2012 Kickoff

Romney Fires Off at ‘Obamacare’

In New Hampshire speech.

Get your first look at 2012. In a speech seen as the unofficial start to his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney spoke to New Hampshire voters about the evils of Obama's health-care reform and about how the economy is “a moral problem” that the president has made worse. He called unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies “the Obama Misery Index,” saying, “It’s going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work.” The Democrats seem to be taking Romney's challenge seriously. They issued a press release fact-checking his statements, questioning his record as Massachusetts governor, and pointing out that Romney wrote a book in 2008 calling for a stimulus. Romney also took pains to distance himself from health-care reform, downplaying the success of his own state's program and calling for the repeal of “Obamacare” several times. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee attacked “Romneycare” as “socialized medicine” in his new book.