Mitt Romney doesn’t have the reputation of being a comedian. But he’s still cracking up at least one of his Democratic critics.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday that it was “laughable” that Romney is promoting bipartisanship and that Democrats will help him pass his agenda if he’s elected president.
“Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his ‘severely conservative’ agenda is laughable,” Reid said in a statement, referring to the GOPer's declaration earlier during the campaign season that he was “severely conservative.”
During a speech that’s being billed as a “closing argument” in West Allis, Wisconsin on Friday, Romney pointed to the lack of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill and promised to meet regularly with congressional lawmakers.
Reid believes, however, that would be easier said than done. The Democrat said that in the past few months, Congress has voted against many of the major policies Romney has run on, including “the Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it, the Blunt Amendment to deny women access to contraception, more tax giveaways for millionaires and billionaires, [and] a draconian spending plan that would gut critical services for seniors and the most vulnerable Americans.”
On Thursday night’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews ripped Romney for flip-flopping and blatant pandering - in February, Romney tried to convince the hard right that he was a strict conservative. “Fast forward about seven months, and now Mitt Romney is out there using his experience as Massachusetts governor to convince voters he’s actually bipartisan,” said Matthews.
Former Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, who ran against Romney in 2002's gubernatorial race, said the notion that Romney worked with both parties while governor was a joke.
“He really didn’t get along with Democrats in the state. He certainly wasn’t bipartisan,” O'Brien said.
“When Mitt Romney came in as governor, he was actually a CEO. He was used to just kind of telling people what to do and expecting them to listen to him. That didn’t sit well with the Democratically-controlled legislature.”
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson added, “You don’t know exactly what [Romney’s] core beliefs are. They seem to be so fungible and so malleable.”
Tune into Hardball tonight at 5pm. We'll have msnbc political analysts David Corn of Mother Jones and Joy Reid of TheGrio.com to weigh in on the candidates' closing arguments.