The AP: “Romney pushes on with discredited welfare attacks.” “Romney’s welfare push comes with risk for the presumptive GOP nominee. Focusing too heavily on welfare, which had barely registered as a campaign issue before Romney began pushing it, could turn off voters who want to hear the candidates offer specific prescriptions for job growth,” AP writes. “It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign and seeking to boost support among white, working-class voters by charging that the nation’s first black president is offering a free pass to recipients of a program stereotypically associated with poor African-Americans. And Romney runs the risk of denting his credibility with voters by peddling an argument that has been widely debunked.”
Steve Lombardo, a GOP pollster who worked on Romney’s 2008 campaign said this: “It’s a tacit acknowledgement that it’s not enough to just hammer the economy. That will get you to 46, 47 percent, but it won’t get you to 51 percent.”
The Romney campaign is even out with a press release marking the anniversary of the passage of welfare reform.
Romney’s criticizing Obama over his health-care law in an ad called, “Nothing’s Free.” It again notes the $716 billion in Medicare cuts.
The New York Times: “Patients Would Pay More if Romney Restores Medicare Savings, Analysts Say.”
Rep. Todd Akin confirmed on TODAY that Paul Ryan told him he should step aside. "He advised me that it would be good for me to step down. I told him that I was going to be looking at this very seriously, trying to weigh all the different points on this."
The Boston Globe: “Republican Party approves strict anti-abortion platform.” It’s one Mitt Romney isn’t in lockstep with. “The platform will come up for a vote of the convention delegates on Monday.”
“For weeks, Mitt Romney and the GOP have hammered President Obama for his ‘you didn't build that line’ about job creation in America,” USA Today writes. “Now, a variation of that Obama line and Romney's message about the work of individuals vs. the work of government will be taking center stage at the Republican National Convention next week.”
Rick Santorum (via Political Wire): "If the campaign is about issues, we win. If it's about Mitt Romney's record as a businessman, then we don't win. If it's about Mitt Romney's tax returns, then we don't win. If it's about whether people like Mitt Romney more than Barack Obama, then we don't win."
