JOLIET, Ill. — Deborah Carpenter, founder and owner of a chain of local convenience stores, has called out presidential candidate Mitt Romney for misrepresenting their brief conversation at a recent campaign rally.
In a recent stump speech, Romney said, “A lovely small business owner named Deborah told me that I had her vote because the President’s economic strategies had failed her and she believed, as I do, that we needed a change. She told me, ‘I’m worried about my kids going to college, I’m worried about my mortgage, and I’m worried about how the challenges facing my business are affecting my life.’”
But Carpenter has told the press that she never actually spoke such words, and that her “conversation” with Romney lasted no more than ten seconds.
“Look, I’m a Romney fan,” Carpenter told Newslo. “I wouldn’t have attended the rally if I weren’t. But when he passed by me and I asked him for specifics on his strategies to protect small business owners, he said, ‘Well…’ and then one of his aides pushed me aside so that he could get a photo with a baby.
“Also,” Carpenter added, “I don’t even have any children.”
Carpenter’s statements have inspired other misrepresented small business owners to come forth with their own stories. Alan Singh, owner of an accounting group in Glendale, CA, has claimed that President Obama fabricated details of their interaction in a recent stump speech as well.
Obama told the audience, “A small business owner named Alan runs an accounting firm in southern California. He asked me about corporate tax rates, whether I’d increase them, and I told him I was dedicated to making the wealthy, powerful individuals and corporations contribute more to this country, instead of small businesses having to make sacrifices so that the rich can keep their comfortable exemption cushions.”
But Singh told Newslo, “Obama never said those things to me.
“I was wearing a Lakers hat,” Singh continued, “and when I asked the President what he’d do to continue turning the economy around without making small businesses like mine suffer, he smiled and said, ‘Hey, I’m a Kobe fan too!’”
