Thursday, July 19, 2012 4:44:50 AM
Whose endorsement would you least want?
July 17, 2012
Rachel Maddow poses a political challenge: Which non-incarcerated famous person would you least want to endorse you if you were running for office?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/48219363#48219363 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWBWduAvZwo ]
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Uncommon Knowledge: George W. Bush
This week on Uncommon Knowledge President George W. Bush discusses postpresidential life and his work at the Bush Institute.
To listen to an mp3 of the interview go to:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/uncommon-knowledge-audio-edition/id384420950
http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncommonKnowledgeAudio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RbAZj9RB94
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Romney on Tax Returns: ‘I’m Simply Not Enthusiastic about Giving Them Hundreds or Thousands of More Pages to Pick Through, Distort, and Lie About’
By Robert Costa
July 17, 2012 11:31 A.M.
Earlier today, Mitt Romney spoke with National Review Online about life on the trail, his meeting with Dick Cheney, and his upcoming trip to Europe. He called from western Pennsylvania, where he will later hold a rally at a wireless company.
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A few days ago, you visited Vice President Cheney. Did he have any advice for you?
We did speak, at some length, about foreign-policy matters, in particular the circumstances surrounding some of the foreign-policy decisions of the Bush administration. I discussed with him the process of decision-making, and he described the individuals, the types of meetings that occurred, and the expression of views. Of course, I did not get him to tell me about individual personalities and their own perspectives, but rather the process by which the White House was able to take on important issues.
Speaking of Cheney, what makes a good vice president?
Well, I can’t speak for other people who’ve run for office and what they’ve looked for in a person who would be their vice president. In my own view, the people I’ve worked with over my career have been people who have the capacity to lead, who share my philosophy, and in some cases, people who provide perspectives and skills that I may not share.
We’ve heard a lot about Bain this week. How would you rate the press coverage?
I don’t see a lot of the press coverage because my travel schedule keeps me from seeing all of it. A long time ago, I got good advice from a friend who said, “Don’t read the papers, they’ll only throw you off of your message.” I don’t worry a lot about what’s being said from day to day. My own view is that people will recognize that I was instrumental in helping build a very successful business that employed a lot of people, and that our business was able to invest in other people’s dreams, many of which were successful.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel says you should stop whining about the Bain attacks. What’s your response?
I only call people out when they are being dishonest.
Looking back, how did your time at Bain prepare you for the presidency?
Your life experiences can come together and prepare you for responsibilities later in life. In my own experience, my family life, learning from the example of my parents, my life in my church, my education, my years in consulting, my years in the investment world, my leadership at the Olympics, and finally my leadership in Massachusetts — this all contributed to the person I am today and the capability I have to lead. With regard to Bain in particular, I had about ten years in consulting and 14 or 15 years in the investment world. The 25 years I spent in business gave me an understanding of how business decisions are made, as well as an understanding of the actions that are destructive to job creation and the actions that encourage job creation. I’ve watched this president, and his policies have made it harder to create jobs. His economic philosophy, shockingly revealed in his comment a day or so ago, is the reason why he has been so unsuccessful in reigniting economic growth.
Up in Boston, does your campaign have a similar corporate culture? Do you run it the Bain way, with horizontal leadership and vigorous debate?
Bain Capital was a firm that I led for 14 or 15 years, and Bain Consulting was an enterprise I led for two years as CEO. Our campaign is not modeled after either group.
For much of this week, you’ve been asked about your tax returns. What’s the downside to releasing your pre-2010 financial records?
My tax returns that have already been released number into the hundreds of pages. And we will be releasing tax returns for the most current year as soon as those are prepared. They will also number in the hundreds of pages. In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.
From a political perspective, a lot of pundits wonder why you haven’t gotten rid of your offshore accounts. Can you explain why you have not done that?
Well, first of all, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. By virtue of that, the decisions made by the trustee are the decisions that determine where the investments are. Secondly, the so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts.
Former president George W. Bush is coming out with a new book, The 4% Solution, about economic growth. Is 4 percent growth viable?
He’s absolutely right that we’re not growing fast enough. The president’s policies have failed to create the kind of GDP growth that America could achieve. Job growth is well beneath the level we should be seeing, and that results from an economy that’s growing much less swiftly than it could. My policies are designed to achieve 4 percent per year growth of the GDP. I would also note that I would hope we could see a rate a good deal higher than that on a temporary basis after we come out of the economic doldrums of the Obama years.
In late June, when the Supreme Court upheld the president’s health-care law, Chief Justice Roberts disappointed many conservatives. Did Roberts’s ruling change your perspective on how you, as president, would evaluate a Supreme Court nominee?
I disagreed with the Roberts decision and I would be interested in an evaluation of a Supreme Court nominee that looked at his or her thinking on making difficult constitutional decisions. We don’t yet know the rationale fully behind Roberts’s change of opinion, but when we do, it will tell us more about the nature of someone we would nominate. I suspect that Justice Roberts shied away from making a big decision, despite his conviction that the Constitution, in reality, would have led to striking down Obamacare.
You’re heading abroad next week. Why are you going to Europe?
Foreign affairs and associations with foreign leaders are an important part of the presidency, a position I hope to achieve.
Upon your return, you’ll have a small window before the national convention. What’s your core campaign message, your big theme, between now and Tampa?
You’re going to have to wait to find out. If I told you that now, I wouldn’t have anything to spring on you guys after I get back.
The Democratic National Convention is being held in early September. Do you plan on campaigning while the Democrats are hosting their convention in Charlotte?
We haven’t got plans right now, but that’s a decision we’ll make down the road.
You’ve written many of your own speeches. Are you already working on your convention speech?
I am not yet working on my convention speech.
*
With that, Romney was whisked away to his next event. He’ll be in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Wednesday, and he’ll head across the pond early next week. Inside the Beltway, the vice-presidential speculation continues, but for now, there is little news on the veep front.
© National Review Online 2012
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309673/romney-tax-returns-i-m-simply-not-enthusiastic-about-giving-them-hundreds-or-thousands [with comments]
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Mitt Dancing Around The Issues Volume I
Mitt Romney and the Romney's dressage horse Rafalca, dancing around the issue of secrecy
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QUESTIONER: Governor will you release your income tax records?
ROMNEY: If thats been the tradition then I'm not opposed to doing it, time will tell. I anticipate that most likely am going to get asked to do that around the April time period and I'll keep that open.
KING: When you release yours, will you follow you father's example?
ROMNEY: Maybe, you know I don't know how many years I'll release. I'll take a look at what our documents are and I'll release multiple years. I don't know how many years, but I'll be happy to do that
ALEXANDER: Why do you have a swiss bank account and what do you say to America people who ask about that and why you don't have your money in a US bank
ROMNEY: Actually the money I have is managed by a blind trust... I don't manage the money that I have
CHYRON: Do we really want a President who dances around the issues?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3API5MnicU4
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Release the Returns
By The Editors
July 17, 2012 5:00 P.M.
Mitt Romney is steadfastly resisting calls to release additional years of his personal tax returns, arguing — not without good reason — that this demand is part of a fishing expedition by the Obama campaign, which hopes to exploit Romney’s personal wealth and successful business career as part of a class-warfare election strategy. Romney argues that whatever he releases will not be enough to satisfy the Obama campaign and its factota in the media, who are, once again, proving their bias and double standards. Romney is right, but he should release the returns anyway. Let them go fish.
We doubt that there is anything truly surprising in Romney’s additional personal tax returns (he’s already released 2010 and will release more from 2011). We already know that he has made vast amounts of money, that he gives generously to his church and to charities, that he has set up trusts for his family, that he maintains bank accounts and investments overseas, and that he takes advantages of such benefits as are available to him under our ridiculously complex tax code. If there is scandal to be had of that, it can be had from the information that already is available. But there is no scandal in that: Romney is a wealthy man — and he has complicated personal finances, something that is typical of wealthy men. In fact, Romney’s personal finances are a very good case study in what’s wrong with the American tax system and regulatory climate.
The Romney campaign says he has released as many returns as candidate John Kerry did in 2004, and cites Teresa Heinz Kerry’s refusal to release any of her tax returns. Neither is an apt comparison. John Kerry actually released returns from 1999 through 2003, and also released tax returns during his Senate runs. As for Teresa Heinz, Romney isn’t the wealthy spouse of a candidate, but the candidate himself. In 2008, John McCain released two years of returns, but he had been filling out financial disclosure forms for decades as a senator. Romney protests that he is not legally obliged to release any tax returns. Of course not. He is no longer in the realm of the private sector, though, where he can comply with the letter of the law with the Securities and Exchange Commission and leave it at that. Perceptions matter.
Romney may feel impatience with requirements that the political culture imposes on a presidential candidate that he feels are pointless (and inconvenient). But he’s a politician running for the highest office in the land, and his current posture is probably unsustainable. In all likelihood, he won’t be able to maintain a position that looks secretive and is a departure from campaign conventions. The only question is whether he releases more returns now, or later — after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits. There will surely be a press feeding frenzy over new returns, but better to weather it in the middle of July.
If he releases more returns, Romney will be in a better position to resist the inevitable demands for even more disclosures. More important, he will be in a better position to pivot his campaign to what should be its focus — telling a story, through a series of detailed, substantive speeches, about where he wants to take the country. It is to President Obama’s advantage to fight the election out over tactics and minutiae. By drawing out the argument over the returns, Romney is playing into the president’s hands. He should release them, respond to any attacks they bring, and move on.
© National Review Online 2012 (emphasis in original)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/309738/release-returns-editors [with comments]
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Mitt Dancing Around The Issues Volume II: Autos
Featuring Romney horse 'Rafalca'
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NEWS: Mitt Romney said about the auto bailout, writing this op-ed...
ROMNEY: ... Let detroit go bankrupt...
NEWS: ...arguing if General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.
CHYRON: "Government resources were helpful and essential to get them back on their feet." - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: The Government wrote those checks. Wasted money.
...wrote checks to the auto industry...
...don't write them a check.
CHYRON: "My view is this, that taxpayer assistance to the industry would occur and could occur" - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: If you just write a check, you're gonna see these companies go out of business ultimately...
...The bailout program was not a success.
CHYRON: "The companies have come back stronger. I'm glad that they were saved." - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: Let's try it again. Okay?
ROMNEY: Help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So, I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back.
CHYRON: Do we really want a President who dances around the issues?
ROMNEY: Came out stronger, exactly as I proposed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQiGfX6JS7g
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5 Rules for Being a Successful Capitalist in Politics
Reuters
Notwithstanding Mitt Romney's struggles, businessmen can have smooth electoral sailing -- if they follow certain rules.
By Jill Lawrence
Jul 17 2012, 11:45 AM ET
If there's one thing this presidential campaign has driven home, it's that not all kinds of capitalism are created equal when it comes to politics.
The first indicators came during the Republican primaries, when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry attacked Bain Capital-style capitalism. Perry even branded onetime Bain CEO Mitt Romney a vulture capitalist. The season has moved on -- in fact, Perry campaigned for Romney last week in Elk City, Nevada -- and the rhetoric has subsided.
But the reality is turning out to be quite problematic for Romney. Some kinds of free enterprise -- such as a small family business -- are perfect resume entries for a political candidate. But certain kinds of high-flying capitalism come across as cold-blooded and indecipherable, and they're vulnerable to attack. Anything that involves the phrase "creative destruction," for instance, would be risky.
1. Get rich the old-fashioned way. Create a product or service or business. Write a best-seller, like President Obama did. Run a successful company, like Herman Cain did. Jump on a trend early, like Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who saw the potential of cell phones.
2. When you file your tax returns, imagine they will be on the homepages of every website in the world. Be prepared to defend your low tax rate and explain how you've used your untaxed money to create jobs. Alternatively, say you'd like to change the tax code so people like you pay more.
3. Related: Keep your money in the United States. Do not shelter income in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or anywhere else. Repeat: keep the money at home.
4. If you have a lot of money, give away a lot of money. Think Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. If you have enough excess cash, you might be able to help eradicate AIDS or revolutionize inner city education. Tithing to your church and creating trusts for your kids don't count.
5. When you leave a position, leave the position. Make a clean break. If you don't, you will have a hard time arguing you are not responsible for what happened after you kinda-sorta departed, but were still CEO and sole owner. Sure, you may not be able to claim credit for good things that happen after you're gone. But you won't be on the hook for developments that are politically unpalatable, and possibly a serious threat to your presidential hopes.
Jill Lawrence is the managing editor, politics, at National Journal. A political analyst who has covered every presidential election since 1988, her positions have included columnist at Politics Daily, national political correspondent at USA Today and national political writer at the Associated Press.
Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/5-rules-for-being-a-successful-capitalist-in-politics/259916/ [with comments]
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Mitt Romney: Chairman, CEO, and Sole Shareholder—But Not Responsible?
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This was Mitt Romney's explanation. Verbatim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkcoNXMI8rM
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Romney’s risk-free deal with Bain
Richard Ellis/Getty Images
Posted by Ezra Klein on July 17, 2012 at 11:16 am
To understand the confusing conditions under which Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, you need to understand the unusual deal he struck when he was hired to run it.
Bill Bain’s idea was simple. His firm, Bain & Co., was making lots of money by advising companies in exchange for fees. The fact that it was making money was proof that its staff understood what it took to make struggling companies successful. So why not eliminate the middleman? Rather than advising companies for a fee only to watch the current management reap the big profits, Bain Capital would take over troubled companies, manage them to profitability and reap the rewards itself. And Bill Bain knew exactly who he wanted to run this venture: Mitt Romney.
And then Romney stunned his boss by saying no.
As Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of “The Real Romney,” describe it, Romney “explained to Bain that he didn’t want to risk his position, earnings and reputation on an experiment. He found the offer appealing but didn’t want to make the decision in a ‘light or flippant manner.’ So Bain sweetened the pot. He guaranteed that if the experiment failed Romney would get his old job and salary back, plus any raises he would have earned during his absence. Still, Romney worried about the impact on his reputation if he proved unable to do the job. Again the pot was sweetened. Bain promised that, if necessary, he would craft a cover story saying that Romney’s return to Bain & Co. was needed because of his value as a consultant. ‘So,’ Bain explained, ‘there was no professional or financial risk.’ This time Romney said yes.”
Romney managed, in other words, that most unusual of career transitions: a move entirely without risk. And, as he tells it, he did the same thing when he left Bain Capital.
In 1999, Romney took a leave from Bain Capital to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. But from 1999 to 2002, he was listed on Securities and Exchange Commission documents as Bain Capital’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president.” He says he was an absentee executive who had neither knowledge of nor control over the decisions Bain made during this period. Then, when he subsequently decided to run for governor of Massachusetts, he signed papers dating his retirement from Bain to February 1999 — the actual date on which he ceased to be involved in, and responsible for, the company’s actions.
In other words, while Romney was running the Olympics and thinking about launching his campaign for governor, he kept his position at Bain in case he wanted or needed to return to it. He managed to complete one job and explore running for another all without losing his first job.
There’s nothing illegal about this. There’s nothing even wrong with it. Romney is clearly an effective negotiator and a prudent individual — both admirable qualities. But he is also a presidential candidate who is arguing that the tax code needs to do more to reward risk taking and the safety net needs to make it more difficult for those who don’t take risks. To that end, he has proposed large tax cuts for the rich and deep cuts to the social safety net.
And yet, Romney’s life and career show a man who did not have to take many risks, and perhaps wouldn’t have used his talents to nearly the extent that he has if not for the fact that he was able to rely on three expansive of safety nets: that of family, personal and corporate wealth. In college, he sold stock his father had given him to support himself. At Bain and Co., he refused to move to Bain Capital until the company agreed to bear the risk incurred by his new venture. When he went to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, he kept his name atop Bain Capital to ensure he could come back if he couldn’t find something better.
There’s little in Romney’s finances to back up the contention that the rich are insufficiently rewarded for the risks they take, and there is much in his history to support the idea and that safety nets have a role to play in empowering people — even wealthy people who don’t run the risk of economic ruin — to take on risk. But Romney’s policies seems to reflect the inverse of these lessons: They increase the rewards for taking risks that pay off handsomely while reducing the baseline level of security people need to take those risks. In that way, his platform seems likely to widen the economic gap between the rich and the poor, as it will be even harder for a working class father who can’t count on having health insurance for his family to leave his company and start a new business, but it will be even more profitable for a son of privilege who doesn’t face any severe risks to take a sweetheart deal to start a new business.
There is a sense in the United States that the rich play by different rules than the poor or the middle class — rules that make it easier for them to get even richer. Romney’s history shows he has been aggressive in taking advantage of those rules, which is fine. But his proposed policies would make it even easier for the rich to stay rich and even more difficult for the poor to scrape by, which is not fine. As Romney likes to say, the American people don’t resent success. But they do resent tax cuts for the rich at the cost of health care for the poor.
Thus far, Romney’s response has been indignation that anyone would question his business experience, technical arguments about whether his tax returns and SEC filings remained within the letter of the law, and an unwillingness to say how he’ll pay for his tax cuts or protect those who would be hurt by his spending cuts. That’s not going to be good enough. If Romney doesn’t come up with better answers, he’ll end up risking something very dear to him: his presidential campaign.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/17/romneys-risk-free-deal-with-bain/ [with comments]
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What Does "Retroactively Retired" Mean?
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We asked people in North Carolina their thoughts on Mitt Romney saying he was retired "retroactively" as CEO of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2001.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAkRTOHiP4o
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‘Retroactively Retired’, A Laugher Even By Washington Standards
July 16, 2012
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/07/16/retroactively-retired-a-laugher-even-by-washington-standards/ [with comments]
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Romney campaign says Obama should "learn to be an American"
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the NAACP convention in Houston July 11, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Richard Carson
By Sam Youngman
NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pennsylvania | Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:45am IST
NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Republican Mitt Romney's campaign unleashed new attacks on President Barack Obama on Tuesday, with one of Romney's surrogates saying he wished Obama "would learn to be an American" before apologizing within hours for the remark.
On a conference call with reporters, former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu blasted Obama and his campaign, calling them a "bunch of liars."
"I wish the president would learn how to be an American," Sununu said, although he backed away from that comment.
Obama has repeatedly sought to end false speculation by many conservatives that he was not born in the United States and thus is not legally able to serve as president.
Romney has repeatedly tried to avoid the so-called birth issue, and Sununu was quick to retreat from his statement.
"What I thought I said but what I didn't say is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business," Sununu said.
He later apologized in a CNN interview, saying: "Frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words."
The conference call appeared to be a new attempt at a counterpunch from the Romney campaign after days of damaging assaults on career at private equity company Bain Capital and his refusal to publicly disclose more than two years of his tax returns.
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said Romney's team was trying to deflect attention.
"The Romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end. The question is what else they'll pull to avoid answering serious questions about Romney's tenure at Bain Capital and investments in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts," she said in a statement.
"This meltdown and over-the-top rhetoric won't make things better. It only calls attention to how desperate they are to change the conversation."
(Editing By Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/us-usa-campaign-romney-idINBRE86F1CM20120717 [with comment]
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Who’s on America’s Side?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 17, 2012
WASHINGTON
Usually, at this stage of a presidential campaign, Republicans are doing a much better job of sullying the Democratic candidate as un-American.
Michael Dukakis was accused of having a funny last name and failing to say the Pledge of Allegiance 10 times a day. John Kerry was faulted for acting French and eating Philly cheese steaks with Swiss cheese. Al Gore was into the earth and earth tones — need we say more?
And the G.O.P. has had so much practice over the last four years at skewering Barack Obama as an existentialist socialist apologist for America with a secret foreign birth certificate that it should be like shooting mahi-mahi in a barrel.
The dude used to wear a sarong to do The Sunday Times crossword puzzle, for Pete’s sake — a look more exotic than Ralph Lauren’s Chinese French berets. Yet this week’s Republican attacks have been so shriekingly shrill, they make Poppy Bush campaigning at a New Jersey flag factory back in 1988 look like a masterpiece of subtlety.
“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” said John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor, on Tuesday during a Romney campaign media conference call. (He later apologized.)
He also went on Fox News to assert that the president “has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia, and frankly, when he came to the U.S., he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure.”
On Monday, the ever-delightful Rush Limbaugh weighed in: “I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country. He is trying — Barack Obama is trying — to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.”
He continued: “He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced.” As it was for the Bushes and Mitt Romney?
But that nonsense sounds reasonable compared with Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyesque charges that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the U.S. government. She ludicrously cited Hillary Clinton’s trusted aide, Huma Abedin, the Muslim daughter of professors of Indian and Pakistani descent and the wife of former Representative Anthony Weiner, as someone who shouldn’t have a security clearance.
It’s hard for the haters to get traction when the president and his wife are looking so all-American, smooching for the “kiss cam” at the U.S. vs. Brazil basketball game here Monday night, as the lovely Malia excitedly looked on.
Campaigning Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Romney called Obama’s course as president “extraordinarily foreign.” But it is the Mitt-bot who keeps getting caught doing things that seem strangely outside the norm to most Americans.
Americans have been trained to be wary of Swiss bank accounts and tax shelters in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Guys who have those in the movies are always shady and greedy.
As Nicholas Shaxson writes in Vanity Fair, though Romney left Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, in 1999, he “has continued to receive large payments from it — in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers.”
Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer and offshore expert, told Shaxson: “What Romney doesn’t get is that this stuff is weird.”
George Romney set the gold standard by releasing 12 years’ worth of tax returns. But his son’s refusal to release a decent sampling is so suspicious that even some top Republicans have balked.
Why would the scion of a political family who always wanted to be president tangle himself in a cat’s cradle of tax trickery in the first place?
Romney contended that he had “no role” at Bain after 1999 when some of its companies went bankrupt, shipped jobs overseas and fired workers. He remained the firm’s chairman of the board, C.E.O., president and only stockholder until 2002. Other than that, he had nothing to do with the place.
Aside from his time running the Salt Lake City Olympics, which he’s happy to publicize, Romney’s whole life, from his $250 million fortune to his tenure at the cultish Bain to his Mormonism, seems as though it’s secreted in a hidden shelter.
Like W., he’s coming across as the privileged kid who grew up at the country club and got special deals because of his dad, but then runs around claiming to be a self-made businessman. That lack of self-awareness, and Romney’s refusal to take responsibility for his own company, are disturbing traits in a leader.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/opinion/dowd-whos-on-americas-side.html [with comments]
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Hillary Clinton: Romney ads featuring her a 'waste of money'
July 16th, 2012
(CNN) – She's been featured in two negative television ads from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday the spots would have little effect on voters who already know the story of the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Speaking in Jerusalem at the tail end of a two week diplomatic trip, Clinton said in an interview with CNN Foreign Affairs Reporter Elise Labott the spots were a "waste of money."
"I am out of politics, and I haven't seen any of the ads that you're talking about," Clinton said. "But I have to say it's a waste of money. Everybody knows I ran against President Obama in 2008, that's hardly news. Everybody knows we ran a hard fought campaign and he won. And I have been honored to serve as his secretary of state."
[...]
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/16/hillary-clinton-romney-ads-featuring-her-a-waste-of-money/ [with comments]
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How did vaunted Romney Death Star break down?
Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
July 17, 2012
A few days before the January 31 Florida Republican primary, a number of Mitt Romney’s top aides took to the pages of the New York Times to brag about how they had destroyed Newt Gingrich. The former House Speaker had beaten Romney badly just a few days earlier in South Carolina; a loss in Florida might have unalterably changed the GOP race. So the Times reported that “a team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich.”
That was an understatement. Team Romney not only dropped oppo research on Gingrich; before it was all over, Romney and his SuperPAC allies spent about $15 million on ads in Florida, three times what Gingrich and his supporters spent. And all — literally all — of it was on negative advertising. “The only positive Romney ad aired over the past week was single Spanish-language radio ad,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported when it was over. Romney’s assault completely dominated the airwaves; 68 percent of all ads aired in Florida were Romney attacks on Gingrich. It worked; Romney won Florida handily.
No matter who they supported, many Republicans felt uneasy as they watched the intra-party war unfold. Many — voters and insiders alike — remarked that when the general election campaign came around, Romney had better attack Barack Obama with the same ferocity he attacked Gingrich. (And, at other times in the primary season, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.) Otherwise, it would look like Romney took more relish in attacking fellow Republicans than in taking on Obama. Romney had won the Republican nomination in significant part by operating a death star — a machine that could rain down holy hell on opponents, if that’s what winning required. He had better give the same treatment to Obama.
Now, the general election campaign is here, and the talk is of the Obama killing machine, not the Romney death star. By most accounts, the Romney campaign is not displaying the super-aggressive effectiveness it showed in the primaries. Why? Here are five factors:
1) The facts. Romney’s business history and taxes are two issues left unresolved from the primary campaign. During the primaries, Republicans didn’t want to hear fellow Republicans criticizing Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Some characterized attacks on Romney’s Bain history as attacks on capitalism itself. Democrats and many independents don’t feel the same way, and Obama and his SuperPAC allies are relentlessly slamming Romney’s business history both nationally and in key states around the country. Likewise, while most Republicans were satisfied with Romney’s release of one year’s tax returns, and promise to release one more, that minimalist offering has met less success in the general election fight.
2) The media. In the primary race, a lot of Romney’s attacks on his GOP rivals were highlighted by the Drudge Report and picked up and commented upon by liberal-leaning media that were happy to focus on divisions inside the Republican party. Now that the race is Republican vs. Democrat, there’s a different dynamic at work. Except on days when terrible economic news is released, Obama has been remarkably successful at getting much of the media to talk about what he wants them to talk about — namely, Romney’s flaws and not the Obama economic record. Whether Romney can change that dynamic remains to be seen. Right now, it’s hurting the Republican badly.
3) The SuperPACs. In recent days, Romney’s aides have dropped hints that they believe pro-Obama outside groups — SuperPACs — have done a much more effective job against Romney than pro-Romney SuperPACs have done against Obama. Some Democrats agree. “The real surprising thing of the campaign is the Democratic Super PACs have been more influential thus far, Priorities USA, American Bridge,” said Democratic strategist James Carville on ABC last Sunday. “They have driven the debate in this campaign much more than — than the Republican Super PACs…As of July 15th, it’s the Democratic Super PACs that have basically driven this whole Bain, tax return, whatever it is.” Romney officials don’t complain for the record, but they don’t believe the GOP SuperPACs have been nearly as tough as they should have been. But given Federal Election Commission rules against coordination between a campaign and its supporting SuperPACs, they can’t just come out and say what it is they want.
4) Campaign finance laws. Romney officials believe this is the most under-reported aspect of the ad war so far. Until the Republican National Convention, which begins August 27, Romney is forbidden from spending the money he has raised for the general election. Instead, he is using money left over from the GOP primary race. Of course, Romney spent a huge amount of money — about $85 million — to win that primary race. Even though he has been raising vast amounts for the general election, he doesn’t have gobs of cash to use right now. Obama, on the other hand, didn’t have to spend any money winning a Democratic primary. The result is that Obama is hugely out-spending Romney in key states. A recent Washington Post report said Obama has outspent Romney in Florida $17 million to $2 million, as of July 6. The numbers in Ohio were $22 million to $6.5 million, and in Virginia, they were $11 million to $3 million. That is a huge, huge advantage for Obama — not unlike the advantage Romney enjoyed over his Republican rivals during the primary season.
5) Romney’s complaining. Newt Gingrich complained loudly — some called it whining — when Romney first hit him with a negative ad barrage in Iowa. Then, when Romney attacked on a far bigger scale in Florida, Gingrich reacted badly again. Privately, the Romney campaign, which at times seemed to delight at kicking the hell out of a Republican opponent, had no respect for Gingrich’s tendency to complain when attacked. Just take it and hit back harder — that was the way they saw it. Now, however, Romney is complaining about Obama’s attacks. Romney is far more self-controlled than Gingrich, but the effect is the same; he’s whining about the other guy treating him badly. It’s the same thing that happened in the primary campaign, only with Romney on the hurting end.
So at least at the moment, the vaunted Romney death star, the machine that flattened his Republican opponents, just isn’t working. Romney is trying to get traction — this week, he’s focusing on Obama’s crony capitalism — but he is struggling. To fix things, he’ll have to put out more facts about his own record, plus capitalize on more bad economic news for Obama (that’s a sure bet at this point), plus gain access to the money he’s raised for the general election, plus find a way to sharpen the SuperPACs’ games. And then he’ll have to regain the back-against-the-wall fighting spirit he had in the Florida primary. If he doesn’t, the Obama campaign will run over him.
Copyright 2012 The Washington Examiner
http://washingtonexaminer.com/how-did-vaunted-romney-death-star-break-down/article/2502354 [with comments]
===
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The Rachel Maddow Show
July 17, 2012
Rachel Maddow poses a political challenge: Which non-incarcerated famous person would you least want to endorse you if you were running for office?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/48219363#48219363 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWBWduAvZwo ]
*
Uncommon Knowledge: George W. Bush
Published on Jul 17, 2012 by HooverInstitution
This week on Uncommon Knowledge President George W. Bush discusses postpresidential life and his work at the Bush Institute.
To listen to an mp3 of the interview go to:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/uncommon-knowledge-audio-edition/id384420950
http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncommonKnowledgeAudio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RbAZj9RB94
===
Romney on Tax Returns: ‘I’m Simply Not Enthusiastic about Giving Them Hundreds or Thousands of More Pages to Pick Through, Distort, and Lie About’
By Robert Costa
July 17, 2012 11:31 A.M.
Earlier today, Mitt Romney spoke with National Review Online about life on the trail, his meeting with Dick Cheney, and his upcoming trip to Europe. He called from western Pennsylvania, where he will later hold a rally at a wireless company.
*
A few days ago, you visited Vice President Cheney. Did he have any advice for you?
We did speak, at some length, about foreign-policy matters, in particular the circumstances surrounding some of the foreign-policy decisions of the Bush administration. I discussed with him the process of decision-making, and he described the individuals, the types of meetings that occurred, and the expression of views. Of course, I did not get him to tell me about individual personalities and their own perspectives, but rather the process by which the White House was able to take on important issues.
Speaking of Cheney, what makes a good vice president?
Well, I can’t speak for other people who’ve run for office and what they’ve looked for in a person who would be their vice president. In my own view, the people I’ve worked with over my career have been people who have the capacity to lead, who share my philosophy, and in some cases, people who provide perspectives and skills that I may not share.
We’ve heard a lot about Bain this week. How would you rate the press coverage?
I don’t see a lot of the press coverage because my travel schedule keeps me from seeing all of it. A long time ago, I got good advice from a friend who said, “Don’t read the papers, they’ll only throw you off of your message.” I don’t worry a lot about what’s being said from day to day. My own view is that people will recognize that I was instrumental in helping build a very successful business that employed a lot of people, and that our business was able to invest in other people’s dreams, many of which were successful.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel says you should stop whining about the Bain attacks. What’s your response?
I only call people out when they are being dishonest.
Looking back, how did your time at Bain prepare you for the presidency?
Your life experiences can come together and prepare you for responsibilities later in life. In my own experience, my family life, learning from the example of my parents, my life in my church, my education, my years in consulting, my years in the investment world, my leadership at the Olympics, and finally my leadership in Massachusetts — this all contributed to the person I am today and the capability I have to lead. With regard to Bain in particular, I had about ten years in consulting and 14 or 15 years in the investment world. The 25 years I spent in business gave me an understanding of how business decisions are made, as well as an understanding of the actions that are destructive to job creation and the actions that encourage job creation. I’ve watched this president, and his policies have made it harder to create jobs. His economic philosophy, shockingly revealed in his comment a day or so ago, is the reason why he has been so unsuccessful in reigniting economic growth.
Up in Boston, does your campaign have a similar corporate culture? Do you run it the Bain way, with horizontal leadership and vigorous debate?
Bain Capital was a firm that I led for 14 or 15 years, and Bain Consulting was an enterprise I led for two years as CEO. Our campaign is not modeled after either group.
For much of this week, you’ve been asked about your tax returns. What’s the downside to releasing your pre-2010 financial records?
My tax returns that have already been released number into the hundreds of pages. And we will be releasing tax returns for the most current year as soon as those are prepared. They will also number in the hundreds of pages. In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.
From a political perspective, a lot of pundits wonder why you haven’t gotten rid of your offshore accounts. Can you explain why you have not done that?
Well, first of all, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. By virtue of that, the decisions made by the trustee are the decisions that determine where the investments are. Secondly, the so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts.
Former president George W. Bush is coming out with a new book, The 4% Solution, about economic growth. Is 4 percent growth viable?
He’s absolutely right that we’re not growing fast enough. The president’s policies have failed to create the kind of GDP growth that America could achieve. Job growth is well beneath the level we should be seeing, and that results from an economy that’s growing much less swiftly than it could. My policies are designed to achieve 4 percent per year growth of the GDP. I would also note that I would hope we could see a rate a good deal higher than that on a temporary basis after we come out of the economic doldrums of the Obama years.
In late June, when the Supreme Court upheld the president’s health-care law, Chief Justice Roberts disappointed many conservatives. Did Roberts’s ruling change your perspective on how you, as president, would evaluate a Supreme Court nominee?
I disagreed with the Roberts decision and I would be interested in an evaluation of a Supreme Court nominee that looked at his or her thinking on making difficult constitutional decisions. We don’t yet know the rationale fully behind Roberts’s change of opinion, but when we do, it will tell us more about the nature of someone we would nominate. I suspect that Justice Roberts shied away from making a big decision, despite his conviction that the Constitution, in reality, would have led to striking down Obamacare.
You’re heading abroad next week. Why are you going to Europe?
Foreign affairs and associations with foreign leaders are an important part of the presidency, a position I hope to achieve.
Upon your return, you’ll have a small window before the national convention. What’s your core campaign message, your big theme, between now and Tampa?
You’re going to have to wait to find out. If I told you that now, I wouldn’t have anything to spring on you guys after I get back.
The Democratic National Convention is being held in early September. Do you plan on campaigning while the Democrats are hosting their convention in Charlotte?
We haven’t got plans right now, but that’s a decision we’ll make down the road.
You’ve written many of your own speeches. Are you already working on your convention speech?
I am not yet working on my convention speech.
*
With that, Romney was whisked away to his next event. He’ll be in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Wednesday, and he’ll head across the pond early next week. Inside the Beltway, the vice-presidential speculation continues, but for now, there is little news on the veep front.
© National Review Online 2012
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309673/romney-tax-returns-i-m-simply-not-enthusiastic-about-giving-them-hundreds-or-thousands [with comments]
===
Mitt Dancing Around The Issues Volume I
Published on Jul 18, 2012 by DemRapidResponse
Mitt Romney and the Romney's dressage horse Rafalca, dancing around the issue of secrecy
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QUESTIONER: Governor will you release your income tax records?
ROMNEY: If thats been the tradition then I'm not opposed to doing it, time will tell. I anticipate that most likely am going to get asked to do that around the April time period and I'll keep that open.
KING: When you release yours, will you follow you father's example?
ROMNEY: Maybe, you know I don't know how many years I'll release. I'll take a look at what our documents are and I'll release multiple years. I don't know how many years, but I'll be happy to do that
ALEXANDER: Why do you have a swiss bank account and what do you say to America people who ask about that and why you don't have your money in a US bank
ROMNEY: Actually the money I have is managed by a blind trust... I don't manage the money that I have
CHYRON: Do we really want a President who dances around the issues?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3API5MnicU4
===
Release the Returns
By The Editors
July 17, 2012 5:00 P.M.
Mitt Romney is steadfastly resisting calls to release additional years of his personal tax returns, arguing — not without good reason — that this demand is part of a fishing expedition by the Obama campaign, which hopes to exploit Romney’s personal wealth and successful business career as part of a class-warfare election strategy. Romney argues that whatever he releases will not be enough to satisfy the Obama campaign and its factota in the media, who are, once again, proving their bias and double standards. Romney is right, but he should release the returns anyway. Let them go fish.
We doubt that there is anything truly surprising in Romney’s additional personal tax returns (he’s already released 2010 and will release more from 2011). We already know that he has made vast amounts of money, that he gives generously to his church and to charities, that he has set up trusts for his family, that he maintains bank accounts and investments overseas, and that he takes advantages of such benefits as are available to him under our ridiculously complex tax code. If there is scandal to be had of that, it can be had from the information that already is available. But there is no scandal in that: Romney is a wealthy man — and he has complicated personal finances, something that is typical of wealthy men. In fact, Romney’s personal finances are a very good case study in what’s wrong with the American tax system and regulatory climate.
The Romney campaign says he has released as many returns as candidate John Kerry did in 2004, and cites Teresa Heinz Kerry’s refusal to release any of her tax returns. Neither is an apt comparison. John Kerry actually released returns from 1999 through 2003, and also released tax returns during his Senate runs. As for Teresa Heinz, Romney isn’t the wealthy spouse of a candidate, but the candidate himself. In 2008, John McCain released two years of returns, but he had been filling out financial disclosure forms for decades as a senator. Romney protests that he is not legally obliged to release any tax returns. Of course not. He is no longer in the realm of the private sector, though, where he can comply with the letter of the law with the Securities and Exchange Commission and leave it at that. Perceptions matter.
Romney may feel impatience with requirements that the political culture imposes on a presidential candidate that he feels are pointless (and inconvenient). But he’s a politician running for the highest office in the land, and his current posture is probably unsustainable. In all likelihood, he won’t be able to maintain a position that looks secretive and is a departure from campaign conventions. The only question is whether he releases more returns now, or later — after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits. There will surely be a press feeding frenzy over new returns, but better to weather it in the middle of July.
If he releases more returns, Romney will be in a better position to resist the inevitable demands for even more disclosures. More important, he will be in a better position to pivot his campaign to what should be its focus — telling a story, through a series of detailed, substantive speeches, about where he wants to take the country. It is to President Obama’s advantage to fight the election out over tactics and minutiae. By drawing out the argument over the returns, Romney is playing into the president’s hands. He should release them, respond to any attacks they bring, and move on.
© National Review Online 2012 (emphasis in original)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/309738/release-returns-editors [with comments]
===
Mitt Dancing Around The Issues Volume II: Autos
Published on Jul 18, 2012 by DemRapidResponse
Featuring Romney horse 'Rafalca'
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NEWS: Mitt Romney said about the auto bailout, writing this op-ed...
ROMNEY: ... Let detroit go bankrupt...
NEWS: ...arguing if General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.
CHYRON: "Government resources were helpful and essential to get them back on their feet." - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: The Government wrote those checks. Wasted money.
...wrote checks to the auto industry...
...don't write them a check.
CHYRON: "My view is this, that taxpayer assistance to the industry would occur and could occur" - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: If you just write a check, you're gonna see these companies go out of business ultimately...
...The bailout program was not a success.
CHYRON: "The companies have come back stronger. I'm glad that they were saved." - Mitt Romney, Toledo Blade 7/18/12
ROMNEY: Let's try it again. Okay?
ROMNEY: Help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So, I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back.
CHYRON: Do we really want a President who dances around the issues?
ROMNEY: Came out stronger, exactly as I proposed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQiGfX6JS7g
===
5 Rules for Being a Successful Capitalist in Politics
Reuters
Notwithstanding Mitt Romney's struggles, businessmen can have smooth electoral sailing -- if they follow certain rules.
By Jill Lawrence
Jul 17 2012, 11:45 AM ET
If there's one thing this presidential campaign has driven home, it's that not all kinds of capitalism are created equal when it comes to politics.
The first indicators came during the Republican primaries, when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry attacked Bain Capital-style capitalism. Perry even branded onetime Bain CEO Mitt Romney a vulture capitalist. The season has moved on -- in fact, Perry campaigned for Romney last week in Elk City, Nevada -- and the rhetoric has subsided.
But the reality is turning out to be quite problematic for Romney. Some kinds of free enterprise -- such as a small family business -- are perfect resume entries for a political candidate. But certain kinds of high-flying capitalism come across as cold-blooded and indecipherable, and they're vulnerable to attack. Anything that involves the phrase "creative destruction," for instance, would be risky.
1. Get rich the old-fashioned way. Create a product or service or business. Write a best-seller, like President Obama did. Run a successful company, like Herman Cain did. Jump on a trend early, like Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who saw the potential of cell phones.
2. When you file your tax returns, imagine they will be on the homepages of every website in the world. Be prepared to defend your low tax rate and explain how you've used your untaxed money to create jobs. Alternatively, say you'd like to change the tax code so people like you pay more.
3. Related: Keep your money in the United States. Do not shelter income in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or anywhere else. Repeat: keep the money at home.
4. If you have a lot of money, give away a lot of money. Think Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. If you have enough excess cash, you might be able to help eradicate AIDS or revolutionize inner city education. Tithing to your church and creating trusts for your kids don't count.
5. When you leave a position, leave the position. Make a clean break. If you don't, you will have a hard time arguing you are not responsible for what happened after you kinda-sorta departed, but were still CEO and sole owner. Sure, you may not be able to claim credit for good things that happen after you're gone. But you won't be on the hook for developments that are politically unpalatable, and possibly a serious threat to your presidential hopes.
Jill Lawrence is the managing editor, politics, at National Journal. A political analyst who has covered every presidential election since 1988, her positions have included columnist at Politics Daily, national political correspondent at USA Today and national political writer at the Associated Press.
Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/5-rules-for-being-a-successful-capitalist-in-politics/259916/ [with comments]
===
Mitt Romney: Chairman, CEO, and Sole Shareholder—But Not Responsible?
Published on Jul 18, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom
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This was Mitt Romney's explanation. Verbatim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkcoNXMI8rM
===
Romney’s risk-free deal with Bain
Richard Ellis/Getty Images
Posted by Ezra Klein on July 17, 2012 at 11:16 am
To understand the confusing conditions under which Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, you need to understand the unusual deal he struck when he was hired to run it.
Bill Bain’s idea was simple. His firm, Bain & Co., was making lots of money by advising companies in exchange for fees. The fact that it was making money was proof that its staff understood what it took to make struggling companies successful. So why not eliminate the middleman? Rather than advising companies for a fee only to watch the current management reap the big profits, Bain Capital would take over troubled companies, manage them to profitability and reap the rewards itself. And Bill Bain knew exactly who he wanted to run this venture: Mitt Romney.
And then Romney stunned his boss by saying no.
As Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of “The Real Romney,” describe it, Romney “explained to Bain that he didn’t want to risk his position, earnings and reputation on an experiment. He found the offer appealing but didn’t want to make the decision in a ‘light or flippant manner.’ So Bain sweetened the pot. He guaranteed that if the experiment failed Romney would get his old job and salary back, plus any raises he would have earned during his absence. Still, Romney worried about the impact on his reputation if he proved unable to do the job. Again the pot was sweetened. Bain promised that, if necessary, he would craft a cover story saying that Romney’s return to Bain & Co. was needed because of his value as a consultant. ‘So,’ Bain explained, ‘there was no professional or financial risk.’ This time Romney said yes.”
Romney managed, in other words, that most unusual of career transitions: a move entirely without risk. And, as he tells it, he did the same thing when he left Bain Capital.
In 1999, Romney took a leave from Bain Capital to run the Salt Lake City Olympics. But from 1999 to 2002, he was listed on Securities and Exchange Commission documents as Bain Capital’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president.” He says he was an absentee executive who had neither knowledge of nor control over the decisions Bain made during this period. Then, when he subsequently decided to run for governor of Massachusetts, he signed papers dating his retirement from Bain to February 1999 — the actual date on which he ceased to be involved in, and responsible for, the company’s actions.
In other words, while Romney was running the Olympics and thinking about launching his campaign for governor, he kept his position at Bain in case he wanted or needed to return to it. He managed to complete one job and explore running for another all without losing his first job.
There’s nothing illegal about this. There’s nothing even wrong with it. Romney is clearly an effective negotiator and a prudent individual — both admirable qualities. But he is also a presidential candidate who is arguing that the tax code needs to do more to reward risk taking and the safety net needs to make it more difficult for those who don’t take risks. To that end, he has proposed large tax cuts for the rich and deep cuts to the social safety net.
And yet, Romney’s life and career show a man who did not have to take many risks, and perhaps wouldn’t have used his talents to nearly the extent that he has if not for the fact that he was able to rely on three expansive of safety nets: that of family, personal and corporate wealth. In college, he sold stock his father had given him to support himself. At Bain and Co., he refused to move to Bain Capital until the company agreed to bear the risk incurred by his new venture. When he went to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, he kept his name atop Bain Capital to ensure he could come back if he couldn’t find something better.
There’s little in Romney’s finances to back up the contention that the rich are insufficiently rewarded for the risks they take, and there is much in his history to support the idea and that safety nets have a role to play in empowering people — even wealthy people who don’t run the risk of economic ruin — to take on risk. But Romney’s policies seems to reflect the inverse of these lessons: They increase the rewards for taking risks that pay off handsomely while reducing the baseline level of security people need to take those risks. In that way, his platform seems likely to widen the economic gap between the rich and the poor, as it will be even harder for a working class father who can’t count on having health insurance for his family to leave his company and start a new business, but it will be even more profitable for a son of privilege who doesn’t face any severe risks to take a sweetheart deal to start a new business.
There is a sense in the United States that the rich play by different rules than the poor or the middle class — rules that make it easier for them to get even richer. Romney’s history shows he has been aggressive in taking advantage of those rules, which is fine. But his proposed policies would make it even easier for the rich to stay rich and even more difficult for the poor to scrape by, which is not fine. As Romney likes to say, the American people don’t resent success. But they do resent tax cuts for the rich at the cost of health care for the poor.
Thus far, Romney’s response has been indignation that anyone would question his business experience, technical arguments about whether his tax returns and SEC filings remained within the letter of the law, and an unwillingness to say how he’ll pay for his tax cuts or protect those who would be hurt by his spending cuts. That’s not going to be good enough. If Romney doesn’t come up with better answers, he’ll end up risking something very dear to him: his presidential campaign.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/17/romneys-risk-free-deal-with-bain/ [with comments]
===
What Does "Retroactively Retired" Mean?
Published on Jul 18, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom
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We asked people in North Carolina their thoughts on Mitt Romney saying he was retired "retroactively" as CEO of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2001.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAkRTOHiP4o
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‘Retroactively Retired’, A Laugher Even By Washington Standards
July 16, 2012
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/07/16/retroactively-retired-a-laugher-even-by-washington-standards/ [with comments]
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Romney campaign says Obama should "learn to be an American"
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the NAACP convention in Houston July 11, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Richard Carson
By Sam Youngman
NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pennsylvania | Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:45am IST
NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Republican Mitt Romney's campaign unleashed new attacks on President Barack Obama on Tuesday, with one of Romney's surrogates saying he wished Obama "would learn to be an American" before apologizing within hours for the remark.
On a conference call with reporters, former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu blasted Obama and his campaign, calling them a "bunch of liars."
"I wish the president would learn how to be an American," Sununu said, although he backed away from that comment.
Obama has repeatedly sought to end false speculation by many conservatives that he was not born in the United States and thus is not legally able to serve as president.
Romney has repeatedly tried to avoid the so-called birth issue, and Sununu was quick to retreat from his statement.
"What I thought I said but what I didn't say is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business," Sununu said.
He later apologized in a CNN interview, saying: "Frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words."
The conference call appeared to be a new attempt at a counterpunch from the Romney campaign after days of damaging assaults on career at private equity company Bain Capital and his refusal to publicly disclose more than two years of his tax returns.
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said Romney's team was trying to deflect attention.
"The Romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end. The question is what else they'll pull to avoid answering serious questions about Romney's tenure at Bain Capital and investments in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts," she said in a statement.
"This meltdown and over-the-top rhetoric won't make things better. It only calls attention to how desperate they are to change the conversation."
(Editing By Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/us-usa-campaign-romney-idINBRE86F1CM20120717 [with comment]
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Who’s on America’s Side?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 17, 2012
WASHINGTON
Usually, at this stage of a presidential campaign, Republicans are doing a much better job of sullying the Democratic candidate as un-American.
Michael Dukakis was accused of having a funny last name and failing to say the Pledge of Allegiance 10 times a day. John Kerry was faulted for acting French and eating Philly cheese steaks with Swiss cheese. Al Gore was into the earth and earth tones — need we say more?
And the G.O.P. has had so much practice over the last four years at skewering Barack Obama as an existentialist socialist apologist for America with a secret foreign birth certificate that it should be like shooting mahi-mahi in a barrel.
The dude used to wear a sarong to do The Sunday Times crossword puzzle, for Pete’s sake — a look more exotic than Ralph Lauren’s Chinese French berets. Yet this week’s Republican attacks have been so shriekingly shrill, they make Poppy Bush campaigning at a New Jersey flag factory back in 1988 look like a masterpiece of subtlety.
“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” said John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor, on Tuesday during a Romney campaign media conference call. (He later apologized.)
He also went on Fox News to assert that the president “has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia, and frankly, when he came to the U.S., he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure.”
On Monday, the ever-delightful Rush Limbaugh weighed in: “I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country. He is trying — Barack Obama is trying — to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.”
He continued: “He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced.” As it was for the Bushes and Mitt Romney?
But that nonsense sounds reasonable compared with Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyesque charges that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the U.S. government. She ludicrously cited Hillary Clinton’s trusted aide, Huma Abedin, the Muslim daughter of professors of Indian and Pakistani descent and the wife of former Representative Anthony Weiner, as someone who shouldn’t have a security clearance.
It’s hard for the haters to get traction when the president and his wife are looking so all-American, smooching for the “kiss cam” at the U.S. vs. Brazil basketball game here Monday night, as the lovely Malia excitedly looked on.
Campaigning Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Romney called Obama’s course as president “extraordinarily foreign.” But it is the Mitt-bot who keeps getting caught doing things that seem strangely outside the norm to most Americans.
Americans have been trained to be wary of Swiss bank accounts and tax shelters in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Guys who have those in the movies are always shady and greedy.
As Nicholas Shaxson writes in Vanity Fair, though Romney left Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, in 1999, he “has continued to receive large payments from it — in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers.”
Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer and offshore expert, told Shaxson: “What Romney doesn’t get is that this stuff is weird.”
George Romney set the gold standard by releasing 12 years’ worth of tax returns. But his son’s refusal to release a decent sampling is so suspicious that even some top Republicans have balked.
Why would the scion of a political family who always wanted to be president tangle himself in a cat’s cradle of tax trickery in the first place?
Romney contended that he had “no role” at Bain after 1999 when some of its companies went bankrupt, shipped jobs overseas and fired workers. He remained the firm’s chairman of the board, C.E.O., president and only stockholder until 2002. Other than that, he had nothing to do with the place.
Aside from his time running the Salt Lake City Olympics, which he’s happy to publicize, Romney’s whole life, from his $250 million fortune to his tenure at the cultish Bain to his Mormonism, seems as though it’s secreted in a hidden shelter.
Like W., he’s coming across as the privileged kid who grew up at the country club and got special deals because of his dad, but then runs around claiming to be a self-made businessman. That lack of self-awareness, and Romney’s refusal to take responsibility for his own company, are disturbing traits in a leader.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/opinion/dowd-whos-on-americas-side.html [with comments]
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Hillary Clinton: Romney ads featuring her a 'waste of money'
July 16th, 2012
(CNN) – She's been featured in two negative television ads from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday the spots would have little effect on voters who already know the story of the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Speaking in Jerusalem at the tail end of a two week diplomatic trip, Clinton said in an interview with CNN Foreign Affairs Reporter Elise Labott the spots were a "waste of money."
"I am out of politics, and I haven't seen any of the ads that you're talking about," Clinton said. "But I have to say it's a waste of money. Everybody knows I ran against President Obama in 2008, that's hardly news. Everybody knows we ran a hard fought campaign and he won. And I have been honored to serve as his secretary of state."
[...]
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/16/hillary-clinton-romney-ads-featuring-her-a-waste-of-money/ [with comments]
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How did vaunted Romney Death Star break down?
Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
July 17, 2012
A few days before the January 31 Florida Republican primary, a number of Mitt Romney’s top aides took to the pages of the New York Times to brag about how they had destroyed Newt Gingrich. The former House Speaker had beaten Romney badly just a few days earlier in South Carolina; a loss in Florida might have unalterably changed the GOP race. So the Times reported that “a team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich.”
That was an understatement. Team Romney not only dropped oppo research on Gingrich; before it was all over, Romney and his SuperPAC allies spent about $15 million on ads in Florida, three times what Gingrich and his supporters spent. And all — literally all — of it was on negative advertising. “The only positive Romney ad aired over the past week was single Spanish-language radio ad,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported when it was over. Romney’s assault completely dominated the airwaves; 68 percent of all ads aired in Florida were Romney attacks on Gingrich. It worked; Romney won Florida handily.
No matter who they supported, many Republicans felt uneasy as they watched the intra-party war unfold. Many — voters and insiders alike — remarked that when the general election campaign came around, Romney had better attack Barack Obama with the same ferocity he attacked Gingrich. (And, at other times in the primary season, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.) Otherwise, it would look like Romney took more relish in attacking fellow Republicans than in taking on Obama. Romney had won the Republican nomination in significant part by operating a death star — a machine that could rain down holy hell on opponents, if that’s what winning required. He had better give the same treatment to Obama.
Now, the general election campaign is here, and the talk is of the Obama killing machine, not the Romney death star. By most accounts, the Romney campaign is not displaying the super-aggressive effectiveness it showed in the primaries. Why? Here are five factors:
1) The facts. Romney’s business history and taxes are two issues left unresolved from the primary campaign. During the primaries, Republicans didn’t want to hear fellow Republicans criticizing Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Some characterized attacks on Romney’s Bain history as attacks on capitalism itself. Democrats and many independents don’t feel the same way, and Obama and his SuperPAC allies are relentlessly slamming Romney’s business history both nationally and in key states around the country. Likewise, while most Republicans were satisfied with Romney’s release of one year’s tax returns, and promise to release one more, that minimalist offering has met less success in the general election fight.
2) The media. In the primary race, a lot of Romney’s attacks on his GOP rivals were highlighted by the Drudge Report and picked up and commented upon by liberal-leaning media that were happy to focus on divisions inside the Republican party. Now that the race is Republican vs. Democrat, there’s a different dynamic at work. Except on days when terrible economic news is released, Obama has been remarkably successful at getting much of the media to talk about what he wants them to talk about — namely, Romney’s flaws and not the Obama economic record. Whether Romney can change that dynamic remains to be seen. Right now, it’s hurting the Republican badly.
3) The SuperPACs. In recent days, Romney’s aides have dropped hints that they believe pro-Obama outside groups — SuperPACs — have done a much more effective job against Romney than pro-Romney SuperPACs have done against Obama. Some Democrats agree. “The real surprising thing of the campaign is the Democratic Super PACs have been more influential thus far, Priorities USA, American Bridge,” said Democratic strategist James Carville on ABC last Sunday. “They have driven the debate in this campaign much more than — than the Republican Super PACs…As of July 15th, it’s the Democratic Super PACs that have basically driven this whole Bain, tax return, whatever it is.” Romney officials don’t complain for the record, but they don’t believe the GOP SuperPACs have been nearly as tough as they should have been. But given Federal Election Commission rules against coordination between a campaign and its supporting SuperPACs, they can’t just come out and say what it is they want.
4) Campaign finance laws. Romney officials believe this is the most under-reported aspect of the ad war so far. Until the Republican National Convention, which begins August 27, Romney is forbidden from spending the money he has raised for the general election. Instead, he is using money left over from the GOP primary race. Of course, Romney spent a huge amount of money — about $85 million — to win that primary race. Even though he has been raising vast amounts for the general election, he doesn’t have gobs of cash to use right now. Obama, on the other hand, didn’t have to spend any money winning a Democratic primary. The result is that Obama is hugely out-spending Romney in key states. A recent Washington Post report said Obama has outspent Romney in Florida $17 million to $2 million, as of July 6. The numbers in Ohio were $22 million to $6.5 million, and in Virginia, they were $11 million to $3 million. That is a huge, huge advantage for Obama — not unlike the advantage Romney enjoyed over his Republican rivals during the primary season.
5) Romney’s complaining. Newt Gingrich complained loudly — some called it whining — when Romney first hit him with a negative ad barrage in Iowa. Then, when Romney attacked on a far bigger scale in Florida, Gingrich reacted badly again. Privately, the Romney campaign, which at times seemed to delight at kicking the hell out of a Republican opponent, had no respect for Gingrich’s tendency to complain when attacked. Just take it and hit back harder — that was the way they saw it. Now, however, Romney is complaining about Obama’s attacks. Romney is far more self-controlled than Gingrich, but the effect is the same; he’s whining about the other guy treating him badly. It’s the same thing that happened in the primary campaign, only with Romney on the hurting end.
So at least at the moment, the vaunted Romney death star, the machine that flattened his Republican opponents, just isn’t working. Romney is trying to get traction — this week, he’s focusing on Obama’s crony capitalism — but he is struggling. To fix things, he’ll have to put out more facts about his own record, plus capitalize on more bad economic news for Obama (that’s a sure bet at this point), plus gain access to the money he’s raised for the general election, plus find a way to sharpen the SuperPACs’ games. And then he’ll have to regain the back-against-the-wall fighting spirit he had in the Florida primary. If he doesn’t, the Obama campaign will run over him.
Copyright 2012 The Washington Examiner
http://washingtonexaminer.com/how-did-vaunted-romney-death-star-break-down/article/2502354 [with comments]
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"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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