Following a visit by President Barack Obama to campus, Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s oldest son touted his father as the clear choice for college students in the November elections Friday in Madison.
Addressing more than eighty people at State Street Brats, Tagg Romney said his father would bring the skills he gained working in the private sector to help create jobs for college students entering the work force. He said Obama’s policies were not working for the country.
“If more taxes and more regulations work, we would be seeing a massive recovery right now,” Tagg Romney said. “They haven’t worked. This has been the slowest recovery in the modern era.”
He also said his father would reduce a $16 trillion debt that would fall on the younger generation to pay back.
Tagg Romney said his father, while CEO of the Salt Lake Coordinating Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, inherited a $400 million deficit but in three years left the Olympics with a $100 million surplus. Tagg Romney said Olympics do not run surpluses.
“My dad’s extraordinary,” Tagg Romney said. “He knows how to fix things. He knows how to make things work. He knows how to take things apart and put them back together again. That’s what we need in Washington.”
However, in an interview with The Badger Herald, University of Wisconsin College Democrats Chair Chris Hoffman said the data released Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Obama’s policies are working to create jobs for college students entering the job market.
Hoffman said the unemployment rate has fallen to under eight percent for the first time in four years and that Obama’s policies have led to 100,000 jobs added over the past month.
Obama’s Thursday visit shows the state is not contentious because he drew the largest crowd in his stop of the election cycle, Hoffman said. He added if Obama was worried about losing the state in November, he would be targeting rural communities in Wisconsin with more independent voters.
UW College Republican Chairman Jeff Snow said Tagg Romney’s visit and a Saturday visit by Republican vice presidential nominee and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, to Milwaukee show the state is within Romney’s reach. He said Obama’s visit indicates his concern about winning the state in November.
“When you come to a state two times in two weeks after you won it by 14 points in the previous election, you know you’re in some sort of trouble,” Snow said.
Courtney Jackson, a UW freshman and intern for Wisconsin First Lady Tonette Walker, said she was excited to listen to Tagg Romney because the visit by Obama to campus was difficult for conservatives since they do not have much support on campus.
She said she supports Romney because he supports life in more ways than just being “pro-life.” For example, she said he would cut government spending to programs that do not empower the poor to find jobs.
“He’s going to really create change, which he has before,” Jackson said. “So you can trust he’s going to do it again.”
Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, released a poll Saturday showing Obama leading Mitt Romney 49 percent to 47 percent, a drop from its Sept. 20 poll that showed Obama leading Romney 52 to 45. The poll attributed the bounce to Romney’s debate performance.
