GOP Govs to Romney: Release Tax Returns, Offer More Specifics
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, July 10, 2012.
/ AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Asked on the sidelines of the National Governor's Association annual meeting about their diagnosis of Mitt Romney's campaign, the Republican governors had all kinds of advice for the candidate who comes from their ranks, from release-those-tax-returns-already to give-us-more-specifics.
Despite the Beltway buzz and grumbling from some conservatives that the former Massachusetts governor has not been nimble or aggressive enough in responding to the Obama team's attacks, many of the Republican governors here said Romney had hit on an economic message that voters in their states wanted to hear, and lauded his progress.
"I believe he's moving down the right road, going in the right direction. Is he where he needs to be? No. But can he get there? Yes," said Utah Gov. Richard Herbert, referring to Romney's numbers in several swing states, where he is trailing President Obama. "He's come a long way since when he first ran four years ago and right now, in a dead heat with a current incumbent president who has all the powers of incumbency."
Herbert added, indignantly, ""I was in Utah when he was running the Olympics! He wasn't running Bain Capital."
Despite another mediocre jobs report released this month, the political debate of the past week has been consumed with the question of how involved Romney was in the investment firm from 1999 to 2002, when Bain was investing in firms that outsourced jobs. Romney was on at least a partial leave of absence to run the Salt Lake City Olympics during that time. Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission show that he was still at the helm of Bain, but he says he wasn't managing the firm's investments.
A series of media reports about Romney's role and withering, relentless attacks by the Obama campaign prompted Romney to respond more forcefully than he has against past charges. On Friday, the former Massachusetts governor went on a media blitz, doing a series of interviews on network television and demanding an apology from the Obama campaign for saying he had lied about his Bain involvement. Instead, the Obama campaign upped the ante Saturday with a potentially powerful new ad focused on outsourcing and the offshore tax shelters Romney listed on his 2010 tax return, the only one he has released so far.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley found himself in hot water for perhaps a little too much candor when he said Romney would do well to release more tax returns, as Democrats have demanded in recent weeks. "I think he ought to release everything. I believe in total transparency," Bentley told reporters. "You know if you have things to hide, then you may be doing things wrong."
Bentley added, however, that the Obama campaign's focus on outsourcing was a diversionary tactic that voters would see through. "I do believe the Obama campaign is trying to cloud the issue by talking about Bain Capital because they don't want to talk about 8.4 percent unemployment and I wouldn't either!" Bentley said (slightly inflating the June jobless rate, which was 8.2 percent). "If I were them, I'd be talking about all the other things too."
At the NGA - no surprise here - there was a blanket condemnation of the Democratic attacks from the Republican governors. "At the end of the day, people are going to reject that kind of nasty, negative campaign coming from the president of the United States," said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.
The GOP governors said the sniping between the campaigns is irrelevant to people who are hurting for jobs, looking for a speedier recovery, and worried about the nation's debt. "This fuss we see over this is just not the headline it apparently is inside the Beltway," said Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead. "If you ask people what they're concerned about, they're concerned about the future of our kids and our grandkids, they're concerned about the national debt."
Mead added that Romney had been quick to respond to the Bain attacks, a promising development. "Gov. Romney has made clear when he did these things and when he was in charge of Bain Capital and when he was not," Mead said. "It's a bit of a red herring in the sense that you're talking about somebody that was in the private sector creating jobs and if you want to bring up that contrast, I think he compares quite well with President Obama."
When asked about whether the Bain attacks had the potential to be damaging in his swing state, full of the white, blue-collar voters among whom they might have the most resonance, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett deflected. "I'm not doing surveys of the people of Pennsylvania," he said. "You're doing that. I'm much too busy to be doing those surveys."
Some of the governors did say they would like to see more specificity from the Romney campaign as the election cycle moves toward the conventions. "It is not just enough to say repeal Obamacare, it's repeal and replace it with what?" Herbert said. "I know governors are talking about that on the Republican side of the aisle, and we're talking about it in Utah."
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who last month survived a recall ignited by his moves against public employee unions, encouraged Romney to follow in his mold and campaign as a bold, budget-balancing crusader. Voters were just beginning to receive a clearer economic message from him, Walker said. Now, they need more details on the budgetary end.
"For him to do well, the R next to his name has to stand for more than just for Republican, it has to stand for reformer," Walker said. "We got significant swing votes, independents, even some discerning Democrats voting for me because they like someone who's willing to take on the tough issues facing our state."
Popular in Politics
- Obama forgets to salute while boarding Marine One Play Video
- The Ted Cruz conundrum
- Petraeus biographer regrets affair
- As summer approaches, sequestration threatens holiday fun
- IRS' Lerner was asked to resign, refused: GOP Sen. 200 Comments
- Senator: Oklahoma "hit hard, but we're not knocked out"
- GOP Rep.: Obama elected because of Reagan's immigration reforms
- Obama prom pictures surface
"He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It's crazy," The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol asserted on "Fox News Sunday." "You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two."
"There's obviously something there, because if there was nothing there, he would say, 'Have at it,"' observed ABC News Political Analyst and former George W. Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd on "ABC This Week."
Women are NOT going back to the kitchen!
Gays are NOT going back into the closet!
Blacks are NOT going back to the fields!
Illegals are NOT going to self depart!
So if you don't like going FORWARD, then you LEAVE!!!!!!
Mitt's already preaching traditional GOP "voodoo economics": "trickle down" and deregulation. The problem is most American voters have figured out by now that GOP "voodoo economics" is the primary reason why working- and middle-class Americans have seen virtually NO income growth since 1979, while the incomes of the richest Americans have quadrupled or more over the same period. That old too-familiar mantra is not likely to win a ton of votes.
Romney could double-down on his support for "the Paul Ryan budget," but once American voters actually get a look at "the Paul Ryan budget," they realize it's the same old "voodoo economics," only bigger and bolder. And slogans like "Turn Medicare into health insurance vouchers," "Stop funding FAA, FDA, EPA, FCC, CPSB, USDA, and every other regulator," or "More tax cuts for the rich (and keep deficits growing for ten years)" won't be very popular, either.
What specifics can the poor fella provide? His peers and his base won't accept anything that might actually do some good!
BUT...if the PURPOSE of the Romney campaign's line-in-the-sand fight over when he left Bain is intended to take him off the hook for Bain's involvement in outsourcing/offshoring American jobs, that fight is a gigantic fail, because Bain Capital, Inc. was already investing in the U.S. outsourcing/offhoring industry by the mid-'90s, long before Romney claims he left for Salt Lake City.
A liberal, a conservative, and a moderate walked into a bar:
The bartender said Hi Mitt!
Gotta hand it to Mitt Smarmy though because he's the complete opposite of George Bush.
Bush was the kinda guy who believe on Wednesday what he believed on Monday no matter what the Hell happened on Tuesday and Mitt can't say the same thing twice.
Romney criticized Obama for saving GM because that's the opposite of what they do in Bain Capital.
For those that claim "Bain says it didn't happen" you have to explain the SEC filings and his signatures on multiple major transactions including the sale of Bain at the end. It is PERFECTLY REASONABLE to believe that he had no "day to day management responsibilities" (which makes THAT statement true) but it is inconcievable that he didn't know what was happening and that he had no involvement in the big deals THAT HE SIGNED.
The Obama campaign says therefore either he is a liar or a felon. "Liar" is a bit over the top. Romney has stated repeatedly he had no "day to day" responsibilities, and THAT statement may be perfectly true. And it may well be true that he didn't have significant involvement in the outsourcing activities either. BUt any statement that he knew NOTHING and had NO involvement is patently false.
There is a third option - he was grossly negligent and committed willful misconduct of his fiduciary responsibilities at Bain, and therefore would be subject to a professional malpractice suit - except he was the owner, so he didn't sue himself. Although given his flip-flops, even that wouldn't be out of the question.
Bottom line - Romney needs to release his tax returns and come completely clean about the Bain situation immediately or this is going to be an anchor around his neck.
How can he not know anything about Bain's shady practices?