Mitt Romney took an interesting step in his ongoing efforts to marginalize Rick Perry as too right-wing to be elected. During an appearance Thursday on CNN, Romney disagreed with Perry calling President Obama a “socialist” — the dreaded label that countless Republicans have used ever since the 2008 election.
Wolf Blitzer played an audio clip of Perry saying the Obama administration policies were, “on its face, socialism,” and asked Romney whether he agreed with that.
“Well, you know, words have a lot of unintended meanings,” said Romney. “And calling people socialists probably goes beyond the fact that — it is true that President Obama’s team, and the president himself, seem to believe that government has a better approach to our economy than does the private sector.
And I disagree with that approach. I believe that we have to have a government that is a partner — that is encouraging the private sector, encouraging freedom, encouraging free people. What they’ve done instead is add regulation, add taxation, add burdens to the free-enterprise system, which does tend to make us more European. And Europe isn’t working in Europe; Europe is not going to work here in this country.
So I don’t use the word socialist — or I haven’t so far. But I do agree that the president’s approach is government-heavy, government-intensive, and it’s not working.
