Romney 2012?

"If you say to your tax people, as he seems to have done, 'I want every trick in the book.' I want to push this to the edge....I will tell you that as a private equity guy, I'm familiar with many of the things that he did. And I know many people who have done many of the things that he did. I do not know anyone who did everything that he did."

"Some of what he did, like the IRA, I have asked fellow private equity guys....None of us had even known this was a possible trick, if you will. He has pushed the envelope all the way to the edge, to his benefit, and I think that Americans would find that pretty distasteful."

Good to see someone finally admit that the only reason to see the returns is to attack Romney for them. A little honesty goes a long way.

Imagine what a successful business person, willing to use the law for their own advantage, will do for our entire country. Perhaps making all prosperous instead of dependent on government to do for them.

The Hidden Mitt

The explanations in each case are slightly different, but point less to the operatives around Romney—who are neither dumb nor blind—than to their boss. Regarding Bain, the candidate has apparently been in some state of denial about the degree of vulnerability his record there presents. To him, the equation is dead simple: private sector = good. (And the campaign has further been hampered by the press-shy executives now running Bain, whose allergy to the spotlight, as Mark Halperin pointed out recently in Time, has ironically only increased the glare.) Regarding his taxes, Romney has been at once less helpful and more adamant with his advisers—and more clueless about the potential fallout. Those around him say that, even with the shitstorm his position has unleashed, he remains unyielding in his insistence that two years of returns are all he’s willing to make public.

The depth to which Romney has dug in his heels has naturally provoked a welter of speculation about what in God’s name is in the returns—and just how bad it could be. That the levels of income will be stratospherically (some would say obscenely) high is taken as a given. That there are some years in which Romney paid an extremely low effective tax rate—lower, maybe much lower, than the 13.9 percent rate he paid in 2010—is quite likely. And then there is the most problematic possibility: that the Swiss and Cayman accounts that we already know about are just the tip of an iceberg, one that would suggest an aggressive, arguably unpatriotic pattern of tax-avoidance.

My own guess, however, is that apart from one or more of these elements, what the Romney tax returns would lay bare is the extent of his donations to his church. In this case and all others, charitable donations are something to be proud of, an entirely honorable thing. But for a candidate who has taken extravagant pains to avoid discussion of his supremely prominent role in contemporary Mormonism, the idea of a wave of news stories detailing the tens of millions of dollars that he has given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—surely making him among its most generous funders in the modern era—must be a kind of nightmare. The kind that would open a can of worms that has little to do with money and everything to do with an aspect of his life that might humanize him and be reassuring or even inspiring to millions of Americans, but that he evidently regards as a strict no-go zone.

One sign that this issue is weighing on Romney’s mind was the performance that his wife, Ann, turned in on Good Morning America last week. In an uncomfortable exchange with Robin Roberts about her husband’s position on the tax returns, Mrs. Romney said, “You should really look at where Mitt has led his life and where he’s been financially. He’s been a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things?”


The rhetorical question at the end of that quote is, of course, a non sequitur. And along with Mrs. Romney’s unusually agitated demeanor on the show—she is typically the best and most effective surrogate the campaign has on its side—it suggested that, far more than Bain, the question of the tax returns is getting under the Romneys’ collective skin. That is certainly how it was seen in Chicago. And that is why, though some combination of Team Romney’s attacks on Obama, the Olympics, and the nominee’s selection of his running mate may have the effect of shifting the subject, the effect will only be temporary. For beyond what Chicago is gleaning from its polling and focus groups, the president’s people see in the issue of the tax returns a way to get inside his head.

“One of the things we learned during the Republican primaries is that you can rattle Romney more easily than people think,” says a senior Obama strategist. “And when he’s rattled is when he makes mistakes.” The members of the Romney campaign are perfectly familiar with the tactic of messing with a rival’s mind; they did it to Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum in succession, all to no small effect. To survive what’s coming will require of them a kind of nimbleness notably absent in the past two weeks. But more than that, it will require a recognition that the tactics being used against them are as much psy-ops as class warfare.

As the Republican presidential challenger accused Barack Obama of appeasing America’s enemies in his first foreign policy speech of the election campaign, advisers told The Daily Telegraph that he would abandon Mr Obama’s “Left-wing” coolness towards London.

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested Mr Romney was better placed to understand the ties between the countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa. “We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

25 May 2011
President Obama: Now is time for US and West to lead

President Obama: "Perhaps, the argument goes... the time for our leadership has passed. That argument is wrong"Continue reading the main story
Obama in Europe

President Obama has told British politicians that, despite the rise of new global powers, the time for US and European leadership "is now".

He said the influence of the US, UK and allies would remain "indispensable," in a speech in Parliament on the second day of his UK state visit.

But he said that leadership would need to "change with the times" to reflect economic and security challenges.

He is the first US president to address MPs and peers in Westminster Hall.

For even Gingrich, the former college history professor who managed to mention the presidential election of 1860, George Kennan's Long Telegram of 1946 and George Orwell's "1984," left out the inconvenient truth that in the years before Dec. 7, 1941, nearly all of the "appeasers" opposed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to aid Europe were Republicans.

Members of the former Massachusetts governor's foreign policy advisory team claimed that as president, he would reverse Mr Obama’s priority of repairing strained overseas relationships while not spending so much time maintaining traditional alliances such as Britain and Israel.

“In contrast to President Obama, whose first instinct is to reach out to America’s adversaries, the Governor’s first impulse is to consult and co-ordinate and to move closer to our friends and allies overseas so they can rely on American constancy and strength,” one told the Telegraph.

“Obama is a Left-winger," said another. "He doesn’t value the Nato alliance as much, he’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory'.”

The two advisers said Mr Romney would seek to reinstate the Churchill bust displayed in the Oval Office by George W. Bush but returned to British diplomats by Mr Obama when he took office in 2009. One said Mr Romney viewed the move as “symbolically important” while the other said it was “just for starters”, adding: “He is naturally more Atlanticist”.

People can point out how - I was in Salt Lake City for three straight years. I don't recall even coming back once to go to a Bain or management meeting. We were, I was out there running the Olympics and it was a full time job, I can tell you that.

Those familiar with Romney's discussions with his Bain partners said the contacts included several meetings in Boston, the company's home base, but were limited to matters that did not affect the firm's investments or other management decisions. Yet Romney continued to oversee his partnership stakes even as he disengaged from the firm, personally signing or approving a series of corporate and legal documents through the spring of 2001, according to financial reports reviewed by The Associated Press