Mitchell Reports | May 11, 2012
Commencement season begins
Politico’s Jonathan Martin talks about First Lady Michelle Obama’s address at Virginia Tech University on Friday and previews Mitt Romney’s address at Liberty University in Virginia on Saturday.
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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.
>>> it is commencement time, the time of year when graduates are going to get advice, encouragement and in this election year, of course, political campaigning , too. first lady michelle obama is at virginia tech today. president obama will speak at barnard college monday. tomorrow mitt romney heads to liberty university in virginia . conservative christian school founded by the late jerry falwell . liberty university is the place to go when you're looking to go after the movement conservatives, social conservatives . that's the tactic. what do we know about romney 's upcoming commencement address ?
>> i was struck by the focus that the romney folks want to put on his lack of overpandering to christian conservatives . these excerpts could be delivered at any university. romney is extolling the virtue of family and placing family as your top priority over work. i think they are going to walk a fine line this weekend at liberty to try to appeal to christian conservatives , but not go too far down the road when it comes to certain issues. what is going to be fascinating is what mention he makes of the gay marriage issue. it's tough to see how he can avoid it entirely given the events of this week. they don't want to focus on that during this campaign. that's going to be the most notable part, how does he massage that?
>> es neigh charlotte, north carolina , today, in virginia tomorrow. talking about two swing states the president is campaigning actively in. romney as we see today is in charlotte where the democratic convention is going to be held. he's touching all those bases. we'll see more campaigning in those two states.
>> we are. what is so striking is for years, as you know, republicans in those states portrayed them as culturally liberal. democrats struggled on a presidential level for a long time because of culture issues. now it's the opposite. now it's the republicans who want to focus on the fiscal issues. it's the democrats in states like virginia who want to focus on matters like women rights , abortion rights , because the states are changing so much and demographically it's republicans who face the prospect of being on the wrong side of the cultural wars.