Perhaps nothing shows how desperate the Romney campaign is getting that this fixation on whining and quibbling around the edges of stories.
So their answer to the stories of outsourcing at Bain is that Romney left Bain in 1999 even though SEC filing documents contradicts that claim.
Romney's campaign spent two weeks demanding an apology from Stepahnie Cutter on the Obama team for arguing that those SEC documents prove Romney is either a felon or lying to the American people.
Romney spent two weeks after this demanding an apology for Cutter calling him a felon. First of all, she hadn't, she said he was either a felon or a liar. In retrospect he was probably in that episode more of a liar than a felon but she made these comments before he admitted that the SEC forms were accurate.
He spent the week just recently whining about Harry Reid making an unsubstantiated claim that he may not have paid taxes for 10 years, ignoring the fact that his denials are just as unsubstantiated. Any way, since Harry Reid is not running for President, arguing with him was yet another waste of precious time. Those tax returns must really be embarrassing for him to think going back and forth with Reid in public was the preferable choice.
Recent polls suggest he was mistaken here in any case. Romney has consistently trailed by 6 to 10 points in recent polls and most Americans, including 68% of independents, want him to release his tax returns.
The new whinefest is about an ad by the Obama Super Pac regarding the story of Joe Soptic who tragically lost his wife due to their lack of health insurance. Romney and his fellow GOPers are like the proverbial dog with a bone on this.
"Republicans think Democrats have overplayed their hand on Bain Capital attacks by using testimony from a man, Joe Soptic, who attributes his wife’s cancer death to losing his job and health insurance at a Bain-owned factory."
"Critics complain the ad by Democratic super PAC Priorities USA is not just indecent but misleading. In addition to implying Romney bears responsibility for letting someone die, a standout accusation even in an intensely negative presidential race, the ad doesn’t mention that Soptic’s wife was diagnosed several years after he lost his job. Republicans are doing all they can to link the controversial ad to the Obama campaign. "
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/priorities-usa-ad-woman-death-cancer-gop-romney.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
So it is that the party of Monica Lewinsky, Swift Boat, and Birtherism is suddenly aghast at dirty campaigning. They are now Miss Manners. Yet what materially in the ad is false? They haven't named anything.
"Romney’s campaign has been complaining for months that Obama’s campaign doesn’t take enough heat for its attacks given Obama’s early post-partisan brand. This latest episode gives them perhaps their best opportunity yet to undermine Obama’s nice guy image, but it does carry the risk of getting bogged down in whining. Especially considering Romney is no angel when it comes to outrageous attack ads. "
"Conservative big money group American Crossroads, whose sister group Crossroads GPS recently had to pull a Senate ad after acknowledging an inaccurate attack themselves, has a video out calling on Obama to denounce the Priorities USA ad."
Yeah, when the phone don't ring, it will be Obama calling to denounce the ad. It's amazing how the GOP can't take it's own medicine. While I don't agree that Obama has run a dirty campaign I do agree it's been very tough and hard hitting. The GOP isn't used to this. The Dems have to play like choir boys. Rough and tumble is their sport.
It's meant for Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Well, if you notice the party that ran Willie Horton won as did they party that ran Swift Boat.
This is not so say that I see the Baining of Mitt Romney-it's become the "Bain" of his existence-as morally equivalent to Swift Boat.
Our Swift Boating has been honest, built on real issues. But like Krugman says, in a media filter that's biased against substance you sometimes have to use the personal to make the policy point. I will quote him again as I really think he neatly encapsulates this here:
"A lot of people inside the Beltway are tut-tutting about the recent campaign focus on Mitt Romney’s personal history — his record of profiting even as workers suffered, his mysterious was-he-or-wasn’t-he role at Bain Capital after 1999, his equally mysterious refusal to release any tax returns from before 2010. Some of the tut-tutters are upset at any suggestion that this election is about the rich versus the rest. Others decry the personalization: why can’t we just discuss policy?"
"And neither group is living in the real world."
"The point is that talking about Mr. Romney’s personal history isn’t a diversion from substantive policy discussion. On the contrary, in a political and media environment strongly biased against substance, talking about Bain and offshore accounts is the only way to bring the real policy issues into focus. And we should applaud, not condemn, the Obama campaign for standing up to the tut-tutters."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/krugman-policy-and-the-personal.html?_r=1
Speaking of the tut-tutters, David Brooks has been mortified by the "lack of seriousness" in this campaign-blaming, as usual, both sides, but focusing mostly on President Obama.
I like this quote by Krugman because I think he's so right about bypassing the media filter. The political and media environment is biased against substance. The dirty little secret is that those who whine most about substance-Brooks and friends-are the ones who do everything to drain the discourse of any substance.
Paradoxically by magnifying Romney's personal stake in regressive taxation and outsourcing, we have the substantive discussion we would otherwise see thwarted as it has been in so many other election cycles. Here is Krugman again:
"There is, predictably, a mini-backlash against the Obama campaign’s focus on Bain. Some of it is coming from the Very Serious People, who think that we should be discussing their usual preoccupations. But some of it is coming from progressives, some of whom are apparently uncomfortable with the notion of going after Romney the man and wish that the White House would focus solely on Romney’s policy proposals.
This is remarkably naive. I agree that the awfulness of Romney’s policy proposals is the main argument against his candidacy. But the Bain focus isn’t a diversion from that issue, it’s complementary.
"So running on the real policy issues by itself isn’t going to work. By all means, run on the real issues — but do so by creating a narrative, a pattern that registers with the public."
"And Romney’s biography offers a golden opportunity to do just that. His policy proposals amount to a radical redistribution of income away from the middle class to the very rich; he’s also being highly dishonest about budgets and just about everything else. How to make those true facts credible? By associating them with his business career, which involved a lot of profiting by laying off workers and/or taking away their benefits; his personal finances, which involved so much tax avoidance that he’s afraid to let us see his returns before 2010; his shiftiness over when exactly he left Bain."
"You could criticize the biographical focus if it were being used to convey a false impression of where Romney stands, but that’s not what’s going on here; instead, it’s being used to get the truth about the candidate past the noise and the media barrier. The truth is that the Obama campaign would be doing the American people a disservice if it didn’t make the most of Bain."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/no-bain-no-gain/
That's the main point. If Obama has in a sense Swift Boated Romney-that's where you take your opponents greatest strength, in this case it was Romney business record, for John Kerry it was his war record in Vietnam-and make it into this biggest weakness.
On the other hand it's been different as in this case as opposed to 2004, it isn't been used to give a false impression, but the opposite.
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