Sarah Geving, who co-owns a small home-based commercial cleaning businesses with her husband, said she was “insulted beyond words” by Pres. Obama’s remarks in July about business creation amid the collective.
Before a campaign rally last week in Lakewood, Colo., for Paul Ryan, Romney’s V.P. pick, we asked her reaction to Pres. Obama’s statement in Virginia that, “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that.”
Of note, Geving’s answer paraphrased the context that the President’s defenders said was missing in the firestorm of media coverage and criticism that followed his remarks.
QUESTION: “What’s your reaction to the president when he said recently, ‘If you have a business, you didn’t build it?’” [sic]
GEVING: “Insulted beyond words. We started that business from nothing. In fact the first paycheck we received we framed because it was for 300 whopping dollars. And we started by cold calling…”
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“…We work out of our home. So, it doesn’t matter that Obama said, [paraphrasing] ‘If you drove on a road that the government built, you didn’t build that business, we helped you.’ I can tell you from firsthand experience it was picking up the phone and dialing those phone numbers and making those cold calls. That’s what started that business and that’s what grew that business. With every contract that we lose because of the poor economy and people shrinking their business or shutting down their business, we’re continually out there fighting for more business and Obama had nothing to do with that. He doesn’t pay my phone bill. He doesn’t provide the phone. He doesn’t provide my home. We built that business.”
There have been a series of symbolic rebellions by small business owners in response to Pres. Obama’s “you didn’t build that.” Russ Murty, a caterer in Davenport, Iowa, who, while serving the President’s press corps, wore a Romney Campaign T-shirt emblazoned with “Government didn’t build my business, I did.” Then it was Chris McMurray, a bakery owner at Crumb and Get it, in Radford, Va., who refused an offer from Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s advance team to host the campaign’s event in his storefront shop. Then, on Saturday, Al Letizio a New Hampshire small businessman, assembled a protest in front of his business, which just happened to be on Pres. Obama’s route as he traveled to a campaign rally.
