Following President Obama’s recent comments regarding how he believes successful businesses are created and maintained, the Romney campaign seized on the President’s statement when he said “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” and has turned it into an ad campaign. The President, as expected, was compelled to respond.
First, Romney’s ad:
In response, the President put out this ad:
Report on all this from the Washington Post:
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney launched a concerted push Wednesday to depict President Obama as hostile to small business, using the infamous snippet from one of Obama’s speeches now known in political shorthand as “You Didn’t Build That.”
The president’s campaign countered with a new television ad saying that his remarks were flagrantly wrenched out of context. The dispute is the latest example of a campaign plucking lines from an opponent’s speech in an effort to support and reinforce a broader, negative narrative that it hopes will resonate with voters. In this case, Republicans contend that the remarks capture Obama’s identity as a leader who neither understands nor respects business and instinctively looks to government for solutions.
Here is the complete, unedited text of the President’s remarks from the White House’s official transcript made on July 13, 2012 from Roanoke, Virginia:
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
You can make the call on how out of context the statement or sentiment may or may not be.
