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Will The Real Romney Campaign Please Step Forward?

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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Mitt Romney, who has been running for president since about five seconds after he was born, has been dreaming of this campaign for probably his entire life. He has spent the last decade filling his time with active campaigning of one sort or another, either in the form of actual baby kissing and speech giving, or by the strategic lack of those things, and so it’s forgivable for us to have assumed that he would actually be any good at it. Clearly, we were mistaken.

At first, during the primary, his apparent lack of punch on the campaign trail was due to the out-sized crazy-town behavior of his opponents. You may be a great ventriloquist, but if the other guy on stage just set himself on fire, it’s going to be hard to get the crowd’s attention. People were watching the Republican Primary Debates for the same reason many people watch car races: For the carnage. Romney just didn’t offer enough explosive potential to capture much of the imagination compared to genuine mental patient Michele Bachmann, or 1600’s Puritan reenactor Rick Santorum. And really, Herman Cain? That was unbelievable. And a Newt Gingrich comeback? Newt Gingrich campaign events are like conservative Iggy Pop concerts. This guy is capable of anything. He might just burn the whole place to the ground.

Once the ridiculous and unstable had left the national stage and it was time for the grown-ups to take over the conversation, I expected Romney to improve. Instead, I was treated to one bizarre gaffe after another, week after week, since before the Olympics. At one point, and I’m not even sure when it happened exactly, it became clear that somehow, despite years as a professional candidate for something, Romney just wasn’t that good at this.

 

Romney has tried to treat Obama like just another Herman Cain, and he is finding the President far more formidable. Romney’s other problem is that he hasn’t successfully answered the central question any candidate has to be able to answer: Why are you running for president?

 

How could he be this bad, without anyone noticing until it was too late? First, because of the prolonged and unusual primary season, the only thing Romney got really good at was destroying weak challengers. Barack Obama has the best team of campaign minds alive on the planet, some of whom are already hall-of-fame players of historically unlikely skill and talent. No one running anywhere, ever, has had a better campaign staff. After spending all his time beating down all the neighborhood kids at T-Ball, Romney had never managed to cultivate the skill of a Major Leaguer. Romney has tried to treat Obama like just another Herman Cain, and he is finding the President far more formidable. Romney’s other problem is that he hasn’t successfully answered the central question any candidate has to be able to answer: Why are you running for president?

Everything stems from that. It makes up the rationale around which your campaign will be built. Romney has supplied no hint of an answer to that question. He has demonstrated to the public no indication at all about what he would do, who he would be, or why he even wants to be here in the first place. Romney is almost pathologically short on details. About anything. Even stuff no one cares about. Back in August, he took one of those super contrived, “I’m a regular guy” photo ops where the candidate goes shopping. Here an excerpt of the pool report, via Wonkette:

Gov. Romney left Bradley’s Hardware at 8:54 a.m. with a beige bucket of goods. Asked what he bought, Romney told your pooler, “Hardware stuff.” Then, he said, “Going to the grocery store now,” and climbed into his Suburban.

He can’t even come up with specifics about something as trivial as his shopping list. It would be like if he went to Geno’s in Philadelphia on the obligatory “the candidate eats a cheese-steak” campaign stop, and then refused to tell anyone what he ordered. Hey Mitt: It doesn’t matter what’s in the Goddamned shopping bags. It matters that you don’t want to tell anyone. It makes you look sketchy.

You know when you go to a furniture store and they have the entertainment centers set up, and to make them seem more real they put these cardboard televisions and DVD players in them? That’s the Romney Candidacy so far. A Republican would go here.

This lack of specificity isn’t limited to the contents of his shopping list. Let’s not forget about this exchange with Matt Lauer, from back in January. Via the Chicago Tribune:

LAUER: Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?

ROMNEY: You know I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made this part of his campaign rally.

What have we learned? That Romney only wants to talk about income inequality and tax policy behind closed doors. Until last week we had no way of knowing what Romney’s real thoughts on the matter were, as none of us are allowed into any of the “Quiet Rooms” he’s talking about. This is why the recently revealed 47% tape is so important. Aside from any of his actual comments, it represents the first time any of us has been allowed to hear what goes on in these exclusive enclaves that serve, by the Romney’s own admission, as the only appropriate place to discuss class and the tax system. So, now that we are somewhere less noisy and more appropriate, please Mitt, share with us your thoughts. From Mother Jones:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

You may be asking yourself, “Why haven’t I heard any of this before now?” The answer is simple. You don’t have $50,000 to give to the Romney campaign. Only then can you afford to hear Mitt’s thoughts on the non-rich and what hopeless losers they are. He also found time to insult immigrants.

“[If] you have no skill or experience…you’re welcome to cross the border and stay here for the rest of your life.”

He also shares a few thoughts on the Israel/Palestine situation.

“I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there’s just no way. And so what you do is you say you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that it’s going to remain an unsolved problem.”

He just goes on and on like this. It’s really pretty amazing, and the whole thing is worth watching. If you’ve ever had a question about the Romney’s view on something and you are having a hard time getting a straight answer from him, look to the tape. He probably has a candid, though horrible, answer for you.

 

That the information is only available to those paying a high premium is alarming as well. I wonder how much it costs to find out what he bought at the hardware store? Everything starts to make more sense now. Romney isn’t short on details, he’s just not giving them away for free.

 

Is this how rich people talk about the poor when they think no one is listening? Apparently. I expected that Romney was no friend to the underclass, but the pure disgust and loathing with which he regards them is a little startling. That the information is only available to those paying a high premium is alarming as well. I wonder how much it costs to find out what he bought at the hardware store? Everything starts to make more sense now. Romney isn’t short on details, he’s just not giving them away for free.

One must wonder, and I’d really like an answer from the Romney Campaign about this, is this what all of his private fundraisers are like? He has them constantly. These are exclusive no-press-allowed campaign events for only the most affluent of Romney Supporters. Romney’s 47% speech comes from video recorded secretly at one of these fundraisers. It was, as far as I can tell, just a typical fundraising stop on the Romney Campaign Schedule. I’d wager this isn’t the first and only time he’s spoken like this to roomfuls of fellow wealthy people. If so, how many times has he made comments like this in the past?

Romney has been caught, red handed, talking behind the country’s back. At the very least, we now know that the Quiet-Rooms-Romney is a lot more callous and uncaring than than Happy-Public-Rally-Romney. Is this the real Romney Campaign, and all the baby kissing and public rallies are just for our benefit? Is he saying one thing in public, and another in private? It would appear so. Keep in mind, this video was shot back in May. It’s not like it came from decades ago. These are comments made in the context of this campaign, so the answers to these questions are of paramount importance. These are, as far as I can tell, the only clues we have to who the real Mitt Romney is. The American People deserve a clearer picture. Exactly how two-faced is this candidate? If the real Romney can only be seen beyond the 50,000 dollar barrier, does it even matter what he says the rest of the time?

Slowly, we begin to see a picture emerge. I immediately thought back to the now forgotten story of the time in High School when he and his gang chased down and harassed a gay classmate. When you start to put that together with the obvious contempt he has for those of lower economic classes than himself, not to mention all of the other tone deaf, hyper rich guy comments he’s made over time, (the $10,000 bet with Rick Perry, the “corporations are people” comment, all the dodgy tax stuff etc.) he starts to look more and more like just another spoiled trust fund baby with a too high opinion of himself, and a too low opinion of everyone else.

And don’t let the Romney Campaign fool you. What he said wasn’t “Inelegant.” I’ve heard loads of Mitt Romney speeches and interviews, and the comments in the video were almost uncharacteristically clear and unambiguous. This is a man that can talk for hours and never say anything, and in the space of about two minutes he outlined a pretty specific theory about the motivations of the American voter, and the lower classes generally. At last, after years of hearing him tell everyone what they wanted to hear, we get to learn of the man himself, and the nature of his values. For the longest time, the campaign has resisted showing us the real Romney, and now it appears that we know why.

Image, top, by mariopiperni

Benjamin PhillipsBenjamin Phillips is an Essayist, Web Developer, Civics Nerd, and all around crank that spends entirely too much time shouting with deep exasperation at the television, especially whenever cable news is on, and proudly serves as Director of Development for The New Civil Rights Movement. He lives in St. Louis, MO and spends most of his time staring at various LCD screens, occasionally taking walks in the park whenever his boyfriend becomes sufficiently convinced that Benjamin is becoming a reclusive hermit person. He is available for children’s parties, provided that those children are entertained by hearing a complete windbag talk for two hours about the importance of science education, or worse yet, poorly researched anecdotes PROVING that James Buchanan was totally gay. If civilization were to collapse due to zombie hoards or nuclear holocaust, Benjamin would be among the first to die as he has no useful skills of any kind. The post-apocalyptic hellscape has no real need for homosexual computer programmers who can name all the presidents in order, as well as the actors who have played all eleven incarnations of Doctor Who.

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News

‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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16 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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19 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

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Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

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Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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22 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

By

Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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