TAMPA, Fla. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed President Obama for his lack of leadership during a speech at the Republican National Convention, Wednesday evening.
“We’re here this week for the simple reason that our nation is in desperate need of leadership,” he said, proclaiming GOP nominee Mitt Romney the man who can restore leadership help the country recover.
McConnell reasserted his own belief in American exceptionalism, noting that Obama “scoffs at this idea.”
“To him, this kind of thinking is the problem, not the solution. That’s why he’s spent the last four years lowering Americans’ expectations instead of raising them,” McConnell said. “That’s why he’s been missing in action on the greatest challenges of the day. What this administration has in mind for America isn’t a renewal, it’s a great leveling out.”
The Senate’s Republican leader noted that the Obama administration is looking to bring European “government-imposed equality.”
“Where they make promises they can’t keep and write checks they can’t cash. But that’s not who we are,” he said. “It just doesn’t occur to an American that someone else will solve their problems. Americans take pride in solving problems for themselves. And if we fail, we get back up and try again.”
McConnell added that Obama’s goal is managed decline. To McConnell, only Romney can solve America’s problems, instead of fleeing from them as he believes the Obama administration has.
“For four years, Barack Obama has been running from the nation’s problems,” the Kentucky senator said, going on to take a jab at Obama’s proclivity for taking time out to golf. “He hasn’t been working to earn reelection. He’s been working to earn a spot on the PGA tour.”
By contrast, McConnell pushed Romney as a problem solver and innovator.
“That’s why he believes in his heart that America has a future full of opportunity and hope,” he said. “And that’s why when Mitt Romney looks down the road, he sees a country that’s ready for a comeback. I firmly believe he’s the man to lead it.”
McConnell noted the country’s economic blight, claiming that current conditions are not a “recovery.”
“To call this a recovery is an insult to recoveries,” he said, placing the blame squarely at the feet of the Obama administration and their policies “that are meant to gently lull us into a state of lower expectations and diminished dreams.”
According to McConnell Obama does not understand the gravity of the problem — recalling some of Obama’s recent, more superficial moments.
“On the same day we learned that unemployment went up in 44 out of 50 states last month, the president of the United States took to the airwaves to tell the people of Albuquerque that he enjoys green chile, but prefers red,” he said. “We know what the President’s got on his iPod, but we don’t know what he plans to do about a looming tax hike that could trigger yet another serious recession that would result in even more Americans losing their jobs.”
McConnell concluded it is time to move on and embrace leadership, to the Kentucky senator, Romney is the one.