Texas Gov. Rick Perry is kicking off his presidential campaign with a bit of creative spin on S&P’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating: turns out President Obama did it.
In his first and bio-heavy campaign video of his presidential campaign, Perry places the blame for the downgrade squarely on the shoulders of Obama. This comes despite the fact that S&P itself says the slew of congressional Republicans who were (at best) apathetic about default were responsible for the rating agency’s controversial decision.
“Record debt and the president’s refusal to control spending led to our nation’s credit rating being downgraded for the first time in history,” the Perry video’s narrator says.
Most of the video is about how tough the economy is and how great Perry is — both important messages for Perry’s fledgling campaign. But polls have shown voters are turned off by how the GOP handled the whole debt crisis (even if they agree with the credit downgrade it caused.) Perry put himself among the pro-default crowd during the debt ceiling debate, and like most of the Republicans who rejected the dangers of default he’s now blaming Obama for the problem S&P says he and others who share his views caused.
Watch the video:
