Obama Rolling Stone Interview: Ayn Rand is for Misunderstood Teenagers

Impact

As a plurality of polls show President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney running neck and neck in what it could be the closest presidential race ever, both campaigns are frantically crisscrossing the handful of so-called swing states that pollsters say will decide the outcome of this election. 

To that effect, Obama and Romney are holding campaign rallies and media appearances in which each candidate seeks to convey a sense of momentum and optimism while telling American voters they are the right choice.

One of these instances is Obama's latest Rolling Stone magazine interview where the president comes out swinging telling readers, among other things, that challenger Mitt Romney is a "bullshitter." 

He also takes a jab at Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a self-professed Ayn Rand admirer. When asked what does he think about Ryan's "obsession" with Rand's work the president replied: 

"Well, you’d have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision. It’s not one that, I think, describes what’s best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a “you’re on your own” society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party."