Emanuel: Romney’s Speech was “Groundhog Day’

Chicago Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel laid into Mitt Romney’s Republican National Convention speech and said it was “devoid and vacuous of any ideas.”

“He’s basically laid out the policy of a ‘Groundhog Day,’ which is, we’re going to go back to the very things that led to a recession, led to a middle class that, for the first time in American history, in a decade, actually saw their economic security decline,” Emanuel said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He also said Romney’s address lacked message.

“The reason we’re debating and even discussing Clint Eastwood is because there is nothing memorable about Mitt Romney’s speech,” Emanuel said. “There is not a memorable line, a memorable policy.”

President Barack Obama, who will take his turn at the podium this week during the Democratic National Convention, will deliver a message of hope for the middle class, he said.

“They’re frustrated that we have a society and an economy, as well as a culture, that has kind of two sets of rule books and two sets of values — one for those that are the most fortunate, who operate by a different set of rules, and another set of rules for everybody else,” Emanuel said. “Think about it: When a business fails, sometimes, people get a golden parachute. Other people get a pink slip. Those aren’t the same rules. Those aren’t the same values.”

Obama wants to establish the middle class as the bedrock of America, he said.

“Building this country means building the middle class, and he has to lay that vision and how we will specifically get there, and that will stand in contrast to Mitt Romney’s speech, because there was none of that,” Emanuel said.