Finding God in a Dog

When you're running on a narrative of creating American jobs better than the incumbent can, this is not the sort of story you need.

When Bain first led a buyout of Sensata, in fact, it laid off hundreds of American workers and sent their jobs offshore. As the Times reported, the Labor Department spent $780,000 retraining some of the laid-off employees.

In addition, Mr. Romney’s generous retirement agreement ensures that he continues to profit from the deals and decisions that Bain makes. He owns about $8 million worth of Bain funds that hold 51 percent of Sensata’s shares. If Sensata saves money by closing the Freeport plant, that could add money to Mr. Romney’s trust accounts, now or after the election.

Many conservatives want Mr. Romney to make a full-throated defense of these practices, and hope he explains to Americans that plant closings and offshoring are a natural part of capitalism and can have long-term positive effects for the economy.

But Mr. Romney clearly feels he can’t do that, because the political effect of defending layoffs would be toxic. That’s especially true because his entire campaign is built around accusing President Obama of not creating enough American jobs.

The much less weighty Salem-News.com puts it another way: "Romney's Company Forces U.S. Flag to Be Lowered in Illinois." Ouch.

So, to review: the Republican National Convention ended with a confusing, embarrassing routine by Clint Eastwood, followed by a barn-burner of a speech by Mark Rubio, followed by a safe, well delivered, and, to anyone paying attention, massively dishonest acceptance speech by Mitt Romney.

If you're wondering what that's all about, here's my theory.

Let's assume, for now, that the GOP is looking at the same analysis of the polls as I am. Barring another war, an economic implosion, or some other catastrophe, Obama is a two-to-one favorite to win re-election. The GOP needs a game-changer in order to turn this around. How, then, do you accomplish this?

You accomplish this by doing something bold and daring (or, if you prefer, crazy and stupid). You bring in a huge draw like Clint Eastwood to get otherwise disinterested voters watching. And then you follow with your strongest speaker. And then you follow with your candidate.

Honestly, I'm impressed. Clint Eastwood was a freakshow, but I think disinterested voters probably stayed for Rubio and Romney, and I think that might have made an impression. Whether it's enough to be a game changer is up in the air - we'll know better after the post-convention polls come out. But I think it's safe to say that if Mitt Romney wins this election, it was because he followed after Clint Eastwood and Mark Rubio tonight.

(It follows, by the way, that I do not believe that Romney is still pursuing a crank-the-base strategy; he's done consolidating his base, and he's going for uncommitted voters.)

Quoting Huffpo:

Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

This is the easiest slam dunk in the world. Mitt Romney can make Harry Reid STFU and humiliate him for a good, long time, by releasing his tax returns and proving to everyone that he did, indeed, pay his taxes.

Let's see him do it.

Earlier today, David Axelrod tweeted this story in the Boston Globe:

Mitt Romney stayed at Bain 3 years longer than he stated
Firm’s 2002 filings identify him as CEO, though he said he left in 1999

You might be asking, "so what?" Well, here's the implications of this:

• If Mitt Romney in fact left the company in 1999, then he committed a felony by filing false reports to the SEC and others.


• If, on the other hand, Romney left the company in 2002, then his campaign's claim - that Bain's investments in companies that made their money off of facilitating offshoring, experimenting with discarded fetuses, and other practices that don't exactly scream God Fearing Patriot, all occurred after Romney left to manage the Salt Lake City Olympics - is just a bunch of hooey.

Basically, this story is unspinnably bad for Mitt Romney. It keeps the Bain Capital story alive, and that story has been demonstrated to damage his poll numbers in swing states. It makes him, pretty much inescapably, into an outright liar. It raises the question of whether or not Mitt Romney is in fact a criminal. It damages the raison d'etre for his campaign, which is economic leadership. It potentially hurts him with pro-life voters. And, last but not least, it opens him up to investor lawsuits just when most voters are starting to pay attention to Presidential politics.

Which is, of course, exactly why David Axelrod tweeted it, and why the Obama campaign is running with it.

More on this story at The Phoenix and at Perrspectives.

The Romney campaign, for their parts, has demanded a retraction of the story from the Boston Globe and an apology from the Obama campaign. The Boston Globe, in response, has told the Romney campaign to sit and spin. (Update: So has the Obama campaign.)

UPDATE It now appears that Mr. Romney was flown to Bain Capital board meetings as late as 2002. So, the good news is that he's not a felon. The bad news is that he's now on the hook for everything Bain did up to 2002. This is in direct contradiction of the Romney Campaigns claim made earlier today that Romney had no input on Bain's decisions after 1999. Whoopsie!

Blogger Raging Chicken Press has the details of yesterday's Mitt Romney no-show:

Mitt Romney was supposed to kick off his “jobs and economy” bus tour at a Quakertown Wawa earlier today, but he decided to skip the scheduled event. About 400 – 500 people had gathered to greet the Republican presidential candidate – but about half of those were anti-Romney. Demonstrations in opposition to Romney were called by former Governor Ed Rendell and Fight for Philly. Romney decided to double down on Ed Rendell’s new book title, A Nation of Wusses, and skip being confronted by demonstrators, opting instead for lunch with Wawa executives. But before I go much further, I’ve got to remark that it’s really ironic that Romney wanted to kick off a “jobs” tour at an establishment that offers low wage / minimum wage jobs inside a state with a Governor and legislature that is busting middle class union jobs in favor of low-wage jobs.

I'm reminded of a scene from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series where Zaphod, realizing that discretion is the better part of valor, and cowardice the better part of discretion, bravely fled the scene.

I suppose it will back to loyalty oaths in to time, eh, Mitt?

Quoting the Chicago Tribune:

Santorum's campaign has vowed to stay in through the Keystone State contest where the candidate could pick up a sizeable number of delegates with a victory.

Speaking as a partisan Democrat, I hope he stays in the race as long as possible. The primary contest has devastated Romney's chances in November. Obama leads Romney by nine points in the "swing states" - Obama is down one among men, but up a whopping 18 among women. (Yeah - systematically attacking women's rights, particularly their bodily autonomy, will do that to you.) At this rate, I figure Santorum will pad Obama's lead by one point every two weeks he stays in the race.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania is probably Santorum's last stand. He had a huge lead in Pennsylvania, where he served as U. S. Senator, a few weeks ago, but this has disintegrated, and PPP now has Romney up by five. A loss here signals to everyone that he can't overcome Romney's financial and institutional advantages, even if he had a chance in hell of overcoming his substantial lead in the delegate count. Santorum's donors will tell him to hang up his hat, and Santorum will almost certainly oblige.

Then, Mittens will try to shift towards the center, as if that will save him from getting clobbered over the head with his gaffes, missteps, and general cardboard personality.