Elections 2012

"I know you are, but what am I". Remember that one from grade school? Well that little jab might seem rather mature compared to Mitt Romney's latest defense about not releasing more of his tax returns. Here's what he told Fox and Friends:

“John McCain ran for president and released two years of tax returns,” Romney explained. “John Kerry ran for president. You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow this wasn’t an issue.”

And neither did Cindy McCain, but has the left brought that up? No. And what happened to wives being off limits? I guess that is out of the question now.

But way to go Mitt. You have now shown you are the biggest child to entire presidential politics in a lifetime, if ever. Only you can sink to new lows like this. I'm just glad you're finally showing America what kind of man you really are.

Team Obama is out with a new ad, blasting Mitt Romney for sending U.S. jobs overseas and not wanting to contribute back to our nation by putting his money in tax-free havens. This should play as much as possible in every battleground state, like here in Ohio where outsourcing has cost the state dearly.

It's really comforting to see Obama come out swinging like this. Mitt Romney has been highly elusive about his time at Bain and exactly what he did and has now gone to the side of flat out lying. Is this the kind of guy America wants with the keys? It's time for Mitt Romney to stop the lying and come out with the truth!

Republicans love to insist that people need to take "personal responsibility" for everything. It's one of their flagstone attacks against things like consumer protection, health insurance reform and any of number of social services. Yet when it comes to Republicans themselves, responsibility is something they never want to take. That also includes Mitt Romney, who seems to be claiming that he is not responsible for a company he was CEO, chairman and president of, Bain Capital:

And Romney also wants to disavow responsibility for many layoffs that Bain engineered after 1999, an issue he has had to deal with since running for Governor.

When the statements above are examined closely, however, it becomes clear that the Romney campaign may be treading a very fine rhetorical line here--one that it believes might allow Romney to dodge both bullets (the accuracy of his public statements and Bain's decisions).

Specifically...

Note that the Romney campaign does not deny that Romney was "chairman, CEO, and president" of Bain from 1999-2002.

What the Romney campaign says instead is that Romney "left" Bain in 1999 and had "no input on investments or management of companies after that point."

So, read to the legal letter, both of those statements may technically be true (or at least defensible).

Romney did leave Bain in 1999, at least for a leave of absence (he went to run the Olympics).
And it is possible that, once he left, he no longer had direct input into investment or management decisions.

However ...

As I brought up earlier, if Mitt Romney did in fact leave Bain in 1999, then why were documents filed with the SEC saying he was there until 2002? First let's look at Romney's latest defense:

"The article is not accurate," Romney press secretary Andrea Saul said in a statement. "As Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point."

In a conversation with POLITICO, Romney adviser Matt McDonald also said the Globe report was inaccurate. "Romney wasn't involved in any investment decisions," McDonald said. "He was on the SEC filings becasue he was still techinically the owner, but hadn't transferred ownership to other partners."

And the Obama campaign is taking a very serious look at this:

Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer noted on Thursday that there could be “severe consequences” for individuals and companies that lied to the SEC.

“If in fact as he now claims that he was not active with the company, that he was not the controlling person that is described here, that means that these statements are false and as I said, there are very, very serious legal consequences that would follow,” Bauer explained.

In an interview today Mitt Romney insisted there is nothing "hidden' in his tax returns:

"I don't manage them. I don't even know where they are," Romney said. "That trustee follows all U.S. laws. All the taxes are paid, as appropriate. All of them have been reported to the government. There's nothing hidden there."

So why not release them then, like every other Presidential candidate, including his own father, has? I think that question is even more pertinent given the increased scrutiny Romney is coming under from Democrats. Today Joe Biden hammered on the issue:

“Mitt Romney wants you to show your papers, but he won’t show us his."

Republicans have hounded Barack Obama to release about every single paper associated with his life, including the one that says he was born in the United States. Yet when it comes to Mitt, secrecy is suddenly allowed. Talk about a double standard.

But again I ask, if his taxes are all legal and he's hiding nothing, then why not just release them? The "I don't even know where they are" excuse also doesn't hold water, considering he can get copies from the IRS. So go ahead and get them out there Mitt. That is if what you are saying is true....

Last month a $50,000 per couple fundraiser was held in Hollywood for Barack Obama. The right went crazy, decrying him as an "elitist". If $50,0000 per couple makes one an elitist, what does $75,000 per couple make one? An extremist elitist? Perhaps we should ask Mitt Romney, who is doing just that.

At the evening fundraiser at the estate of Julia and David Koch on Meadow Lane in Southampton, the suggested contribution was $75,000 per couple — with funds going to Romney's campaign, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But let's face it, money isn't really the issue here. It costs hundreds of millions to run for President thanks to our very broken system of democracy and crappy Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United. What does matter is what happens at these fundraisers.

When you think of President Obama, you already know what his plans are. We have heard them for the past five years and see him try to implement them, even though an obstructionist GOP blocks them to put party first. But with Romney, what are the plans? We have heard before that he lays out actual plans at these fundraisers. Did he do it again this time?

The fact that Romney feels the only people deserving of hearing his plans are those that can drop $75,000 for a sit down with him should be the most alarming thing to every American voter. It's Romney telling you and me that we don't have money so we aren't good enough to know how to fix America. It also shows that Romney believes America is only for the rich, and the other 99% of us are just here. I find it an insult of massive proportions and the media needs to hit Romney on this.

Something I have hit Mitt Romney on time and time again is the fact that he has laid out no plans at all for our nation, should he win in November. All we hear is "Obama doesn't know what he's doing" and "repeal", yet details have been non-existent.

Well today the Wall Street Journal takes issue with a slew of Romney problems, but in the editorial they do hit on this point:

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault. We're on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that "Obama isn't working." Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better.

Voters really need to sit back and ask themselves if Romney is the right man to run this country. Put away all the partisan stuff and ask what this guy will do for the country. I think they will be shocked to find out that he has nothing planned. That is very scary.

If you are one of those people that can't stand Obama, you got to start feeling that you at least know what you are getting with him. And if Obama does win, then you only got to wait for 2016 to try and get a better candidate that will support your conservative beliefs. If Romney does win, then you are stuck with him being your nominee until 2020.

Are conservative voters ready to give up the next eight years for someone they can't trust and don't know what he is going to do? Well reading this editorial, it appears they aren't. Honestly, if I was on the right I would write off the White House run and focus all energies on the House and Senate. That's where they have the better chance of pushing their agenda this year.

Yesterday the Washington Post's fact chcker, Glenn Kessler, awarded the Obama Campaign 4 Pinocchios for this ad:

Here's how Kessler characterized it:

The Obama campaign apparently loves to ding former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with the charge of “outsourcing.” On several occasions, we have faulted the campaign for its claims, apparently to little avail.

But wait! As I posted in my last entry we now know that this is true:

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This wasn't posted by some lefty blog or conspiracy group. It is from an actual article that appears in today's Washington Post, Kessler's employer. So it now looks like Kessler gets his own "4 Pinocchios"