Obama attacks Romney with extended football metaphor
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markknoller Mark Knoller
The mother of all football metaphors - Coach Obama slams Coach Romney at Labor Day event. Read his full remarksObama attacks Romney with extended football metaphor
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- Campaign 2012
President Barack Obama waves to supporters after speaking a campaign event at Scott High School, Monday, Sept. 3, 2012, in Toledo, Ohio.
(Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)(CBS News) TOLEDO, Ohio -- In what may be the longest football metaphor ever spoken by a presidential candidate in American politics, President Obama on Monday portrayed Mitt Romney as a "losing coach" whose game plan should be "punted away."
At a Labor Day event sponsored by the United Auto Workers Union, Mr. Obama seized on a comment Romney made in Ohio after the Republican Convention that "he's gonna be the coach that leads America to a winning season."
Actually, Mr. Obama left out the part of Romney's football analogy that targeted him. It was a swipe at the number of unemployed and underemployed on Mr. Obama's watch.
"If you have a coach that is zero and 23 million, you say it's time to get a new coach," said Romney last Saturday at a rally in Cincinnati.
Nevertheless, Mr. Obama downplayed Romney's chances of delivering a winning season for the economy, saying, "Everybody's already seen his economic playbook."
And then, as if he were the play-by-play man on the presidential gridiron, Mr. Obama began his call of Romney's game:
"On first down - he hikes taxes...by nearly $2,000 on the average family with kids in order to pay for a massive tax cut for multi-millionaires."
"Sounds like unnecessary roughness to me," said the president to cheers from his audience of union members.
"On second down: he calls an audible and undoes reforms that are there to prevent another financial crisis and bank bailout. He wants to get rid of rules that are there to protect our air and water and workers' rights and protections that are there to make sure health care is there for you when you get sick."
