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elfs"In 2002, Mitt Romney decided he had retired from Bain Capital in 1999."
That's Brad DeLong, and his take is the best one I've seen yet.
Mitt Romney is running for president. He is running opposed to many of his own policies as Governor of Massachusets from 2002 through 2006, because those policies are essentially progressive and the progressive position is unavailable and unelectable. So he's running on his skill as a business acumen, as a man whose specialty was leveraging massive funds into ever more massive funds-- nothing mattered other than profit. Nothing. He did this from his perch at a company called Bain Capital.
In 1999, Mitt Romney decided he had political ambitions. So he leapt at the chance to take a high-profile job mananging the 2002 Olympics in his birth state of Utah.
Between 1999 and 2002, Bain Capital was involved in a number of legal but morally dubious activities, many of which destroyed businesses and outsourced jobs, many of those to overseas investments. Mitt says he wasn't involved in any of those activities-- especially not the one that disposed of "medical waste" from abortion facilities.
In 2002, Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusettes. In sworn testimony before the Massachusettes Election Board, he testified that he had been involved in the supervision of his corporate officers, maintaining the Bain brand, but the Olympics prevented him from engaging in what he perceived to be his central job as CEO: circling above dying companies, picking one, swooping down at the right moment and picking the carcasses clean.
This was enough to ensure his residency requirement to run for Governor, but to Mitt, it wasn't really "running the company." He wasn't in the role of acquisition officer, which he viewed as his primary duty. That was where the thrill lay.
So now, Romney's telling us he really retired in 1999. Although his nameplate stayed on the door and his signature appeared in SEC filings through 2002, and he himself made frequent flights and phone calls to make sure Bain would still be healthy if that whole politics thing didn't work out and he wanted his chair back, he wasn't doing "his job." He was just being CEO, pulling down $100,000 a year, for doing nothing three years in a row.
So Romney's duplicity is on full display here: either he lied to the SEC-- a felony, by the way-- or he's lying now about his involvement in Bain Capital, and must take credit for Bain's actions.
That's Brad DeLong, and his take is the best one I've seen yet.
Mitt Romney is running for president. He is running opposed to many of his own policies as Governor of Massachusets from 2002 through 2006, because those policies are essentially progressive and the progressive position is unavailable and unelectable. So he's running on his skill as a business acumen, as a man whose specialty was leveraging massive funds into ever more massive funds-- nothing mattered other than profit. Nothing. He did this from his perch at a company called Bain Capital.
In 1999, Mitt Romney decided he had political ambitions. So he leapt at the chance to take a high-profile job mananging the 2002 Olympics in his birth state of Utah.
Between 1999 and 2002, Bain Capital was involved in a number of legal but morally dubious activities, many of which destroyed businesses and outsourced jobs, many of those to overseas investments. Mitt says he wasn't involved in any of those activities-- especially not the one that disposed of "medical waste" from abortion facilities.
In 2002, Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusettes. In sworn testimony before the Massachusettes Election Board, he testified that he had been involved in the supervision of his corporate officers, maintaining the Bain brand, but the Olympics prevented him from engaging in what he perceived to be his central job as CEO: circling above dying companies, picking one, swooping down at the right moment and picking the carcasses clean.
This was enough to ensure his residency requirement to run for Governor, but to Mitt, it wasn't really "running the company." He wasn't in the role of acquisition officer, which he viewed as his primary duty. That was where the thrill lay.
So now, Romney's telling us he really retired in 1999. Although his nameplate stayed on the door and his signature appeared in SEC filings through 2002, and he himself made frequent flights and phone calls to make sure Bain would still be healthy if that whole politics thing didn't work out and he wanted his chair back, he wasn't doing "his job." He was just being CEO, pulling down $100,000 a year, for doing nothing three years in a row.
So Romney's duplicity is on full display here: either he lied to the SEC-- a felony, by the way-- or he's lying now about his involvement in Bain Capital, and must take credit for Bain's actions.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 11:59 am (UTC)I think Romney's "disgusting" comment was in response to being called a felon by Obama campaign operatives, which they're already backing off from. Wisely, I think: you don't pull that claim out unless you've got rock-solid evidence to back it up, otherwise it sets up other attacks (which may have actual mileage) to look like "the boy who cried wolf."
The real value on this for the Democrats is probably the Bain link to Stericycle. That's gift-wrapped for an attack ad the last week of the campaign about how "Romney...worked with abortionists to dispose of fetuses." That looks like a highly effective way to depress voter turnout among the pro-life side of the GOP, especially if the timing is crafted so that Romney doesn't have time for the rebuttal to get the same media attention. Pro-lifers are already not sure about his credentials on their issue, given his flip-flop history on that, so it would feed into those doubts.