Former Mitt Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said on CNN today that part of the reason President Obama has so little “political capital” these days is because he’s on vacation in Hawaii, and “Hawaii, to many Americans, seems like a foreign place.”
As ThinkProgress pointed out, Madden was asked why the Republicans were pouncing on Obama for waiting three days to respond to the Flight 253 incident, when President Bush waited 6 days in 2001 following the shoe bomber incident.
As part of his response, Madden said:
You have to also remember the fact that the president being on vacation in Hawaii, it’s much different than being in Texas. Hawaii to many Americans seems like a foreign place. And I think those images, the optics, hurt President Obama very badly.
Here’s the full clip:
