Time Mag Editor: 'Only Thing Weaker Than the Economy Is Romney's Electoral Skills'

Noel Sheppard
July 15th, 2012 6:22 PM
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"The only thing weaker than the economy is Mitt Romney's electoral skills."

Such was actually said on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday by Rana Foroohar, Time magazine's assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: Let me-- let me go to Rana because you-- you wrote something very interesting the other day. You said that since 1967 when consumer confidence is as low as it is right now the incumbent is always defeated. Does that mean this thing is already over?

RANA FOROOHAR (TIME Magazine): Well, you know, I actually think that we're on the verge of a historic upset. That's true, the statistic that you just gave. And it would make you think that Obama has no chance of winning this election. But I think this election is going to hinge on middle-class pain. I think that people know that what's happened in the last four years have not been down to Obama's policies, it's about globalization, it's about the rise of technology. Each recovery since the early 1990s has been weaker and taken longer than the one before. So this is a-- this is a twenty-year problem. This is not a three- or four-year problem and I think that whoever can best speak to the middle-class is the person that's going to win.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, what do you mean when you say a historic upset?

RANA FOROOHAR: Well, I think that traditionally if you had consumer confidence numbers that were this weak and growth that was this low, there would be no chance that the incumbent is going to win, but, frankly, I think the only thing weaker than the economy is Mitt Romney's electoral skills. And I think he hasn't really put himself in a good position for this debate over the middle class.

"The only thing weaker than the economy is Mitt Romney's electoral skills."

And this woman has an editing function at Time.

Pretty scary, don't you think?