quick buck, rather than promoting refinancing opportunities for responsible homeowners
— Eliminating the estate tax for millionaires and billionaires and making seniors and the middle class foot the bill
— Undermining collective bargaining rights for workers, taking away a seat at the table for middle class families when their economic livelihoods are on the line