White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Thursday that neither President Obama nor the American people, as evidenced by the result of the election, agree with Mitt Romney’s remarks to donors on Wednesday night in which the former Republican nominee blamed President Obama’s re-election on “big gifts” for minorities, women, and young voters.
“That view of the American people of the electorate and of the election is at odds with the truth of what happened last week,” Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One, per a White House pool report. “As we talked about a lot and the president talked about a lot, making it easier for Americans to go to college – that’s good for America. It’s good for all Americans. It’s good for the economy. Making health care available to young people who can stay on their parents’ plans. That’s good for those families it’s good for those young people so they aren’t bankrupted in their 20s by an illness. And it’s good for the economy and it’s good for all of us.”
Carney contrasted Romney’s message with Obama’s goal of fighting for the middle class, a focus he emphatically stressed at his first post-election news conference at the White House on Wednesday.
“The president pursues policies that have at their core a desire to build the middle class, strengthen the middle class, make the middle class more secure, because that’s what makes America more secure,” Carney said. “So it’s just not the view we take about the decision the American people made last week.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) also condemned Romney’s comments at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas on Wednesday, telling reporters that the GOP needs to fight to represent 100 percent of the voting electorate.
“If we’re going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and secondly, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream, period,” he said. “No exceptions.”
