Gov. Bob McDonnell will take to the stage at the Republican National Convention next Tuesday night to deliver a speech focused on the GOP’s vision for small business and growing the economy.
The speech, slated for sometime after 8 p.m. during the coveted prime-time window, is themed “We Built It,” according to a McDonnell spokesman.
It’s a reference to a remark that President Barack Obama made during a July visit to Roanoke that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Republicans have hammered Obama over the comment, running a TV ad based on it, among other things. (The Obama campaign pushed back with an ad of its own.)
Obama said during the Roanoke event that “if you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.
“Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
McDonnell, a top surrogate for presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is in Tampa this week for his work as chairman of the convention’s platform committee and is scheduled to return Wednesday to Richmond. He heads back to Florida next week for the convention, which runs Aug. 27-30.
