As Melissa Harris-Perry and her guest Jessy Tolkan noted when reacting to Mitt Romney's speech to students in Ohio, he continues to show that he's not exactly in touch with most working Americans when he says things like this. Romney’s Advice
April 28, 2012

As Melissa Harris-Perry and her guest Jessy Tolkan noted when reacting to Mitt Romney's speech to students in Ohio, he continues to show that he's not exactly in touch with most working Americans when he says things like this.

Romney’s Advice To Students: Borrow Money From Your Parents:

If you’re young and you want to start your own business, Mitt Romney’s has some advice from you: Borrow money from your parents. At a “lecture” for students at Otterbein University in Ohio today, Mitt Romney told students that, his friend, Jimmy John, started a business by borrowing $20,000 from his parents at a low interest rate. Romney suggested anyone in the audience could do the same:

This kind of devisiveness, this attack of success, is very different than what we’ve seen in our country’s history. We’ve always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.

As they noted at Think Progress, which was Harris-Perry's reaction as well, "Most students don’t have parents with $20,000 in disposable capital sitting around to give to their kids to start a business." Most Americans are not fortunate enough to be able to sell off part of the stock portfolio given to them by their father to get by either.

It seems Romney had the crowd so excited there, that the kids were struggling to stay awake -- Crowd-Working 101: Romney Struggles To Hold College Students’ Attention.

The volume levels at the colleges President Obama spoke at this week as part of his campaign to keep student loan rates down hovered somewhere between “NBA playoff game” and “supersonic jet.” Mitt Romney’s address Friday at Otterbein University was not quite there yet.

Mostly sticking to his go-to stump topics, Romney delivered a sleepy address to students at the Ohio school, some of whom seemed to struggle to stay awake. Sometimes it was a losing struggle. [...]

The reactions from students in attendance leaves something to be desired — especially when you compare their subdued, seated observance of Romney’s speech with the raucous reception Obama received this week. We mashed the two up into a video. Be sure to focus on the faces behind the two candidates:

[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bzUKrBOBabE" width="450" height="335" resize="1" fid="21"]

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