The White House reacted to the news that Mitt Romney would forego another run for president by thanking him for beginning a more robust debate in the Republican party about the gap between the middle class and the super-wealthy.
“Gov. Romney is a man of faith and a man of tremendous loyalty and commitment to his country, and that is something that is worthy of respect,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Calling the decision not to run for president a “difficult” and “intensely personal” one, Earnest said he believes other Republican presidential candidates will vigorously seek Romney’s endorsement. The White House hopes, he said, that Romney will use that leverage to elevate the debate about the need to help middle-class Americans.
“If that can at least be our starting point, we have accomplished something,” Earnest said.
Earnest also denied that Obama was mocking Romney’s anti-poverty pitch during remarks Thursday night at the House Democratic Caucus retreat in Philadelphia.
Obama told fellow Democrats gathered there that a “former Republican presidential candidate” was “suddenly deeply concerned about poverty.”
“That’s great! Let’s go do something about it,” Obama added.
During the 2012 race, the Obama campaign repeatedly tried to paint the former Massachusetts governor as an out-of-touch outsourcer. It also hammered him for telling a a private group of financial supporters that some 47 percent of Americans would never support him and he could not convince them to take personal responsibility for their lives.
“What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like,” he said at the May 2012 event in Florida.
Romney said those comment were taken out of context. In recent weeks, he has blamed Obama for failing to close the gap between the rich and the poor, arguing that the president’s liberal policies make for good campaign rhetoric but don’t do enough to address the income disparity.
