CBS host to RNC chair: Romney 'silly and petty' for Solyndra stunt

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday called an Obama campaign event in Boston a "political stunt," but said the same wasn't true of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's surprise press conference in front of Solyndra, a bankrupt solar energy company.

During an interview on CBS, host Bob Schieffer began by asking Priebus if he expected Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to win Tuesday's recall election.

"I think it's going pretty well," the RNC chairman insisted. "You know, the difference between Scott Walker and the president is pretty stark. ... Scott Walker is one of these special people that have made promises and kept promises. You contrast that to [Obama adviser] David Axelrod's boss, he's a president who's in love with the sound of his own voice but hasn't been able to follow through on too many promises."

Schieffer went on press Priebus about the differences between an Obama campaign rally in Boston -- which Republicans admit they tried to undermine -- and the GOP hopeful's visit to Solyndra, where the Romney campaign said there might be a White House conspiracy to block the event.

"You say, a president that's in love with his own voice," Schieffer noted. "That leads me to what you all were doing last week, that is organizing a rally to try to drown out David Axelrod when he goes up to Boston at the same that out on the west coast Gov. Romney was loading up reporters and taking them on a secret mission to the Solyndra plant because he said he couldn't reveal where they were going, but he was fearful that Democrats would try to break that up."

"Isn't that kind of silly and petty when you look at it?" the CBS host wondered.

"I think Solyndra is a serious thing," Priebus argued. "I think highlighting Solyndra, highlighting this president's foray into venture capitalism, using taxpayer money to send to Solyndra, of which the Solyndra executives were donors to Barack Obama. I mean, this is political cronyism in its worse form."

"Now as far as David Axelrod and going to Boston, I mean, that's the height of a political stunt," he continued. "I mean, what's the purpose of the Chicago clan going to Boston to hold some sort of political stunt? And for these tough guys from Chicago to cry about it, I just find it laughable."

"They've failed so badly that they want us to believe that we're not living on Earth and that the president isn't the president and all of these things that are going wrong have nothing to do with Barack Obama."

Watch this video from CBS's Face the Nation, broadcast June 3, 2012.