I admit openly that I have no idea what Romney is doing right now regarding Bain. Obama, I get. No one cares that Romney is rich. Most don’t care that he made a lot of money leading Bain Capitol. The initial round of Bain attacks didn’t stick, in fact, they caused some Dems to balk. BUT if it can be shown that Romney oversaw job outsourcing at Bain…well…that’s a narrative that might stick. Team Obama is going full throttle on this one. It’s rough, it’s probably unfair AND Team Romney has – weirdly – decided to let much of it slide and is now playing defense.
With Obama offense is always better. If Romney can’t turn questions about transparency around on Obama then he ought not be running for President. Yet, Romney is on the defensive, demanding apologies...ha! Fat chance. After letting these attacks slide for too long Romney has no choice but to defend himself at this point. The question is: Why is he in this position? And it’s a bad position for Romney in particular. To kill his campaign in the crib all it would take is one overtly annoyed moment on television. He’s capable producing just such a moment.
Obama is the least transparent President since Nixon. Why in the world isn’t Romney demanding answers on Solyndra or Fast and Furious at every campaign event? Good lord, send some functionary out to talk about Obama’s mysterious college records.
I stated a few days ago that Romney was starting to feel like Dukakis. This week confirmed that hunch. The drum beat about Romney’s alleged lack transparency feels like the Willie Horton attacks. HE CAN’T BE TRUSTED is all one needs to take away emotionally. And many are. Can Romney get through this moment? Of course. Yet, it’s hardly reassuring to GOP partisans that he’s in this position in the first place.
The Romney people do not understand Chicago politics.
Related articles
- Bain Capital: Romney not involved after ’99 (content.usatoday.com)
- GOPers worried about Bain barrage (politico.com)
Go over to MIQ’s place. He’s got a video of Romney defending the Bain attacks. I think he did well.
John, Romney talks about all the things you named. THE PRESS does not cover them. They are only interested in protecting the messiah — although a few are starting to break ranks like the report from John King on Anderson Cooper (unfortunately almost zip watch CNN now).
The Washington Post factchecker has said the Obama campaign is blowing smoke on Bain. Fortune mag says its a farce. Dems at Bain who back Obama say Romney left in 1999. Yet the Obama hacks continue their lies.
It doesn’t matter what Romney talks about at his campaign events because you will never hear anything Romney says on the evening news until he says something that makes him look bad – then it will be 24/7 coverage that would probably be important enough for networks to suspend the Olympics.
Still not worried. Romney handled himself well in a round of interviews today and did what he needed to do to protect himself against “feelings” that may have set in over this. All this Bain thing shows is the panic among Dem insiders. Hell, even Charles-freakin-Barclay came out blustering today. And Ed Rendell again took Team Obama to task over these attacks today, so some Dems are still balking, and publicly. I’ve got my eye on a few dirty tricks that could develop that are designed to help Team Obama, like the cell phone donations thing & the food stamp push (a transparent attempt to bulk up the economic numbers), but so far, he’s still flailing and pretty badly.
The minute Romney starts with the transparency attacks, he’ll be charged as a racist – just like Bill and Hillary, and the rest of us. I’m not certain anyone but the Chicago hit squad actually understands the Chicago political landscape. It is a minefield with charges blowing up every other step. Think “Hunger Games” on steroids.
Oh, I did hear some of the Bain defense on the radio and then watched it at myiq’s place.
He doesn’t sound like he’s flailing.
http://crayfisher.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/mitt-romney-on-cnn/
All either of the O’s has ever done is fail upward, as has their consigliere, Jarrett. What is admirable about failure? I agree Romney is going to get beat up in the Chicago swamp, he just may come out looking like the better man, which is not hard.
O looks like a desperate liar, not that desperate liars can’t become President. The election is up to the independents to decide. Independents, by definition, seem less likely to fall for b.s.
I think Romney knows what he’s doing. Mitt is using a rope-a-dope strategy. Right now Obama is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him and it’s not working.
Okay, just watched the clip at Crayfisher. First, I had not seen this when i wrote tonight’s post. And I like Romney in this clip. In fact, with the “Rice” answer he hit a triple if not a home run. Everything except the tax stuff was very solid. Presidential. He’s a better politician than most give him credit for. (and I’m not sure the tax stuff really matters outside Obot land) That said – the fact is Romney had to do a series of last minute interviews on this topic today. THAT is the problem. Now, he could make lemonade here…and if the CNN clip is the norm, rather tasty lemonade. I can see why he’s been successful in business. He’s a leader.
My interest here is in watching the arc. We’ve seen this before, in 1988 and 2004. Same game plan. I’m trying to see this from the perspective of the non-political junkie. The voters seeing this stuff in July from the corner of their eyes…the people the memes wash over and are not that engaged yet, but will vote. Note: Obama is on CBS on Sunday. Bain will be the only topic replayed. CBS’s audience is 8 times the cable shows – in essence Obama gets the last word in this episode. Right now, Axe is directing this show. The topic is Bain. The topic ought to be Fast and Furious. Or Solyndra. Or unemployment. If a candidate is playing defense he’s losing ALMOST every time. There are a few exceptions. Since it’s July it may not matter. And i do get the impression now that MR’s team won’t fall into the Dukakis trap.
The good news for Romney is that the Chicago product being hawked – blows. The other good news is that if the CNN interview is to be taken as the norm, Romney is fighting back well. I can see in that man a “There you go again” moment brewing. We’ll see. I call this things like I see than – AT THE MOMENT – Romney could stuff Bain down Obama’s throat on Monday for all I know.
And, as always, I doubt I’ll pick sides in this one. Chances are good this blog won’t come out swinging for Romney….but who knows. I do find Obama that detestable. I’ve been open about that too. I know Obama won’t be supported around here. I slightly favor MR to win but only because it would be better all around if Obama is expunged. 4 years of GOP nonsense is probably better than 4 more of that man child. And the Dem party needs a corrective or it’s dead. Obama will smash what’s left of it to bits in a 2nd term HOWEVER, it would not surprise me in the least if BHO won. The 2 choices could be named “Disturbing” and “Appalling” as far as I’m concerned.. I’ve grown accustomed to appalling at this point. We’ll get through it – or we won’t.
Please know this: those pulling for Romney are more than welcome here. Those pulling for the other guy are too… though they are harder for me to stomach. I don’t have to like everyone.
So thanks for the comments so far. Y’all teach me stuff. Keep me on my toes.
I’m kind of at a loss about your emphasis about Romney doing “last minutes interviews today” on the Bain attacks — the interviews today are specifically related to the “felony” charge Team Obama operative Stephanie Cutter made *yesterday* after a recycled story from Mother Jones (that had been debunked by FactCheck.org when it ran months ago) was reprinted by the Boston Globe *yesterday.* I don’t understand how Romney could have answered an attack prior to it’s being made. The question of when Romney left the management of Bain has been answered not only by FactCheck.org, Fortune Magazine, and other independent fact check organizations previously to Team Obama deciding to bring it up yesterday, it was answered by a MA state investigation into the matter in 2004 when Romney ran for governor & Dems tried to disqualify him by saying he had given up residency in MA to move to Utah to run the Olympics in 1999 & thus was ineligible to run for governor (kind of the opposite of what they are trying to argue now).
Anyway, are you saying that Romney should have anticipated that Obama would flat out lie about when Romney left Bain even though that has been long established and somehow anticipated this completely baseless attack? And make no mistake — although Obama might not in fact understand how someone can retain ownership interest in a company and have a certain titles re: state & SEC filings but not actually exert managing control over the company (because the lack of understand re: business that Obama has is breathtaking) people in his campaign certainly do understand that & they understand that what they are trying to claim — that Romney maintained control over Bain past February 1999 when he was in Utah bailing out the 2002 Olympics — based on a few SEC pro forma filing docs is a load of cr*p. I’m not surprised Romney didn’t anticipate this attack and go *on offense* about it because it is literally based on nothing — even the Washington Post, which is not exactly Obama-adverse, says Obama is “blowing smoke” on this. This is such a desperate ploy by Team Obama that it could not have been anticipated.
And, in fact, a spokesperson from Team Obama *did* back peddle on this brouhaha today. Of course, there isn’t going to be an actual apology — I don’t think Romney thinks there would be — but asking for one is part of Romney’s way of demonstrating how sleazy this attack from Obama is.
And PS, not to get into a huge discussion about this, but the “that would be a felony” line from Cutter yesterday is doubly wrong not only because she said it knowing that it wasn’t true (as I stated in my post above) but, in fact, the criminal violations to which she refers are applicable to publicly traded companies & thus not applicable to Bain, a privately held company. Which is one more reason not to anticipate a “felony” attack on this from Team Obama.
Apart from those who’ve already chosen sides and use political doings as their distraction, nobody’s paying attention to this. It’s summer. It’s hot as hell, there’s a drought in the nation’s mid-section. Real lives are being lived with less money, less security and more effort; and the American character today is not suited to having less and putting forth more effort. Most are not interested in this esoterica. If people even see “Bain Capital,” their eyes glaze past it; this just isn’t compelling enough to draw attention.
John mentioned Willie Horton recently. That attack was effective against Dukakis because of the photograph; there was an ominous dark scary image attached to Dukakis, who was ethnic looking and therefore already potentially suspicious to a lot of Americans. It was effective because of instant imaging. There’s nothing threatening or sinister about the words Bain Capital, in fact it sounds rather friendly and innocuous, and although Americans may be vaguely mad at Wall Street, they don’t understand what it’s really about or what Bain Capital does or Romney’s role in it. It’s just not well enough defined to hurt Romney at this point.
That said, Romney hasn’t made the headway he should have by now if he’s to win in November. The economy and our prospects are in tatters and yet Obama remains a viable candidate for re-election. That, pathetic as it may be, is an Obama accomplishment. All Obama has to do is squeak through, and so far he still is. Americans today are accustomed to failures who keep their jobs, they relate to superior victims; and that’s Obama, not Romney. Maybe by November people’ll see Romney as savior to Obama’s failure but it’s up to him to establish that and he hasn’t; they better have a top grade 11th hour plan.
this bain bullshit got out of hand (felony!) because Romney let it slide too long. But Zal is probably right – no one is watching this that closely…
I can’t remember what show if was but I heard that Gov. Romney has a lot of money that he is not allowed to spend until August, whereas President Obama is not so restricted in his funds. It must be a sourcing difference. Thus the interviews, etc.
djmm
Thank you Lord:
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/07/12/nbc-news-declared-dead-microso
When you look at that network as spoiled teenagers spouting garbage and living on dad’s credit card it brings things into focus. So Daddy Microsoft just cancelled the card. The elitist, pseudo-intellectual, hate filled brats are being caught in a culture shift. If Microsoft doesn’t want to be associated with the progs they are crapping out fast and the money will be in increasingly short supply just like with the Obama campaign. This is an excellent warning to the rest of the media. We will see if they are too stupid to get it.
after all this time, i was brand confused too because it never even hit me that it was a partnership between nbc and microsoft. it was a duh moment for me. glad microsoft is getting out of that mess so they can keep their own brand out of that crap from now on.
Ed Schitzsandwich used to be the worst, but others are catching up. Soon their noses will be too long to look presentable on tv.