GOP hopefuls campaign on holiday in 2 states

Romney again mixes messages about Obama and the economy

He says Obama has made the recession deeper but at the same time speaks of an 'anemic recovery.'

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, shakes hands while marching in the Amherst, N.H., Fourth of July parade. (Darren McCollester, Getty Images / July 4, 2011)

By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times

July 5, 2011

Reporting from Amherst, N.H.—

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has struggled to craft a consistent economic message in recent weeks — first blaming President Obama for driving the country deeper into recession and then backing off that charge during a visit to Pennsylvania. On Monday in southern New Hampshire, he appeared to offer those conflicting messages within one sentence.

The former Massachusetts governor's remarks about the economy came at the end of a Fourth of July parade in Amherst, a heavily Republican town southwest of Manchester, during a pep talk with volunteers. He asked them to keep working for him all the way through New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary next year.

• Related
• July 4 parades are serious business for candidates
• Obama faces a less friendly Iowa
• Michele Bachmann courts conservative Iowa voters on bus tour
• New Hampshire's hardy economy makes campaigning tricky

"Don't forget what this is all about," he told the group that crowded around him after he stepped onto a wooden replica of a soapbox in the town green. "We love this country; it's the greatest country in the history of the Earth, and we face extraordinary challenges right now. Our president has failed us.

"The recession is deeper because of our president; it's seen an anemic recovery because of our president. The people who want the status quo can vote for him, but people who want real change and jobs for Americans are going to vote for us."

Those statements — that the president had driven the economy deeper into recession but also that an "anemic" recovery had occurred — not only seemed to be contradictory, but also at odds with what Romney has previously argued.Read more...