Folks,
I noticed some queer behaviors from the Romney team, which I think is appropriate to point out. It is not orderly the way Paul Ryan at campaign rally demean President Obama without respect. Instead of dignifying the Office of the Presidency, Paul Ryan is calling President Obama "candidate Obama". Well, as I know it, President Obama is yet a sitting President and is still the President who by all means demands to be respected. He should be given all due respect he deserves by the Romney team. They should honor the office of Presidency and exercise orderly conduct.
Secondly, people want to know if it is true Mitt Romney was in the business of poaching and transferring US Jobs overseas after filing bankruptcy and taking off huge sums of money. People also want to know if Romney took any government loans or had Government contract that could have been frozen in the bankruptcy that liquidated in the companies where many people lost their jobs and retirements benefits……..If this is true, people are wondering if Justice is able to secure what they lost in these circumstances.
Mitt Romney is surprised about President Obama's speech and is asking where are the jobs President Obama Promised.........The People are also asking Mitt Romney why and where did he take the US Jobs when he liquidated them and wrote bankruptcy leaving people stranded without jobs.......did he consider that what he did would require an explanation????? The Jobs Mitt Romney outsourced contributed to the job loss American people cannot be blinded about......People, the scathing attack and review from Romney on President Obama's Convention speech should not be wishy washed away; instead, Mitt Romney should be put on spotlight to explain why as a suspect, he killed US jobs through Bain and jumping bail, playing blame game on President Obama??? Where are the Tax Return to prove he did not play foul to fool the Country and the People of America???? How can he be trusted without putting out his 10 years tax return.....???.........Is Mitt Romney keeping a secret from the American People??? People want to know......some light need to be cleared.........Investigation need to clear all these smokescreen.........People are worried and are very much afraid........these secrets could be timed bomb..........
Three, people are worried that if Mitt Romney has records of bankruptcy how they can trust their lives and the Country in the leadership of Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket? How about if America is declared bankrupt or blackmailed by Chinese business partners they share business in the outsourcing of Offshore etc.,…….???.........Who knows what Is in the mind of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan more or so when 95% of their campaign is based on lie…...It is made worse when they have no idea of Foreign Policy as it seems.
With the concerns of burning issues about Mitt Romney at the Bain taking turns, people must be told the truth; American livelihood and survival must not hang on betting or in a gamble from possible insecurities from blackmail or exposed to foreign bankruptcy. Where lies the truth………Before the people hires any public servant, background check must be done to ascertain suitability of any candidate………What happened with Bain questions? Where are the reports from the Government to clear public concerns and remove the smokescreen??????? Judy Miriga Diaspora Spokesperson Executive Director Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc., USA http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com Take a look....... Matt Taibbi: The Secret to Mitt Romney's Fortune? Greed, Debt and Forcing Others to Foot the Bill Published on Aug 30, 2012 by democracynow DemocracyNow.org - A new article by reporter Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone sheds new light on the origin of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's fortune, revealing how Romney's former firm, Bain Capital, used private equity to raise money to conduct corporate raids. Taibbi writes: "What most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: By borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth." To watch the complete coverage of the Republican National Convention on this weekday independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, search our vast archive, or to find more information about Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman, visit http://www.democracynow.org/ Matt Taibbi: The Secret to Mitt Romney's Fortune? Greed, Debt and Forcing Others to Foot the Bill Thursday, August 30, 2012 A new article by reporter Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone sheds new light on the origin of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's fortune, revealing how Romney's former firm, Bain Capital, used private equity to raise money to conduct corporate raids. Taibbi writes: "What most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth." [includes rush transcript] Guest: Matt Taibbi, contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His most recent in-depth article is called "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital." He's author of the book Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History. Links
Editor's PicksRush TranscriptThis transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. TranscriptAMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We are broadcasting from PBS station WEDU in Tampa, Florida. This is "Breaking With Convention: War, Peace and the Presidency," Democracy Now!'s special coverage from the Republican National Convention, inside and out. I'm Amy Goodman. We continue our coverage now by turning to an issue that's been raised repeatedly during the campaign: the personal wealth of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. A new article by reporter Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone sheds light on the origin of his fortune, revealing how Romney's former firm, Bain Capital, used private equity to raise money to conduct corporate raids. Matt Taibbi writes, quote, "what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time," Taibbi writes. He goes on to say, "In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on [planet] Earth." Well, Matt Taibbi joins us now, contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His most recent in-depth piece called "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital," author of the book also, Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History. Matt Taibbi, welcome to Democracy Now! MATT TAIBBI: Good morning. AMY GOODMAN: Lay it out for us. Excellent piece, investigative piece, on Mitt Romney's wealth. Where did it start? MATT TAIBBI: Well, you know, for me, it started when I had to cover this campaign earlier this year, and I was listening to Romney's stump speech about debt. You know, he came up with this whole image of a prairie fire of debt raging across America that was literally going to burn children alive in the future. And I kept thinking to myself, does nobody know what this guy did for a living and how he made his money? You know, Mitt Romney is unabashedly a leverage buyout artist. And a leverage buyout artist is a guy who borrows lots of money that other companies have to pay back. And that's the simple formula. He started out—his most famous deals, of course, are essentially venture capital deals like the Staples situation, where he built a company from the ground up. But after Staples, he switched to a different model, that he preferred for the rest of his professional career, in which he took over existing companies by putting down small amounts of his own cash, borrowing the rest from—typically from a giant investment bank, taking over controlling stakes in companies, and then forcing those companies to pay him either through management fees or through dividends. And that's his business formula. AMY GOODMAN: Explain what private equity is. MATT TAIBBI: Well, that is what a private equity fund does. They're essentially—it's a synonym for what in the '80s we called the leverage buyout business. It's a small group that raises capital and then goes and leverages takeovers of companies using borrowed money. In the '80s, these—this sort of business was glamorized through a couple of things, in particular, in pop culture. One was the movie Wall Street, where Gordon Gekko, the famous Michael Douglas character from the Oliver Stone movie, was essentially a private equity guy. He was a leverage buyout takeover artist. And the other one was a book called Barbarians at the Gate, which was a true story of the takeover of RJR Nabisco by a company called KKR, which was another Bain Capital-like takeover company. And that's what they are. They're essentially guys who borrow money to take over companies and extract wealth from those companies to pay off their investors. AMY GOODMAN: Matt, you say that Mitt Romney is not the flip-flopper that critics say he is. MATT TAIBBI: Yeah. I mean, this is a sort of a subtle point about Mitt Romney. It's funny. I don't want to stretch this comparison too much, but, you know, there's—it's almost like he has a kind of a religious conviction about being able to lie to people outside of the tent, so to speak. You know, there's that tenet of some forms of extreme Muslim religions where it's OK to lie to the infidel. And I think Mitt Romney has a little bit of that. He seems to believe that it's OK, that there's nothing particularly wrong with changing one's mind about things, and he does it repeatedly in a way that I think is different from other politicians. For him, it's just changing a business strategy, and he doesn't see why everybody should get so upset about it. AMY GOODMAN: You say that Mitt Romney has a vision, that he's trying for something big. Lay out what that vision is. MATT TAIBBI: Well, Mitt Romney is really the representative of an entire movement that's taken over the American business world in the last couple of decades. You know, America used to be—especially the American economy was built upon this brick-and-mortar industrial economy, where we had factories, we built stuff, and we sold it here in America, and we exported it all over the world. That manufacturing economy was the foundation for our wealth and power for a couple of centuries. And then, in the '80s, we started to transform ourselves from a manufacturing economy to a financial economy. And that process, which, you know, on Wall Street we call financialization, was really led that—sort of this revolution, where instead of making products, we made transactions, we made financial products, like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. We created money through financial transactions rather than building products and selling them around the world. And that revolution was really led by people like Mitt Romney. And the advantage of financialization, from the point of view of the very rich and the people who run the American economy, is that it was extremely efficient at extracting wealth and kicking it upward, whereas the old manufacturing economy had the sort of negative effect of spreading around to the entire population. In the financialization revolution, you can take all of the money, and you don't have to spread it around with anybody. And Mitt Romney was kind of a symbol of that fundamental shift in our economy. AMY GOODMAN: Yesterday, Democracy Now!'s Mike Burke caught up with the Texas governor, Rick Perry, and asked him about his comment about Mitt Romney, calling him a vulture capitalist. Let's take a listen.
AMY GOODMAN: What you were just listening to was the silence of Governor Perry not responding to Mike's question. Yes, Governor Perry called Mitt Romney a "vulture capitalist." Matt Taibbi, what does that mean? MATT TAIBBI: Well, look, again, this is what—how companies like Bain made their money. And a great example was a company that I went and visited—well, the place where it used to exist—KB Toys, which used to be headquartered out in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. They took over the company with like $18 million down. They financed the other $302 million. So that's borrowed money that subsequently became the debt of KB Toys. This is an important distinction for people to understand. When they borrowed that money to take over that company, they didn't have to pay it back, KB had to pay it back. Once they took over the company, they induced it to do a $120 million, quote-unquote, "dividend recapitalization," which essentially means that the company had to cash in a bunch of shares and pay Bain and its investors a huge sum of money. And in order to finance that, they had to take out over $60 million in bank loans. So, essentially, you take over the company, you force them to make enormous withdrawals against their credit card, essentially, and pay the new owners of the company. And that's essentially what they did. They took over a floundering company that was sort of in between and faced with threatening changes in the industry, and they forced them to cash out entirely and pay all their money to the new owners. AMY GOODMAN: You know, just for the record, Governor Perry's comment about Mitt Romney was very interesting. He said, "They're vultures that sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick, and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that, and they leave the skeleton." MATT TAIBBI: That's exactly right. That's exactly what they do. Again, they borrow money, they take over the company, the company now has this massive new debt burden. So, if the couple was already in trouble, if it was already having trouble meeting its bottom line, suddenly, not only does it have its old problems, now it has, you know, $300 million in new debt service that it has to pay. So it might be, you know, paying millions and millions of dollars every month. A great example is Dunkin' Donuts, whose parent company was taken over a couple years ago by a combination of Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group. Dunkin' was induced to do one of those dividend recapitalizations. They had to pay half-a-billion dollars to their new masters. And just to pay the debt service on the loan they took out to make that payment to Bain and Carlyle, they're going to have to sell like two-and-a-half million cups of coffee every month just to pay the debt service. So, that's extraordinary. They are—they're essentially vultures who hang out waiting for companies to get sick, then they forcibly take them over, and they extract fees, commissions and dividends, by force, essentially. AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, Democracy Now! spoke to two workers from what's now Sensata Technologies, which Bain Capital is majority owner. A hundred seventy workers there at the Sensata plant in Freeport, Illinois, are calling on Romney to help save their jobs from being shipped to China. The plant manufactures sensors and controls that are used in aircraft and automobiles. This is Tom Gaulrapp, a former—well, he's a Sensata worker now, talking about the response that they've received.
AMY GOODMAN: That's Tom Gaulrapp, and he's describing going to an Iowa Romney campaign event last week—Romney was maybe seven rows in front of him—and asking about their jobs, their company owned by Bain, being sent to China. In fact, some of them went to China, the workers, to train the workers in China, so that they could take over their jobs. Their last day will be the Friday before the elections. They'll be on the unemployment line to apply for unemployment on Monday. On Tuesday, they vote. Can you comment on this situation, Matt? MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, no, it's absolutely typical of a private equity transaction. I think one of the glaring misconceptions about this kind of business that's persisted throughout Mitt Romney's campaign for the presidency is that what these companies do is turn around and fix companies, that they're in the business of helping these companies. Romney constantly uses this term, that he—that, you know, "help." "I'm either helping this firm, or I'm helping it turn around." He wrote a book called Turnaround. But they are not in the business of turning companies around and creating jobs. That is a complete mischaracterization. What they're in the business of doing is repaying the investors who lent them the money to take over those companies. The workers are completely irrelevant in this scheme. Romney is—you know, the old-school industrialists, like Mitt Romney's father, they were men and women who built communities. They had factory towns. They were very anxious to leave, you know, hard legacies that people could see: hospitals, churches, schools—you know, the Hersheys of the world, the Kelloggs. But these new owners have absolutely no allegiance to American workers, American places, American communities. Their only allegiance is to the investors and to themselves. And so, it's not at all uncharacteristic to have these situations where people are pleading for their jobs or they're saying, you know, "We'll tighten our belts, if you just make this concession and keep us." That's irrelevant to the Mitt Romney-slash-Bain Capital-slash-Carlyle Groups of the world. They're entirely about making profits. And if that means shipping jobs to China or eliminating jobs, that's what they're going to do. And that's the new generation of corporate owners in this country. AMY GOODMAN: Matt, last month, Mitt Romney gave a series of TV interviews defending his role at Bain Capital. This is Mitt Romney speaking to CNN's Jim Acosta.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mitt Romney on CNN. Matt Taibbi, he's referring to the—that time gap, 1999, when he said he left, to 2000, 2001, 2002. The significance of this? MATT TAIBBI: You know, I don't think it's terribly important whether he was actively sitting at the helm during that time or whether he was just passively accepting the vast amounts of money that were sent his way as the result of the deals that were concluded at that time. Again, Mitt Romney—well, I'm sorry, Bain Capital took over KB Toys during that disputed time period and made an enormous profit. I think their profit was something like $100 million out of that deal. And Mitt Romney shared in that, in that largesse, even whether he was, you know, actively strategizing or not. You know, the groundwork for deals like that had been laid in the decades before that where he was actively involved in deals like taking over a company like Ampad, which was a very similar deal to the KB deal. So, it's irrelevant to me, and I think it should be irrelevant to everybody, whether he was actually working there or not. He shared in the profits and clearly didn't have a problem with any of those deals. AMY GOODMAN: Matt Taibbi, you have said that Mitt Romney's fortune would not have been possible without the direct assistance of the U.S. government. MATT TAIBBI: Yes, there's a tax deduction for all that borrowed money. So, when Mitt Romney or Bain Capital, when they want to go take over a company like KB Toys and they borrow $300 million to do it, and that new debt becomes the debt of KB Toys, when KB pays the debt service, the monthly service on that debt, that service is deductible. And if that were not true, if they did not have that deduction, these deals would not be economically feasible. They wouldn't be possible. I spoke to one former regulator from the SEC, who worked both in the SEC and as an accountant at a Big Four accounting firm, and he reviewed a number of these deals in both a public and private capacity. And he said, without that deduction, he's never seen a deal that would have been economically—a private equity deal that would have been economically feasible. So, this entire business model depends upon a tax break. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Romney's role in Bealls Brothers and Palais Royal. And how is Michael Milken involved with this? MATT TAIBBI: Sure. And just generally speaking, these private equity deals, they're made possible by these sort of get-rich-quick, easy-money schemes that started appearing on Wall Street in the '80s. Again, in the old days, the real power in the American economy was—belonged to the industrialists, the guys who—men and women who actually made things, because they had—they were the primary sources of cash and revenue. But in the '80s, we started to develop all these new methods of simply creating money out of thin air. And the first great one in the '80s was Mike Milken's junk bonds. And this ability to conjure instant millions gave people, like the fictional Gordon Gekko, the power to take over, you know, mighty companies—airlines, you know, industrial companies—whereas 10, 15, 20 years ago, somebody who didn't have his own fortune would never have been able to take over those companies. And that's what happened with this transaction with Bealls. Romney used Mike Milken's junk bonds to take over a couple of department store chains, which he subsequently merged. And even after finding out that Milken was under investigation and would shortly have to go to court to defend himself on fraud charges, Romney pressed ahead with the deal anyway and ended up making, you know, another tidy profit on that deal. AMY GOODMAN: Matt, finally, what do you feel reporters here at the Republican National Convention should be asking Mitt Romney about his time at Bain? MATT TAIBBI: Well, I just think that the— AMY GOODMAN: And what his plans are for the presidency? MATT TAIBBI: Sure. I just think the one unanswered question that reporters just don't ask either of these people is—they're making their entire platform about debt. Paul Ryan, his entire political profile is based on this idea that he's an enemy of debt and a, you know, budget slasher. And Mitt Romney has—again, he's banked his entire campaign rhetoric on the sort of prairie fire of debt theme. And yet, this is a guy who spent—who made his fortune creating debt. Somehow, this question has not been asked to him. How is that not hypocritical? It hasn't been asked of either of them, and I would like to see the mainstream press at least ask that question. I think it's an ideal debate question that should be asked somewhere down the line. AMY GOODMAN: Matt Taibbi, I want to thank you very much for being with us, contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His most recent article in Rolling Stone is "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital." Matt Taibbi is author of the book Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to the floor of the convention. Stay with us. President Obama Fighting For Women's Votes Published on Sep 5, 2012 by politicalarticles Christian Lunatic, 'Karateka' Chuck Norris & Wife Warn That Obama Reelection Will Bring '1,000 Years Of Darkness': http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/2012/09/05/christian-lunatic-karateka-c... 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Martin Bashir works for MSNBC, which has run a series of TV ads with its high-profile hosts and commentators supporting government programs as a force of good in society. Martin Bashir Confront Rep. Strategist "answer my questions" Published on Sep 4, 2012 by MrObamanos "Obama just inherited the worst situation since FDR" Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace and Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod had a similar back and forth. "David, is the average American better off than four years ago?" Wallace asked. Axelrod responded: "I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's gonna take some time to work through it." The Ed Show | Aired on September 04, 2012 History shows we're better off today than 4 years agoFour years ago, the economy was in free-fall and the country was losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month. Republicans say Americans were better off. Rep. 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ORANGE CITY, Iowa - In his first public campaign event in five days, Mitt Romney gave a scathing review of President Obama's convention speech, referring to it as "extraordinarily, surprisingly disappointing." "I was surprised by his address because I expected him to confront the major challenges of the last four years, which is an economy which has not produced the jobs that the American people need," said Romney, who said that he had read, but didn't watch, Obama's speech last night. Get more pure politics at ABCNews.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com "I expected him to talk about 23 million people, or at least to talk about the unemployed in America. I expected him to talk about the number of families having a hard time making ends meet. The number of middle income families who have seen the cost of health care insurance go up, the cost of food go up, the cost of gasoline go up, even as their incomes have gone down, I expected him to talk about these things," said Romney. "No. Instead it was a whole series of new promises that he ultimately won't be able to keep because the policies he believes in and the direction he's pulling will not make America stronger. If President Obama were reelected we would have four more years of the last four years and the American people are going to say no to that." "Now you might have expected the president of the United States to lay out a plan of what he would do to get the economy going again, and get people working again and he didn't do that last night," Romney continued. "Again, that was surprising to me. I laid out the things that I'm going to do to get this economy going." Romney, speaking in a state with one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates, said that while he's "trying to look beyond" the bad news from this morning's jobs report, it was still "simply unimaginable." "The president said that by this time we'd be at 5.4 percent unemployment…instead, we're at about 8 percent. And you know the difference that that makes in how many people would be working in America? Nine million people. Had he been able to keep his promise, had his, had his policies worked as he thought they would, there'd be 9 million more Americans working," said Romney. Romney heads next to the swing state of New Hampshire, where Obama just wrapped up a campaign even of his own. Obama Makes Case for 2nd Term: 'Harder' Path to 'Better Place' The New York Times Thursday, September 6, 2012  President Obama on Thursday night accepted the Democratic nomination for a second term, making a forceful argument that he had rescued the economy from disaster and ushered in a recovery that would be imperiled by a return to Republican stewardship. Defining his fight for re-election as a bald "choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future," Mr. Obama conceded the country's continuing difficulties while pleading for more time to solve them. He laid out a long-term blueprint for revival in an era obsessed with short-term expectations. "I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy," Mr. Obama said. "You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades." He added: "But know this, America: Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I'm asking you to choose that future." Mr. Obama's speech before 20,000 enthusiastic Democratic leaders and supporters punctuated back-to-back political conventions in which the two parties, if nothing else, delivered radically different visions for how to end the economic malaise that has afflicted the country since 2008. A week after Mitt Romney sought to appeal to American disappointment with Mr. Obama, the president pressed his case that the Republican candidate is so disconnected from the struggles of the middle class that he has no clue how to address them. In sharp language, he planned to link Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan, to what he long described as failed trickle-down economic policies that favor the wealthy, reflecting what has become a central theme of his campaign. "On every issue, the choice you face won't just be between two candidates or two parties," Mr. Obama said. "When all is said and done, when you pick up that ballot to vote, you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation." Mr. Obama sought to cast his own economic prescriptions in historical terms. Fixing the economy, Mr. Obama said, "will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one." Appealing to moderate voters, he added: "And by the way, those of us who carry on his party's legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington." The Romney campaign released a reaction to the president's speech before it was even delivered, assailing Mr. Obama as having failed to create enough jobs, cut the deficit in half or increase incomes. "This is a time not for him to start restating new promises, but to report on the promises he made," Mr. Romney said in the taped statement. "I think he wants a promises reset. We want a report on the promises he made." Introducing Mr. Obama on Thursday night was Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who offered testimony to the president's leadership on everything from the economy to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Mr. Biden also fired some of the evening's tougher shots at Mr. Romney. "I found it fascinating last week when Governor Romney said that as president, he'd take a jobs tour," he said. "Well, with all his support for outsourcing, it's going to have to be a foreign trip." Mr. Biden's nomination for a second term as vice president was approved by the convention by acclamation after his son Beau, the attorney general of Delaware, formally put his name up for consideration in a speech that left the vice president teary-eyed for the second consecutive night.The emotion in the packed hall crested early, when former Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, her step faltering, walked tentatively onto the stage in a surprise appearance to lead the pledge of allegiance. Mrs. Giffords, who was shot in the head by a would-be assassin in Tucson, is still recovering, and she stumbled over the word "indivisible." But she got through the pledge in her first real public speaking since the shooting, and blew kisses to the crowd, which surged to its feet in ovation, chanting "Gabby! Gabby!" Given that Mr. Romney did not spend much time on foreign policy during his acceptance speech last week, it was a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama would devote time to national security, an area where Democrats believe they have carved out a surprising advantage. Even before Mr. Obama appeared on stage, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's presidential nominee in 2004, recited a list of foreign policy achievements of the Obama administration, from ending the Iraq war to the killing of Osama bin Laden. "Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago," Mr. Kerry said, turning a Republican line critical of the president into an argument for his re-election. Heading into the conventions, the two candidates were locked in a statistical tie and neither side was sure whether that would change coming out of Charlotte. While other presidential races have seen wild swings of support over the months leading up to the vote, this one has been remarkably static since it began taking shape in the spring. The two campaigns now have a month until a series of four televised debates, three between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney and one between Mr. Biden and Mr. Ryan, that will frame the final choice heading to the Nov. 6 election. The president's speech culminated a three-day convention that, like its Republican equivalent last week, did not always go according to script. In what was widely viewed as correcting an unforced error, party leaders in Charlotte, at the behest of Mr. Obama, pushed through a vote to change language in their platform affirming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The reference had been in the 2008 platform but dropped this year, prompting criticism from Republicans and pro-Israel groups, and Mr. Obama bowed to the pressure. Just as distracting was the move Thursday night to the Time Warner Cable Arena from the Bank of America Stadium, where Mr. Obama's campaign had hoped to put the president before 85,000 supporters in a bid to re-create some of the magic of his 2008 run. Instead, with thunder, lightning and rain forecast — conventiongoers huddled under plastic sheets as they darted between sites — organizers were forced to cancel the big outdoor stadium event. That left a substantial segment of some 65,000 supporters — many of them traveling from all over the country — without the chance to see the president in person. In a teleconference call Thursday afternoon, he expressed his regrets. "The problem was a safety issue," Mr. Obama said. "You guys can imagine, with all the nagging that goes on and the security issues involved, getting 70,000 people into a place is tough; getting them out of there is even tougher. And if we had started seeing severe thunderstorms and lightning, in particular, it would have been a problem." But if the weather did not cooperate, the challenge of recapturing the excitement of the past went beyond meteorology. Mr. Obama's task was harder than in 2004, when his keynote convention address rocketed him to stardom, or in 2008, when he claimed leadership of the party on the back of a popular wave of support and distaste for the opposition. If eight years ago he came to fame by deploring the divisions of a red America and a blue America, he arrived at this moment governing a country seemingly even more divided than before. If four years ago he represented promise, a word he used 32 times in that speech as he insisted that the party then in power "own their failure," he now argues that he has kept that promise and disclaims ownership of the failure his critics see. The president's aides understood they could never re-create the power of the past but hoped to convince voters that more has been done than commonly recognized. The "promises kept" theme was intended to address the same swing voters Mr. Romney sought last week to win over. In his speech, Mr. Obama laid out several specific promises for the next four years. He vowed to cut deficit spending by $4 trillion over the next decade, to double exports by the end of 2014 and create one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of a second term. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Standing before an exhilarated gathering of Democrats to launch his fall campaign, President Obama on Thursday implored voters to bear with him through the nation's continuing struggles and give him another four years in the White House. "I won't pretend the path I'm offering is quick or easy. I never have," Obama said. "You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades." Offering his most comprehensive response to the Republicans who have railed against his performance as president, Obama warned against returning to conservative policies that he said had plunged America into a severe economic crisis. "Know this, America: Our problems can be solved," said Obama, who was introduced by First Lady Michelle Obama. "Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place." Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention added personal inspiration to a sweeping keynote speech the night before by former President Bill Clinton, who provided the blueprint for a campaign that will argue that the president needs more time. It also gave Obama his single best shot for an unfiltered rebuttal to Mitt Romney's GOP convention in Tampa, where Republicans signaled that they intend to make the election a referendum on Obama and the economy. "President Obama laid out the choice in this election, making the case for more of the same policies that haven't worked for the past four years," Romney said in a statement on Thursday. "He offered more promises, but he hasn't kept the promises he made four years ago." Also taking the podium on Thursday was Vice President Joe Biden, the face of the trillion-dollar economic stimulus package that Democrats say averted a deeper recession but that Republicans contend was a waste of money. "President Obama knows that creating jobs in America, keeping jobs in America and bringing jobs back to America is what the president's job is all about," Biden said. "That's what presidents do." Obama's speech, part appeal to undecided voters, part rallying cry for dispirited followers, aimed to serve as a springboard for the work of a vast network of young grass-roots supporters in Minnesota and across the nation. Obama and a procession of supporters at the podium repeatedly drew sharp contrasts between his accomplishments and the Republicans' plans. From foreign policy, to student loans, to public education, Obama said, this election is "a choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future." In a direct challenge to the budget plan laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Romney's running mate, Obama vowed never to turn Medicare into a voucher or subsidy-support system. "No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies," he said. Minnesota delegates led the cheers when the president gave a shoutout to Marvin Windows, a company that preserved jobs during the recession: "The family business in Warroad, Minnesota, that didn't lay off a single one of their four thousand employees during this recession, even when their competitors shut down dozens of plants, even when it meant the owners gave up some perks and pay -- because they understood their biggest asset was the community and the workers who helped build that business -- they give me hope." 'Enthusiasm gap' Obama's acceptance speech also was meant to answer questions about whether the passion that carried him to the nation's highest office four years ago has petered out after more than three years of incumbency, hard times, stubborn unemployment and the populist counter-reaction of the Tea Party movement. Delegates in high spirits after talks by Clinton, Michelle Obama and a throng of singers and celebrities led by James Taylor helped Democrats attack the Republican narrative of an Obama bloom coming off the rose. His speech was interrupted several times by chants of "Four more years!" and "U.S.A.!" "We made it quite clear that the 'enthusiasm gap' is a fantasy," said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. The weather, however, didn't cooperate with the Obama campaign's plans to stage his acceptance speech in an 80,000-seat stadium, as he did four years ago in Denver. The threat of thunderstorms forced the event into the smaller Time Warner Cable Arena, leaving thousands of Obama partisans disappointed, including 120 Minnesotans who came as guests of delegates. Whatever the venue, Obama had to meet the high expectations for oratory set in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, where he called for "hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope," catapulting him into the national imagination. 'Human connection'
Delegates from Minnesota cast all their votes for Obama's nomination the night before. Some said the three-day convention reflected their faith in a Democratic sequel to 2008, coming after months of scathing attacks during GOP primaries of the past year. In contrast to the frequent testimonials of individual business success in Tampa, the Democratic convention featured a succession of speakers helped by student loan programs, the auto industry bailout and Obama's health care overhaul. "Rather than focusing on sound bites, the message has moved to the human connection," said Susan Moravec, a delegate from Shakopee. "So people are excited." Democrats also promoted the idea of the convention as an organizing vehicle, with Obama's speech serving as the focal point of 5,000 "watch parties" across the nation, including more than 100 in Minnesota. In the face of a superior Republican fundraising this year, Democrats at the convention were emphasizing their ground game. "Every morning, the first thing I read are the numbers from the day before," said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. "Not poll numbers or money. The numbers that mean something: door-knocks, conversations, registered voters." "Our job is simple, but it ain't easy," Eliseo Medina, secretary treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, told the Minnesota delegates. "Tomorrow, we've got to go out and have millions of conversations with workers, with women, with people of color, with immigrants, with everybody who cares about this country." Looking ahead at an election that could be decided by a narrow slice of undecided voters in a half-dozen battleground states, delegates said Obama's words will ultimately set the stage for a tough showdown with Romney in November. Said DFL Party Chair Ken Martin: "Now I think we need to leave Charlotte and take all this great energy back to Minnesota and make sure that people are fired up." Kevin Diaz is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau.
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger • Twitter: @rachelsb Democrats press Bain case against RomneySep 05, 2012 By David Jackson, USA TODAY CHARLOTTE -- The Democrats sought to make their case against Mitt Romney and Bain Capital tonight with a string of witnesses: workers laid off after Bain bought their companies. "When Mitt Romney talks about his business experience, remember it is not experience creating good-paying jobs," said Cindy Hewitt, a former worker from Miami. "It is experience cutting jobs. It is experience shutting plants." David Foster said that Romney and the private-equity firm Bain loaded up his old Kansas City steel mill "with millions in debt -- and within months, they used some of that borrowed money to pay themselves millions. Within a decade, the debt kept growing and was so large the company was forced into bankruptcy." A laid-off worker named Randy Johnson said he doesn't think Romney is "a bad man," or fault him because some companies fail. "What I fault him for is making money without a moral compass," Johnson said. "I fault him for putting profits before people like me. But that's just Romney economics ... Mitt Romney will stick it to working people." Romney aides said Bain saved many more companies than it lost, and created more jobs in the bargain. Meanwhile, Romney spokeswoman Michele Davis said, Obama "doesn't want to talk about his record -- unemployment over 8% and 23 million Americans looking for work." "Mitt Romney helped build new companies and fix struggling ones," Davis said. "He knows how to get America back to work." For Romneys, Friendly Code Reduces Taxes Todd Heisler/The New York Times Mitt Romney's rivals and supporters alike called on him to release his tax returns as the campaign progressed and the field narrowed. He did so on Tuesday. By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKIPublished: January 24, 2012 856 CommentsReaders' Comments"It's distressing that when we read about our public servants these days, it more often than not has to do with their private equities and not their service to the public. "Argun, Brooklyn, NY Yet the hundreds of pages of tax documents released by Mr. Romney's campaign on Tuesday morning did not readily reveal any elaborate financial legerdemain or exotic tax shelters. What Mr. Romney's returns illustrated, instead, was the array of perfectly ordinary ways in which the United States tax code confers advantages on the rich, allowing Mr. Romney to amass wealth under rules very different from those faced by most Americans who take home a paycheck. Those differences leapt to the front of the national debate on Tuesday when President Obama — whose family's income was less than a tenth of Mr. Romney's in 2010 but whose effective federal rate was double — called for higher taxes on the wealthy in his State of the Union speech. Mr. Romney's tax returns were posted on his campaign's Web site on Tuesday morning after escalating pressure from the other Republican candidates, Democrats and even supporters, some of whom attributed his loss in South Carolina's Republican primary last weekend to his shifting and tentative responses to questions about his wealth, tax burden and overseas investments. The 547 pages of documents included 2010 federal income tax returns for the Romneys, the couple's estimated 2011 return and returns for their charitable foundation and two blind trusts established in their names, as well as a trust established for their children. The couple paid about $3 million in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million, the vast majority of it flowing from myriad of stock holdings, mutual funds and other investments, including profits and investment income from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mr. Romney retired from in 1999. The couple reported no wage earnings in 2010. But in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Romney's campaign counsel, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that Mr. Romney and his wife collected more than $7 million worth of Bain profits in 2010. That money — about a quarter of the couple's income during the last two years — came in the form of so-called carried interest. It would be taxed not as deferred regular income, but at the lower 15 percent rate normally reserved for long-term capital gains, thanks to federal tax rules that have sparked intense debate in recent years. Mr. Obama and others have argued that carried interest should be taxed at the rates which normally apply to income earned by people providing services, topping out at 35 percent. If Mr. Romney's carried interest income in the last two years had been taxed at that higher rate, he would have owed about $4.8 million in federal taxes, roughly $2.6 million more than he would typically be assessed under current rules. And like most of the wealthy, the Romneys paid only a tiny sliver of their income in payroll taxes, which cut heavily into the weekly paychecks of wage earners but is barely a blip on the returns of the rich. While payroll taxes eat up 6 percent of the income of Americans earning the national median income of $50,221, Mr. Romney and his wife paid just one-tenth of 1 percent of their income in payroll taxes. Mr. Romney's 2010 returns also suggest he may have paid far less taxes the previous year. The 2010 return shows the family made estimated tax payments for 2009 of $1,369,095. To avoid penalties, estimated tax payments must be at least 110 percent of the taxes owed the prior year. Assuming that is what he paid, his federal tax bill for 2009 would have been $1,244,632, far less than in 2010. Mr. Romney and other Republican candidates have not only opposed higher taxes on the wealthy, but also favor maintaining or expanding the relatively low rates for capital gains and investment income, breaks that Republicans and others favor as a way to spur investment and reward risk-taking but which critics say have fed the growing wealth gap. Those reductions in taxes on investments began with a deal between Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and Mr. Romney's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the House. They accelerated under President George W. Bush, who cut taxes on dividends and capitals gains to their current levels, and survived a push by Mr. Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress in 2010 to restrict tax advantages for financial managers. Indeed, if Mr. Romney became president and won approval of his own tax proposals he would pay less in federal taxes than he would under current law. Mr. Gingrich has proposed even steeper reductions, which would nearly eliminate Mr. Romney's federal income tax burden. During the 15-minute conference call, Mr. Ginsberg argued that the documents should settle any lingering questions about Mr. Romney's investments and tax burden. Mr. Romney's tax return was "complicated — and it is also fully transparent," he said. But the documents suggest that the Romneys or the lawyer overseeing the family's blind trusts, R. Bradford Malt, may have been sensitive to the political implications of at least some aspects of the family's finances. In 2010, about $3 million of the family's assets were held in a UBS bank account in Switzerland. Mr. Malt said that the account complied with all Internal Revenue Service reporting requirements and that the family had paid all applicable taxes on the interest earned by those assets. "It is a bank account," Mr. Malt said. "Nothing more, nothing less." But the account was closed in 2010, at a time when UBS was at the center of a Justice Department investigation regarding tax evasion by American clients. Mr. Malt also said that the Romneys' holdings in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Ireland and other low-tax countries did not provide any reduction in their United States taxes. Bain Capital, as well as Mr. Romney's I.R.A., have significant holdings in funds based in the Caymans and other low-tax countries. But Mr. Malt said that Mr. Romney's income is taxed at the same rate it would be if the funds were in the United States. The campaign declined repeatedly to answer questions about whether holding some of Mr. Romney's retirement investments in overseas vehicles may have allowed him to avoid a levy known as the unrelated business income tax, or UBIT. The Romneys' family foundation, the Tyler Charitable Foundation, made gifts to more organizations in 2010 than it had previously. The largest amount paid that year, as in the past, went to the Mormon Church. Mr. Bush's presidential library in Dallas received the second-largest grant, $100,000. Mr. Romney, a Mormon, tithes a portion of his income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2010, his tithe appeared to include about $1.6 million in cash contributions. Other assets held in the Romneys' trusts were managed by Goldman Sachs, which invested the Romneys' wealth in companies including Apple, Research in Motion and Comcast. One notable sale Goldman made on the Romneys' behalf in 2010 was 7,000 original public offering shares of Goldman Sachs, purchased in 1999. The Goldman shares were issued at $53 each. The family trusts held onto those shares for more than a decade, as the firm prospered, but unloaded them in December 2010, at a time when the Goldman name had became synonymous with Wall Street excess and Mr. Romney was known to be considering a second bid for the White House. The shares sold for around $161 apiece for a total price of about $1.13 million. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: January 24, 2012 A previous version of this article misstated the number of I.P.O. shares of Goldman Sachs that the Romneys bought in 1999; it was 7,000 shares, not 6,000. The article also misstated the share price and total when the shares were sold in 2010; the Romneys sold them for $161.45 apiece, or $1,130,123.87. Charlotte, North Carolina (CNN) -- Paul Ryan's journey from congressman to vice-presidential candidate was cloaked in secrecy worthy of a big-screen thriller. In the culminating scene, Ryan -- policy wonk, statistics nerd, father of three -- crept through the woods behind his Wisconsin home for a clandestine pickup by a top aide Friday afternoon. For Ryan, who days earlier had agreed to become the running mate of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, it was only the latest episode in an elaborate campaign undertaking designed to escape detection before the candidate's formal announcement in Norfolk, Virginia, on Saturday. Longtime Romney aide Beth Myers ran the former Massachussetts governor's four-month vice-presidential search and played a key role in the cloak-and-dagger aspect of those final days. She briefed reporters on the entire process Saturday afternoon. Ryan's clandestine journey to Romney's ticket went from 'surreal to real'updated 5:17 AM EDT, Mon August 13, 2012 Rep. Paul Ryan's Wisconsin homecoming The search began in early April with a large group of potential picks. Throughout the process, Myers and Romney were compulsively careful to prevent any information from leaking to the press.As the months progressed and the research documents on each possible name grew -- including "several years" of tax returns that each potential candidate submitted, Myers said -- all the paperwork was stored overnight in a safe in a secure room at the campaign headquarters in Boston. No copies were made of the material, and all work on the vice-presidential effort was done in that room. Four months later, after consulting with "a lot" of other people and a final "gut check" with his top advisers, Romney decided Paul Ryan was his choice, Myers said. That day, August 1, the presumptive GOP nominee placed a call to Ryan from Myers' office in the campaign headquarters requesting a meeting. The next day, Romney called a man many considered to be at the top of his vice-presidential list, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, to inform his former rival he had not been chosen. Romney called the others on his short list the day before his announcement. On Sunday, August 5, the campaign initiated an array of evasive maneuvers. "We gave a lot of thought on how to make this work undetected," Myers told reporters in a briefing at Dulles Airport in Washington on Saturday. A major figure in the effort: Myers' 19-year-old son Curt, who was designated to chauffeur Ryan to and from the airport for his meeting with Romney. Ryan caught a flight from Chicago to Hartford, Connecticut, on Sunday. The campaign asked him to dress casually, Myers said. "Paul was wearing jeans, a casual shirt, baseball hat and sunglasses and passed unnoticed through both airports," she said. Curt Myers drove Ryan to his family's home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Romney came down from his New Hampshire summer home, and the two men met for about an hour in the Myerses' dining room. "It was a little longer than an hour, actually," Romney said. "Oh, we talked about the campaign and how it would be run and talked about how we'd work together if we get the White House -- what the relations would be, how we'd interact and be involved in important decisions. But we talked about our families -- what this meant for them, what kind of challenge it meant -- those are the topics we discussed." When the two left the dining room, "it was all set," Myers said. Then, after Romney had left, Ryan received word of the deadly rampage at a Sikh temple in his Wisconsin district. He spoke with his aides about the crisis while at Myers' home, and returned home to Wisconsin unnoticed. Later in the week, a memorial service for the victims of the shooting prompted the campaign to change its planned announcement. Myers said the vice-presidential event was originally slated for Friday in New Hampshire, but that date conflicted with the service. So the campaign settled on Norfolk, the first city Romney would visit on his upcoming bus tour. Which brings the saga back to the wooded area behind Ryan's home. After he returned from the memorial service on Friday, Ryan walked in his front door, through the house and out the back, through the woods, and ended up at the driveway of the house where, coincidentally, he had grown up. "It wasn't that far of a walk," Ryan laughed in a conversation with reporters on a campaign charter from Washington to North Carolina on Saturday. "I just went out my back door, went through the gully in the woods I grew up playing in. I walked past the fort I built back there." The Ryan aide who had dropped him off in front of his home then picked Ryan up at the driveway of the other home and drove an hour to a small plane chartered by the campaign at the airport in Waukegan, Illinois, where Ryan met his family. They flew to another tiny airport, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where Curt Myers was again waiting to play a role in the drama. He drove the family to the Fairfield Inn in Elizabeth City, where Beth Myers and several other Romney advisers huddled with Ryan. Curt Myers picked up food from Applebee's for the group, and Beth Myers said: "Everyone was pretty tired so we did a little speech prep and went to bed." The next morning a member of the Secret Service met the two-vehicle caravan, and Ryan was driven to the Romney announcement event in Norfolk. At the end of that day, Ryan was still reeling to take in the life-changing experience. "It's gone from the surreal to the real, I guess," he said
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Axelrod: Ryan a 'right wing ideologue' Reid continues hypocrisy of demanding Romney's tax returns while keeping his secret … Look, rich people!
Harry Reid continued his sleight-of-hand routine Tuesday night at the Democratic convention, pointing with exaggerated animation to Mitt Romney's tax returns in an attempt to distract everyone from the glaring facts right in front of their eyes. Look, rich people! After introducing himself as the humble senator from Searchlight, Harry proclaimed in his customary deadpan:
Actually Romney has released his 2010 return and the preliminary figures for his 2011 return, but no need to quibble with mere facts when they get in the way of a tall tale.
Your word? Your word, Harry? This from a man who has refused to release any of his tax returns nor state what percent of his income he pays in taxes or where he shelters his multimillion dollar assets or how he become a millionaire while serving in public jobs the vast majority of his life. I wonder whether his Christmas tips for the staff at the Ritz Carlton are deductible, since he did try to use campaign money for that purpose? And how did he report the $1 million he collected from the sale of property he had not personally owned for three years? Look, rich people!
How do we know who Harry is looking out for, since he continues to throw tax money at those who contribute to him and the Democratic Party? Harry also said this about Republicans:
This from the man who controls the calendar in the Senate, which hasn't passed a budget in more than three years, though the Republican controlled House keeps sending budgets over. This from a man who hasn't been able to muster a single Democratic vote, including his own, for the budgets Obama has submitted. Pay no attention to the facts, Harry says. Pay no attention to the fact Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, which Harry failed to mention. Pay no attention to the fact things have gotten worse under Obama's policies and practices. Pay no attention to Nevada having the highest rate of foreclosures and underwater mortgages in the country, something that can be, at least partly, laid at the feet of Barack Obama and his community organizers with their "vampire socialism." Look, rich people! Today's Investor's Business Daily offers a handy guide to those facts, in some cases, for the sticklers out there, comparing today's figures not only with those on the day Obama took office, but also to when the recession officially ended in June 2009. These are a few:
Never mind that food stamp recipients, as noted by The Wall Street Journal today, have grown from 33 million in 2009 to 46,670,373 as of Friday — nearly one out of seven Americans at a cost of $72 billion a year and growing. Those are Harry's and Barry's constituents. You know, the one's who, by presidential decree, can keep drawing welfare without having to, well, actually work as the law states. Harry didn't mention any of those, but merely gestured and shouted: "Look, rich people!" Romney asks GOP delegates to sign pledge, but some refuse Scottsdale, Arizona (CNN) - Members of the Republican National Committee gathering in Arizona were invited to meet with Mitt Romney in private Friday and have their pictures taken with the presumptive GOP nominee, but there was a price of admission: loyalty. RNC members and state GOP chairmen were welcomed into the private reception only after signing a form pledging to support Romney as a delegate to the national convention in Tampa. – Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker All 168 members of the committee have a vote at the convention as "superdelegates" – and one of Romney's supporters on the RNC estimated that over 100 members signed the form. The Romney "delegate pledge form" asked members to sign their name and "pledge to vote for Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican National Convention on all ballots until Mitt Romney has been nominated." Signers were given the option of declaring their support publicly or privately by checking one of two boxes. Several state Republican chairmen who have not publicly endorsed a candidate - including party leaders from South Carolina, Ohio and California - signed the pledge. Romney spoke only briefly and spent roughly 20 minutes shaking hands and posing with members in a photo line. "This is where all the power is, huh?" Romney joked as he entered the room to applause. "Thank you for all your work. Thank you for your help." Not everyone was allowed to join in the fun. All three members of Iowa's conservative RNC delegation – party chairman A.J. Spiker and committee members Steve Scheffler and Kim Lehman – attempted to enter the reception but were rebuffed after refusing to sign the delegate pledge. The dispute became heated in the hallway outside, with the Iowans demanding to know why they had to sign a form to get their picture taken with the former Massachusetts governor. Several of Romney's deputies on the committee assured the trio that they could keep their support a secret by checking the appropriate box, but they refused to do so. "They don't trust us," a frustrated Scheffler said after the argument. "I have said I will support the nominee when we have a nominee, no ifs, ands or buts." The Iowa delegates were later given the opportunity to pose for a photo with Romney at a luncheon for RNC members, after the private event for supporters. soundoff (52 Responses)Why Is Romney Still Keeping His Tax Returns Secret? Something To Do With The Onus Of Being A Corporate Raider? Tuesday, July 17, 2012 The joke going around Twitter is that after McCain examined 23 years of Romney's tax returns in 2008, he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. Sunday the talking heads shows were abuzz with Republicans calling for Romney to release the returns and take the bad buzz and go beyond it instead of dragging it on forever. So far Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ron Paul, conservative pundits Bill Kristol, George Will, Matthew Dowd and Michael Steele have damaged Romney the most with their public assertions that he should release his returns. Mitt RomneyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Romney" redirects here. For other uses, see Romney (disambiguation).  
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and politician who is the nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07). The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Beginning in 1966, he spent thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple have five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University. Romney entered the management consulting industry, and in 1977 secured a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as its chief executive officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that helped fund his political campaigns prior to 2012. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as bishop of his ward and later stake president in his home area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. The visibility he gained from this stint gave him the opportunity to relaunch his political aspirations. Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. During his term he presided over the elimination of a projected $3 billion deficit by reducing state funding for higher education, cutting state aid to cities and towns, raising various fees, and removing corporate tax loopholes; Massachusetts also benefited from unanticipated federal grants and unexpected revenue from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase. He helped develop, and signed into law, the Massachusetts health care reform legislation. The first of its kind in the nation, it provided near-universal health insurance access via state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance. Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, winning several primaries and caucuses but losing the nomination to John McCain. In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. By May 2012, he had won enough caucuses and primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee, and on August 28, the 2012 Republican National Convention made him the official nominee.
Early life and education Heritage and youthSee also: Romney family Willard Mitt Romney[1] was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan,[2] the youngest child of George W. Romney, at the time an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), at the time a homemaker.[3][4][5] His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents.[6][7] He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry.[8][9][10] He is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[11][12] A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was an important early leader in the church during the same time.[13][14] Romney followed his three siblings – Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott – after a gap of nearly six years.[15] He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin, Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears.[16] He was called "Billy" until kindergarten, when he indicated a preference for "Mitt".[17] In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills.[18] In 1954, his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors, helping the company avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability.[18] By the time Mitt was twelve, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television,[19] and Mitt idolized him.[20]  Romney attended public elementary schools[17] until the seventh grade, when he began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a traditional private boys' preparatory school where he was one of only a few Mormons and where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than his.[21][22] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically.[20] He participated in the 1962 campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.[23] When his father took office in Lansing, Mitt took up residence at Cranbrook's Stevens Hall.[21] George Romney was re-elected twice; Mitt worked for him as an intern in the Governor's office and was present at the 1964 Republican National Convention when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism.[20][24] At Cranbrook, Romney was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad,[21] and during his final year joined the cross country running team.[17] He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club booster group.[21] During his final year at Cranbook, he improved academically, but was still not a star pupil.[20][22] He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels".[22] Romney was involved in many pranks, some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for.[nb 1] In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies; she attended the private Kingswood School, the sister school to Cranbrook.[22][30] The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation.[20] University, France mission, marriage, and children: 1965–1975Romney attended Stanford University in 1965–1966 for a year.[20][nb 2] Although the campus and environs were becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-"Big Game" customs involving the Stanford Axe.[20][31][32] In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in at the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.[20][31] In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary,[20][33] a traditional rite of passage for which his father and many other relatives had volunteered.[nb 3] He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters.[13][35] Rules against drinking, smoking, and dating were strictly enforced.[13] Most individual Mormon missionaries do not gain many converts[nb 4] and Romney was no exception:[35] he later estimated ten to twenty for his entire mission.[40] The nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people were especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol.[13][20][41][nb 5] He became demoralized and later recalled it as the only time when "most of what I was trying to do was rejected."[35] In Nantes, he suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players.[13] He gained recognition within the mission for the many homes he called on and the repeat visits he was granted.[13] He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary.[13][35][42] In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed far more comfortable accommodations.[42] Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return.[13][35] He witnessed the May 1968 general strike and student uprisings and was upset by the breakdown in social order.[43]   In June 1968, an automobile he was driving in southern France was hit by another vehicle, seriously injuring him and killing one of his passengers, the wife of the mission president.[nb 6] Romney, who was not at fault in the accident,[nb 6] became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident.[44] He rallied and motivated the others and they met an ambitious goal of 200 baptisms for the year, the most for the mission in a decade.[44] By the end of his stint in December 1968, he was overseeing the work of 175 fellow members.[35][45] Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French.[47] The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose.[13][20][44] It also represented a crucible, after having been an indifferent Mormon growing up: "On a mission, your faith in Jesus Christ either evaporates or it becomes much deeper ... For me it became much deeper."[35] While he was away, Ann Davies had converted to the Mormon faith and had begun attending Brigham Young University (BYU).[20] Romney was nervous that she had been wooed by others while he was away, and indeed she had sent him a "Dear John letter" of sorts, greatly upsetting him; he wrote to her in an attempt to win her back.[48][49] At their first meeting following his return, they reconnected and decided to get married immediately, but subsequently agreed to wait three months to appease their parents.[50] At Ann's request, Romney began attending BYU, in February 1969.[49][nb 2] The couple were married on March 21, 1969, in a civil ceremony in Bloomfield Hills.[48][52] The following day, the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple.[48][52] Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign.[35] George was now serving in President Richard Nixon's cabinet as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In a June 1970 newspaper profile of children of cabinet members, Mitt said that U.S. involvement in the war had been misguided – "If it wasn't a political blunder to move into Vietnam, I don't know what is" – but supported Nixon's ongoing Cambodian Incursion as a sincere attempt to bring the war to a quicker conclusion.[53] Regarding the military draft, Romney had initially received two 2-S student deferments, then, like most Mormon missionaries, a 4-D ministerial deferment while in France, and then two more student deferments.[31][54] When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured that he would not be selected.[31][54][55] At culturally conservative BYU, he remained isolated from much of the upheaval of the era.[26][49][35] He became president of, and an innovative fundraiser for, the all-male Cougar Club booster organization and showed a new-found discipline in his studies.[35][49] In his senior year, he took a leave to work as driver and advance man for his mother Lenore Romney's eventually unsuccessful 1970 campaign for U.S. Senator from Michigan;[26][48] together, they visited all 83 Michigan counties.[56][57] He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971,[49] and gave commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU.[nb 7] The Romneys' first son, Taggart (known as "Tagg"), was born in 1970[37] while they were undergraduates at BYU and living in a basement apartment.[49] Ann subsequently gave birth to Matthew ("Matt", 1971), Joshua ("Josh", 1975), Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981).[37] Her work as a homemaker would enable her husband to pursue his career.[59] Romney still wanted to pursue a business path, but his father advised him that a law degree would be valuable to his career.[60][61] Thus he became one of only fifteen students to enroll at the recently created joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration four-year program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.[62] Fellow students considered him guilelessly optimistic, noting his solid work ethic and buttoned-down demeanor and appearance.[62][63] He readily adapted to the business school's pragmatic, data-driven case study method of teaching, participated in class well, and led a study group whom he pushed to get all A's.[61] He had a different social experience from most of his classmates, since he lived in a Belmont, Massachusetts house with Ann and two children.[48][61] He was non-ideological and did not involve himself in the political or social issues of the day.[48][61] He graduated in 1975 cum laude from the law school, in the top third of that class, and was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top five percent of his business school class.[58][62] Business careerMain article: Business career of Mitt Romney Management consultingRomney was recruited by several firms and chose to remain in Massachusetts to work for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), reasoning that working as a management consultant to a variety of companies would better prepare him for a future position as a chief executive.[60][64][nb 8] He was part of a 1970s wave of top graduates who chose to go into consulting rather than join a major company directly.[66] His legal and business education proved useful in his job[60] while he applied BCG principles such as the growth-share matrix.[67] He was viewed as having a bright future there.[60][68] In 1977, he was hired by Bain & Company, a management consulting firm in Boston that had been formed a few years earlier by Bill Bain and other former BCG employees.[60][67][69] Bain would later say of the thirty-year-old Romney, "He had the appearance of confidence of a guy who was maybe ten years older."[70] Unlike other consulting firms, which issued recommendations and then left, Bain & Company had a practice, that Romney learned, of immersing itself in a client's business and working with them until changes were implemented.[60][67] Romney became a vice-president of the firm in 1978[17] and worked with clients such as the Monsanto Company, Outboard Marine Corporation, Burlington Industries, and Corning Incorporated.[64] Within a few years, he was considered one of their best consultants and at times sought by clients over more senior partners.[60][71] Two family incidents during this time later came to light during Romney's political career: a confrontation with a park ranger in 1981,[nb 9] and persistent interest in a 1983 episode in which Romney kept his family dog on the roof of his car during a long road trip.[48][73] Private equityFor more details on this topic, see Bain Capital. In 1984, Romney left Bain & Company to co-found the spin-off private equity investment firm, Bain Capital.[74] Bill Bain and Romney spent a year raising the $37 million in funds needed to start the new operation, which had fewer than ten employees.[60][64][70][75] Romney initially had the titles of president[76] and managing general partner[77][78] or managing partner.[79] He later became referred to as managing director[80] or CEO[81] as well. He was also the sole shareholder of the firm.[82] At first, Bain Capital focused on venture capital opportunities. Their first big success was a 1986 investment to help start Staples Inc., after founder Thomas G. Stemberg convinced Romney of the market size for office supplies and Romney convinced others; Bain Capital eventually reaped a nearly sevenfold return on its investment, and Romney sat on the Staples board of directors for over a decade.[60][75][83]  Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing firms with money mostly borrowed from banking institutions and using the newly bought firms' assets as collateral, and selling them off in a few years.[60][70] Bain Capital lost most of its money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but then started finding deals that made large returns.[60] The firm invested in or acquired Accuride, Brookstone, Domino's Pizza, Sealy Corporation, Sports Authority, and Artisan Entertainment, as well as lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors.[60][70][84] Much of the firm's profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals; Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even.[nb 10] Romney discovered few investment opportunities himself (and those that he did, often failed to make money for the firm).[86] Instead, he focused on analyzing the merits of possible deals that others brought forward and on recruiting investors to participate in them once approved.[86] Within Bain Capital, Romney spread profits from deals widely within the firm to keep people motivated, often keeping less than ten percent for himself.[87] Romney was generally data-driven.[60][83] He wanted to drop a Bain Capital hedge fund that initially lost money, but other partners prevailed and it eventually gained billions.[60] He also personally opted out of the Artisan Entertainment deal, not wanting to profit from a studio that produced R-rated films.[60] Romney was on the board of directors of Damon Corporation, a medical testing company later found guilty of defrauding the government; Bain Capital tripled its investment before selling off the company, and the fraud was discovered by the new owners (Romney was never implicated).[60] In some cases, Romney had little involvement with a company once acquired.[75] Bain Capital's leveraged buyouts sometimes led to layoffs, either soon after acquisition or later after the firm had left.[67][75][88] How jobs added compared to those lost due to these investments and buyouts is unknown, due to a lack of records and Bain Capital's penchant for privacy on behalf of itself and its investors.[89][90][91] In any case, maximizing the value of acquired companies and the return to Bain's investors, not job creation, was the firm's fundamental goal, as it was for most private equity operations.[75][92] Bain Capital's acquisition of Ampad exemplified a deal where it profited handsomely from early payments and management fees, even though the subject company itself ended up going into bankruptcy.[60][83][92] Dade Behring was another case where Bain Capital received an eightfold return on its investment, but the company itself was saddled with debt and laid off over a thousand employees before Bain Capital exited (the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, with more layoffs, before recovering and prospering).[89] Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most fees in such cases.[70][83] In 1990, Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company, which was facing financial collapse.[74] He was announced as its new CEO in January 1991[77][78] but drew only a symbolic salary of one dollar[74] (he remained managing general partner of Bain Capital during this time).[77][78] He managed an effort to restructure Bain & Company's employee stock-ownership plan, real-estate deals and bank loans, while rallying the firm's thousand employees, imposing a new governing structure that included Bain and the other founding partners giving up control, and increasing fiscal transparency.[60][64][74] Within about a year, he had led Bain & Company through a turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without further layoffs or partner defections.[64] He turned Bain & Company over to new leadership and returned to Bain Capital in December 1992.[60][93][94] Romney took a leave of absence from Bain Capital from November 1993[95] to November 1994[48] in order to run for the U.S. Senate. During that time, Ampad workers went on strike, and asked Romney to intervene; Bain Capital lawyers asked him not to get involved, although he did meet with the workers to tell them he had no position of active authority in the matter.[96][97] By 1999, Bain Capital was on its way to being one of the top private equity firms in the nation,[88] having increased its number of partners from 5 to 18, with 115 employees overall, and $4 billion under its management.[70][75] The firm's average annual return on investments was 113 percent.[64][98] Bain Capital's approach of applying consulting expertise to the companies it invested in became widely copied within the private equity industry.[27][75] Economist Steven Kaplan would later say, "[Romney] came up with a model that was very successful and very innovative and that now everybody uses."[83] Romney took a paid leave of absence from Bain Capital in February 1999 to serve as the President and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee.[99][100] Billed in some public statements as keeping a part-time role,[99][101] Romney remained the firm's sole shareholder, managing director, CEO and president, signing corporate and legal documents, attending to his interests within the firm, and conducting prolonged negotiations for the terms of his departure.[99][102] He was not involved in day-to-day operations of the firm, nor was he involved in investment decisions for Bain Capital's new private equity funds.[99][102] He retained his position on several boards of directors during this time and regularly returned to Massachusetts to attend meetings.[103] In August 2001, Romney announced that he would not return to Bain Capital.[104] His separation from the firm was finalized in early 2002;[99] he transferred his ownership to other partners and negotiated an agreement that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds.[87][105] Because the private equity business continued to thrive, this deal brings him millions of dollars in annual income.[87] Personal wealthAs a result of his business career, by 2007, Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts since 2003.[105] The couple's net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and is still held in blind trusts.[106] An additional blind trust exists in the name of the Romneys' sons that was valued at $100 million in 2012.[107] That trust, created in 1995, allows the Romneys to transfer money to their heirs outside their estate, taking advantage of sophisticated tax planning techniques used by high-net-worth families.[108] A portion of Romney's financial assets are held in offshore accounts and investments.[109] In 2010, Romney and his wife received $21.7 million in income, almost all of it from investments such as such as dividends, capital gains, and carried interest.[110] For 2010, the Romneys paid about $3 million in federal income taxes.[110] His estimated taxes for 2011 are similar;[110] Romney plans to make public his 2011 tax return by October 15, 2012.[111] Romney has regularly tithed to the LDS Church, including stock from Bain Capital holdings.[13][112][113] In 2010, he and his wife gave $3 million to charity, including $1.5 million to the church.[110] The Romney family's Tyler Charitable Foundation gave out about $650,000 in that year, with some of it going to organizations that fight specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis and multiple sclerosis.[114] In addition, the Romneys have often donated to LDS Church-owned BYU.[14] Local LDS Church leadershipDuring his years in business, Romney held several specific positions in the local lay clergy, which consists of worthy males over the age of 12. Around 1977, he became a counselor to the president of the Boston Stake.[115] He served as bishop of the ward (ecclesiastical and administrative head of his congregation) at Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1981 to 1986.[116][117] As such, in addition to home teaching, he also formulated Sunday services and classes using LDS scriptures to guide the congregation.[118] He forged links with other religious institutions in the area when the Belmont meetinghouse was destroyed by a fire of suspicious origins in 1984; the congregation rotated its meetings to other houses of worship while the structure was rebuilt.[112][117] Romney became known for his strong testimonies during services, often starting with the declaration, "I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the church is true."[14] From 1986 to 1994, Romney presided over the Boston Stake, which included more than a dozen wards in eastern Massachusetts with about 4,000 church members altogether.[71][118][119] He organized a team to handle financial and management issues, sought to counter anti-Mormon sentiments, and tried to solve social problems among poor Southeast Asian converts.[112][117] An unpaid position, his local church leadership often took 30 or more hours a week of his time,[118] and he became known for his tireless energy in the role.[71] He generally refrained from overnight business travel owing to his church responsibilities.[118] Romney took a hands-on role in general matters, helping in maintenance efforts in- and outside homes, visiting the sick, and counseling troubled or burdened church members.[116][117][118] A number of local church members later credited him with turning their lives around or helping them through difficult times.[112][117][118] Some others were rankled by his leadership style and desired a more consensus-based approach.[117] Romney tried to balance the conservative dogma insisted upon by the church leadership in Utah with the desire of some Massachusetts members to have a more flexible application of doctrine.[71] He agreed with some requests from the liberal women's group Exponent II for changes in the way the church dealt with women, but clashed with women whom he felt were departing too much from doctrine.[71] In particular, he counseled women not to have abortions except in the rare cases allowed by LDS doctrine, and also in accordance with church policy encouraged single women facing unplanned pregnancies to give up the baby for adoption.[71] Romney later said that the years spent as an LDS minister gave him direct exposure to people struggling in economically difficult circumstances, and empathy for those going through problematic family situations.[120] 1994 U.S. senatorial campaignMain article: United States Senate election in Massachusetts, 1994 For much of his business career, Romney did not take public political stances.[121][122] He had kept abreast of national politics during college,[35] though, and the circumstances of his father's presidential campaign loss would irk him for decades.[26] He was registered as an Independent[48] who in the 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries had voted for the Democratic former senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas.[121][123] By 1993, Romney had been thinking about entering politics, partly based upon Ann's urging and partly to follow in his father's footsteps.[48] He decided to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who was seeking re-election for the sixth time. Kennedy was potentially vulnerable that year – in part because of the unpopularity of the Democratic Congress as a whole, and in part because this was Kennedy's first election since the William Kennedy Smith trial in Florida, in which the senator had suffered some negative public relations regarding his character.[124][125][126] Romney changed his affiliation to Republican in October 1993 and formally announced his candidacy in February 1994.[48] In addition to his leave from Bain Capital, he stepped down from his church leadership role in 1994.[118] Radio personality Janet Jeghelian took an early lead in polls among candidates for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, but Romney proved the most effective fundraiser.[127][128] He won 68 percent of the vote at the May 1994 Massachusetts Republican Party convention; businessman John Lakian finished a distant second and Jeghelian was eliminated.[129] Romney defeated Lakian in the September 1994 primary with over 80 percent of the vote.[17][130] In the general election, Kennedy faced the first serious re-election challenger of his career in the younger, telegenic, and well-funded Romney.[124] Romney ran as a fresh face, as a businessperson who stated he had created ten thousand jobs, and as a Washington outsider with a solid family image and moderate stances on social issues.[124][131] When Kennedy tried to tie Romney's policies to those of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Romney responded, "Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush."[132] Romney stated, "Ultimately, this is a campaign about change."[133] Romney's campaign was effective in portraying Kennedy as soft on crime, but had trouble establishing its own positions in a consistent manner.[134] By mid-September 1994, polls showed the race to be approximately even.[124][135][136] Kennedy responded with a series of ads that focused on Romney's seemingly shifting political views on issues such as abortion and on layoffs of workers at the Ampad plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital.[124][137][138] The latter was effective in blunting Romney's momentum.[83] Kennedy and Romney held a widely watched late October debate without a clear winner, but by then, Kennedy had pulled ahead in polls and stayed ahead afterward.[139] Romney spent $3 million of his own money in the race and more than $7 million overall.[140][nb 11] In the November general election, despite a disastrous showing for Democrats overall, Kennedy won the election with 58 percent of the vote to Romney's 41 percent,[60] the smallest margin in Kennedy's eight re-election campaigns for the Senate.[143] Romney returned to Bain Capital the day after the election, but the loss had a lasting effect; he told his brother, "I never want to run for something again unless I can win."[48][144] When his father died in 1995, Mitt donated his inheritance to BYU's George W. Romney Institute of Public Management.[51] He also joined the board, as vice-chair, of the Points of Light Foundation,[104] which had incorporated his father's National Volunteer Center. His mother died in 1998. Romney felt restless as the decade neared a close; the goal of simply making more money was losing its appeal to him.[48][144] He no longer had a church leadership position, although he still taught Sunday School.[116] During the long and controversial approval and construction process for the $30 million Mormon temple in Belmont, he feared that as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy, he would become a focal point for opposition to the structure.[117] He thus kept to a limited, behind-the-scenes role in attempts to ease tensions between the church and local residents, but locals nonetheless sometimes referred to it as "Mitt's Temple".[112][116][117] 2002 Winter OlympicsFor more details on this topic, see 2002 Winter Olympics.  Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998; Mitt described watching her fail a series of neurological tests as the worst day of his life.[48] After two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found while living in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home) a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations.[59] When the offer came for him to take over the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, to be held in Salt Lake City in Utah, she urged him to take it, and eager for a new challenge, as well as another chance to prove himself in public life, he did.[144][145][146] On February 11, 1999, Romney was hired as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002.[147] Before Romney came on, the event was running $379 million short of its revenue benchmarks.[147] Plans were being made to scale back the Games to compensate for the fiscal crisis, and there were fears the Games might be moved away entirely.[148] The Games had also been damaged by allegations of bribery involving top officials, including prior Salt Lake Olympic Committee president and CEO Frank Joklik. Joklik and committee vice president Dave Johnson were forced to resign.[149] Romney was chosen by Utah figures looking for someone with expertise in business and law and with connections to the state and the LDS Church.[146] The appointment faced some initial criticism from non-Mormons, and fears from Mormons, that it represented cronyism or gave the Games too Mormon an image.[41] Romney and his wife contributed $1 million to the Olympics, and he donated to charity the $1.4 million in salary and severance payments he received for his three years as president and CEO.[150] Romney revamped the organization's leadership and policies, reduced budgets, and boosted fundraising, alleviated the concerns of corporate sponsors and recruited many new ones.[144][146] Romney worked to ensure the safety of the Games following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by coordinating a $300 million security budget.[145] Overall, he oversaw a $1.32 billion budget, 700 employees, and 26,000 volunteers.[147] The federal government provided between approximately $400 million[146][151][152] and $600 million[153][154] of that budget, much of it a result of Romney's having aggressively lobbied Congress and federal agencies.[154][155] It would prove to be a record level of federal funding for the staging of a U.S. Olympics.[152][155] An additional $1.1 billion of indirect federal funding came in the form of highway and transit projects.[156] Romney emerged as the public face of the Olympic effort, appearing in photographs, in news stories, on Olympics pins depicting a superhero Romney wrapped by an American flag, and on buttons carrying phrases like "Hey, Mitt, we love you!"[144][146] Robert H. Garff, the chair of the organizing committee, later said that "It was obvious that he had an agenda larger than just the Olympics,"[144] and that Romney wanted to use the Olympics to propel himself into the national spotlight and a political career.[146][157] Garff believed the initial budget shortfall was not as bad as Romney portrayed, given there were still three years to reorganize.[146] Utah Senator Bob Bennett said that much of the needed federal money was already in place and an analysis by The Boston Globe stated that the committee already had nearly $1 billion in committed revenues.[146] Olympics critic Steve Pace, who led Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, thought Romney exaggerated the initial fiscal state in order to lay the groundwork for a well-publicized rescue.[157] Kenneth Bullock, another board member of the organizing committee and also head of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, often clashed with Romney at the time, and later said that Romney deserved some credit for the turnaround but not as much as he claimed:[144] Bullock said: "He tried very hard to build an image of himself as a savior, the great white hope. He was very good at characterizing and castigating people and putting himself on a pedestal."[146] Despite the initial fiscal shortfall, the Games themselves ended up clearing a profit of $100 million.[158] Romney was praised for his efforts by President George W. Bush[27] and his performance as Olympics head was rated positively by 87 percent of Utahns.[159] It solidified his reputation as a "turnaround artist"[146][160][161] and Harvard Business School taught a case study based around his actions.[67] He wrote a book about his experience titled Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games, published in 2004. The role gave Romney experience in dealing with federal, state, and local entities, a public persona he had previously lacked, and the chance to relaunch his political aspirations.[144] He was mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in both Massachusetts and Utah, and also as possibly joining the Bush administration.[145][162][163] Governor of Massachusetts2002 gubernatorial campaignMain article: Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 2002 In 2002, Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift's administration was plagued by political missteps and personal scandals.[159] Many Republicans viewed her as a liability and considered her unable to win a general election.[164] Prominent party figures – as well as the White House – wanted Romney to run for governor,[162][165] and the opportunity appealed to him for its national visibility.[166] One poll taken at that time showed Republicans favoring Romney over Swift by more than 50 percentage points.[167] On March 19, 2002, Swift announced she would not seek her party's nomination, and hours later Romney declared his candidacy,[167] for which he would face no opposition in the primary.[168] In June 2002, the Massachusetts Democratic Party challenged Romney's eligibility to run for governor, noting that state law required seven years' consecutive residence and that Romney had filed his state tax returns as a Utah resident in 1999 and 2000.[169][170] In response, the bipartisan Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that he had maintained sufficient financial and personal ties to Massachusetts and was therefore an eligible candidate.[171] Romney again ran as a political outsider.[159] He played down his party affiliation,[163] saying he was "not a partisan Republican" but rather a "moderate" with "progressive" views.[172] He touted his private sector experience as qualifying him for addressing the state's fiscal problems[168] and stressed his ability to obtain federal funds for the state, giving his Olympics record as evidence.[152][155][173] He proposed to reorganize the state government while eliminating waste, fraud, and mismanagement.[163][174] The campaign was the first to use microtargeting techniques, in which fine-grained groups of voters were reached with narrowly tailored messaging.[175] To overcome the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people – a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.[174][176][177] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[176] received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, in polls as late as mid-October.[174][177] He rebounded with ads that accused O'Brien of being a failed watchdog for state pension fund losses in the stock market and that associated her husband, a former lobbyist, with the Enron scandal.[163][177] During the election he contributed over $6 million – a state record at the time – to the nearly $10 million raised for his campaign overall.[178][179] Romney was elected governor on November 5, 2002, with 50 percent of the vote to O'Brien's 45 percent.[180] Tenure, 2003–2007Main article: Governorship of Mitt Romney  When Romney was sworn in as the 70th governor of Massachusetts on January 2, 2003,[181] both houses of the Massachusetts state legislature held large Democratic majorities.[182] He picked his cabinet and advisors more on managerial abilities than partisan affiliation.[183] He declined his governor's salary during his term.[184] Upon entering office in the middle of a fiscal year, he faced an immediate $650 million shortfall and a projected $3 billion deficit for the next year.[163] Unexpected revenue of $1.0–1.3 billion from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase and $500 million in unanticipated federal grants decreased the deficit to $1.2–1.5 billion.[185][186] Through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes,[185] the state ran surpluses of around $600–700 million for the last two full fiscal years Romney was in office, although it began running deficits again after that.[nb 12] Romney supported raising various fees by more than $300 million, including those for driver's licenses, marriage licenses, and gun licenses.[163][185] He increased a special gasoline retailer fee by two cents per gallon, generating about $60 million per year in additional revenue.[163][185] (Opponents said the reliance on fees sometimes imposed a hardship on those who could least afford them.)[185] Romney also closed tax loopholes, in the interests of both better fairness and revenue increases, that brought in another $181 million from businesses over the next two years and over $300 million for his term.[163][191][192] He did so in the face of conservative and corporate critics that considered them tax increases.[191][192] The state legislature, with the governor's support, also cut spending by $1.6 billion, including $700 million in reductions in state aid to cities and towns.[193] The cuts also included a $140 million reduction in state funding for higher education, which led state-run colleges and universities to increase tuition by 63 percent over four years.[163][185] Romney sought additional cuts in his last year as governor by vetoing nearly 250 items in the state budget, but all were overridden by the heavily Democratic legislature.[194] The cuts in state spending put added pressure on localities to reduce services or raise property taxes, and the share of town and city revenues coming from property taxes rose from 49 to 53 percent.[163][185] The combined state and local tax burden in Massachusetts increased during Romney's governorship but remained below the national average.[163] Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state. This came after Staples founder Stemberg told him at the start of his term that doing so would be the best way he could help people,[195][196][197] and after the federal government, owing to the rules of Medicaid funding, threatened to cut $385 million in those payments to Massachusetts if the state did not reduce the number of uninsured recipients of health care services.[183][195][198] Although he had not campaigned on the idea of universal health insurance,[197] Romney decided that because people without insurance still received expensive health care, the money spent by the state for such care could be better used to subsidize insurance for the poor.[196][197] After positing that any measure adopted not raise taxes and not resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds.[183][195][198] Beginning in late 2004, they came up with a set of proposals more ambitious than an incremental one from the Massachusetts Senate and more acceptable to him than one from the Massachusetts House of Representatives that incorporated a new payroll tax.[183][195][198] In particular, Romney pushed for incorporating an individual mandate at the state level.[23] Past rival Ted Kennedy, who had made universal health coverage his life's work and who, over time, had developed a warm relationship with Romney,[199] gave the plan a positive reception, which encouraged Democratic legislators to cooperate.[195][198] The effort eventually gained the support of all major stakeholders within the state, and Romney helped break a logjam between rival Democratic leaders in the legislature.[195][198] On April 12, 2006, the governor signed the resulting Massachusetts health reform law, commonly called "Romneycare", which requires nearly all Massachusetts residents to buy health insurance coverage or face escalating tax penalties, such as the loss of their personal income tax exemption.[200] The bill also establishes means-tested state subsidies for people who do not have adequate employer insurance and whose income is below a threshold, with funds that were previously used to compensate for the health costs of the uninsured.[201][202][203] He vetoed eight sections of the health care legislation, including a controversial $295-per-employee assessment on businesses that do not offer health insurance and provisions guaranteeing dental benefits to Medicaid recipients.[200][204] The legislature overrode all eight vetoes, but the governor's office said the differences were not essential.[204] The law was the first of its kind in the nation and became the signature achievement of Romney's term in office.[198][nb 13] At the beginning of his governorship, Romney opposed same-sex marriage and civil unions, but advocated tolerance and supported some domestic partnership benefits.[198][206][207] Faced with the dilemma of choosing between same-sex marriage or civil unions after the November 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health), Romney reluctantly backed a state constitutional amendment in February 2004 that would have banned same-sex marriage but still allow civil unions, viewing it as the only feasible way to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.[208] In May 2004, the governor instructed town clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but citing a 1913 law that barred out-of-state residents from getting married in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home state, no marriage licenses were to be issued to out-of-state same-sex couples not planning to move to Massachusetts.[206][209] In June 2005, Romney abandoned his support for the compromise amendment, stating that the amendment confused voters who oppose both same-sex marriage and civil unions.[206] Instead, he endorsed a petition effort led by the Coalition for Marriage & Family that would have banned same-sex marriage and made no provisions for civil unions.[206] In 2004 and 2006, he urged the U.S. Senate to vote in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.[210][211] In 2005, Romney revealed a change of view regarding abortion, moving from the "unequivocal" pro-choice position expressed during his 2002 campaign to a pro-life one in opposition to Roe v. Wade.[198] He subsequently vetoed a bill on pro-life grounds that would expand access to emergency contraception in hospitals and pharmacies (the veto was overridden by the legislature).[212] Romney generally used the bully pulpit approach towards promoting his agenda, staging well-organized media events to appeal directly to the public rather than pushing his proposals in behind-doors sessions with the state legislature.[198] He dealt with a public crisis of confidence in Boston's Big Dig project – that followed a fatal ceiling collapse in 2006 – by wresting control of the project from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.[198] After two years of negotiating the state's participation in the landmark Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that instituted a cap and trade arrangement for power plant emissions in the Northeast, Romney pulled Massachusetts out of it shortly before its signing in December 2005, citing a lack of cost limits for industry.[213] During 2004, Romney spent considerable effort trying to bolster the state Republican Party, but it failed to gain any seats in the state legislative elections that year.[163][214] He was given a prime-time appearance at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and was already being discussed as a potential 2008 presidential candidate.[215] Midway through his term, Romney decided that he wanted to stage a full-time run for president,[216] and on December 14, 2005, announced that he would not seek re-election for a second term.[217] As chair of the Republican Governors Association, Romney traveled around the country, meeting prominent Republicans and building a national political network;[216] he spent part or all of more than 200 days out of state during 2006, preparing for his run.[218] The governor had a 61 percent job approval rating in public polls after his initial fiscal actions in 2003, but it began to sink after that.[219] The frequent out-of-state travel contributed to a decline in Romney's approval rating towards the end of his term;[219][220] at 34 percent in November 2006, his rating level ranked 48th of the 50 U.S. governors.[221] Dissatisfaction with Romney's administration and the weak condition of the Republican state party were among several factors that led to Democrat Deval Patrick's lopsided win over Republican Kerry Healey, Romney's Lieutenant Governor, in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.[220][222] Romney filed to register a presidential campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission on his penultimate day in office as governor.[223] His term ended January 4, 2007. 2008 presidential campaignMain article: Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2008   Romney formally announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination for president on February 13, 2007, in Dearborn, Michigan.[224] Again casting himself as a political outsider,[225] his speech frequently invoked his father and his own family, and stressed experiences in the private, public, and voluntary sectors that had brought him to this point.[224][226] Romney's campaign emphasized his résumé of a highly profitable career in the business world and his stewardship of the Olympics.[216][227][nb 14] He also had political experience as governor, together with a political pedigree courtesy of his father (as well as many biographical parallels with him).[nb 15] Ann Romney, who had become an advocate for those with multiple sclerosis,[231] was in remission and would be an active participant in his campaign,[232] helping to soften his political personality.[233] Moreover, a number of commentators noted that with his square jaw and ample hair graying at the temples, the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m)[234] Romney – referred to as handsome in scores of media stories[235] – physically matched one of the common images of what some believed a president should look like.[74][236][237][238] Romney's liabilities included having run for senator and served as governor in one of the nation's most liberal states and having taken some positions there that were opposed by the party's conservative base.[216][227][232] Late during his term as governor, he had shifted positions and emphases to better align with traditional conservatives on social issues.[216][227][232] Skeptics, including some Republicans, charged Romney with opportunism and having a lack of core principles.[123][198][239] As a Mormon, he was also viewed with suspicion and skepticism by some in the Evangelical portion of the party.[239] Romney assembled for his campaign a veteran group of Republican staffers, consultants, and pollsters.[227][240] He was little-known nationally, though, and stayed around the 10 percent range in Republican preference polls for the first half of 2007.[216] He proved the most effective fundraiser of any of the Republican candidates and also partly financed his campaign with his own personal fortune.[227][241] These resources, combined with the mid-year near-collapse of nominal front-runner John McCain's campaign, made Romney a threat to win the nomination and the focus of the other candidates' attacks.[242] Romney's staff suffered from internal strife and the candidate himself was indecisive at times, constantly asking for more data before making a decision.[227][243] During all of his political campaigns, Romney has generally avoided speaking publicly about specific Mormon doctrines, referring to the U.S. Constitution prohibition of religious tests for public office.[244] But persistent questions about the role of religion in Romney's life, as well as Southern Baptist minister and former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls based upon an explicitly Christian-themed campaign, led to the December 6, 2007, "Faith in America" speech.[245] In the speech Romney declared, "I believe in my Mormon faith and endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs."[14] Romney added that he should neither be elected nor rejected based upon his religion,[246] and echoed Senator John F. Kennedy's famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign in saying, "I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."[245] Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith, he said that he would be informed by it and that, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."[245][246] Academics would later study the role religion had played in the campaign.[nb 16] Romney's strategy was to win the initial two contests, the January 3, 2008, Iowa Republican caucuses and the adjacent-to-his-home-state January 8 New Hampshire primary, and propel himself nationally.[249] But he took second in both, losing Iowa to a vastly outspent Huckabee, who gained much more of the evangelical Christian vote,[250][251] and losing New Hampshire to the resurgent McCain.[250] Both Huckabee and McCain criticized Romney's image as a flip flopper[250] and this label would stick to Romney through the campaign[227] (but was one that Romney rejected as unfair and inaccurate, except for his acknowledged change of mind on abortion).[233][252] Romney seemed to approach the campaign as a management consulting exercise, and showed a lack of personal warmth and political feel; journalist Evan Thomas wrote that Romney "came off as a phony, even when he was perfectly sincere."[233][253] The fervor with which Romney adopted his new stances and attitudes contributed to the perception of inauthenticity which hampered the campaign.[67][254] Romney's staff would conclude that competing as a candidate of social conservatism and ideological purity rather than of pragmatic competence had been a mistake.[233] A win by McCain over Huckabee in South Carolina, and by Romney over McCain in childhood-home Michigan, set up a climactic battle in the Florida primary.[255][256] Romney campaigned intensively on economic issues and the burgeoning subprime mortgage crisis, while McCain attacked Romney regarding Iraq policy and benefited from endorsements from Florida officeholders.[255][256] McCain won a 5 percentage point victory on January 29.[255][256] Although many Republican officials were now lining up behind McCain,[256] Romney persisted through the nationwide Super Tuesday contests on February 5. There he won primaries or caucuses in several states, but McCain won more and larger states.[257] Trailing McCain in delegates by a more than two-to-one margin, Romney announced the end of his campaign on February 7.[257] Altogether, Romney had won 11 primaries and caucuses,[258] received about 4.7 million total votes,[259] and garnered about 280 delegates.[260] He spent $110 million during the campaign, including $45 million of his own money.[261] Romney endorsed McCain for president a week later.[260] He was on the nominee's short list for the vice presidential running mate slot, where his business experience would have balanced one of McCain's weaknesses.[262] McCain, behind in the polls, opted instead for a high-risk, high-reward "game changer", and selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.[263] McCain lost the election to Democratic Senator Barack Obama. Activity between presidential campaignsFollowing the election, Romney paved the way for a possible 2012 presidential campaign by using his Free and Strong America political action committee (PAC) to raise money for other Republican candidates and to pay his existing political staff's salaries and consulting fees.[264][265] An informal network of former staff and supporters around the nation were eager for him to run again.[266] He continued to give speeches and raise funds for Republicans,[267] but turned down many potential media appearances, fearing overexposure.[252] He also spoke before business, educational, and motivational groups.[268] He served on the board of directors of Marriott International from 2009 to 2011.[269] (He had earlier served on it from 1993 to 2002,[269] during most of which time he was a member of, and for six years chair of, the board's audit committee.[270] During his time on that committee, Marriott implemented the Son of BOSS tax shelter scheme, which resulted in the company claiming $71 million in losses that federal courts later ruled never existed.[270][271])  In 2009, the Romneys sold their primary residence in Belmont and their ski chalet in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had bought the year before.[252][272][273] The San Diego home was beneficial in location and climate for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis and lumpectomy for mammary ductal carcinoma in situ.[272][274][275] Both it and the New Hampshire location were near some of their grandchildren[272] (who by 2012 numbered eighteen).[276] Romney maintained his voting registration in Massachusetts, however, and bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010.[274][277][nb 17] In February 2010, Romney had a minor altercation with LMFAO member Skyler Gordy, known as Sky Blu, on an airplane flight.[nb 18] Romney's book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, was released in March 2010; an 18-state book tour was undertaken.[284] The book, which debuted atop The New York Times Best Seller list,[285] avoided anecdotes about his personal or political life in favor of a presentation of his economic and geopolitical views.[286][287] Earnings from the book were donated to charity.[106] Immediately following the March 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney attacked the landmark legislation as "an unconscionable abuse of power" and said the act should be repealed.[288] The antipathy Republicans felt for it created a potential problem for the former governor, since the new federal law was in many ways similar to the Massachusetts health care reform passed during Romney's term; as one Associated Press article stated, "Obamacare ... looks a lot like Romneycare."[288] While acknowledging that his plan was an imperfect work in progress, Romney did not back away from it, consistently defending the state-level health insurance mandate that underpinned it and saying it was the right answer to Massachusetts' specific problems at the time.[288][289][290] In nationwide opinion polling for the 2012 Republican Presidential primaries, Romney led or placed in the top three with Palin and Huckabee. A January 2010 National Journal survey of political insiders found that a majority of Republican insiders, and a plurality of Democratic insiders, predicted Romney would be the party's 2012 nominee.[291] Romney campaigned heavily for Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm elections,[292] raising more money than the other prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidates.[293] Beginning in early 2011, Romney presented a more relaxed visual image, including rarely wearing a necktie.[254][294] 2012 presidential campaignMain article: Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012 See also: Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012 , Results of the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries, and Republican Party vice presidential candidates, 2012  On April 11, 2011, Romney announced in a video taped outdoors at the University of New Hampshire that he had formed an exploratory committee for a run for the Republican presidential nomination.[295][296] A Quinnipiac University political science professor stated, "We all knew that he was going to run. He's really been running for president ever since the day after the 2008 election."[296] Romney stood to gain from the Republican electorate's tendency to nominate candidates who had previously run for president and appeared to be "next in line" to be chosen.[266][297][298] The early stages of the race found him as the apparent front-runner in a weak field, especially in terms of fundraising prowess and organization.[299][300][301] Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination was party opposition to the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had shepherded five years earlier.[294][296][298] As many potential Republican candidates decided not to run (including Mike Pence, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Mitch Daniels), Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney.[299][301] On June 2, 2011, Romney formally announced the start of his campaign. Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused on the economy and criticized President Obama's handling of it.[302] He said, "In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it – because I have lived it."[298]  Romney raised $56 million during 2011, far more than any of his Republican opponents,[303] and refrained from spending any of his own money on his campaign.[304] He initially ran a low-key, low-profile campaign.[305] Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls, then by September 2011, Romney's chief rival in polls was a recent entrant, Texas Governor Rick Perry.[306] Perry and Romney exchanged sharp criticisms of each other during a series of debates among the Republican candidates.[307] The October 2011 decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to run finally settled the field.[308][309] Perry faded after poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain's long-shot bid gained popularity until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed him.[310][311] Romney continued to seek support from a wary Republican electorate; at this point in the race, his poll numbers were relatively flat and at a historically low level for a Republican frontrunner.[308][312][313] After the charges of flip-flopping that marked his 2008 campaign began to accumulate again, Romney declared in November 2011 that "I've been as consistent as human beings can be."[314][315][316] As governor, he had maintained that his positions were moderate, and he had called reports that he was shifting to the right to attract conservative votes a media distortion.[317] By the 2012 campaign he would tell the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that he had been a "severely conservative governor."[318] In the final month before voting began, Newt Gingrich enjoyed a major surge, taking a solid lead in national polls and in most of the early caucus and primary states,[319] before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC.[320] In the initial 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3, Romney was announced as the victor on election night with 25 percent of the vote, edging out a late-gaining Rick Santorum by eight votes (with an also-strong Ron Paul finishing third),[321] but sixteen days later, Santorum was certified as the winner by a 34-vote margin.[322] Romney decidedly won the New Hampshire primary the following week with a total of 39 percent; Paul finished second and Jon Huntsman third.[323] In the run-up to the South Carolina Republican primary, Gingrich launched ads criticizing Romney for causing job losses while at Bain Capital, Perry referred to Romney's role there as "vulture capitalism", and Sarah Palin questioned whether Romney could prove his claim that 100,000 jobs were created during that time.[324][325] Many conservatives rallied in defense of Romney, rejecting what they inferred as criticism of free-market capitalism.[324] During two debates, Romney fumbled questions about releasing his income tax returns, while Gingrich gained support with audience-rousing attacks on the debate moderators.[326][327] Romney's double-digit lead in state polls evaporated and he lost to Gingrich by 13 points in the January 21 primary.[326] Combined with the delayed loss in Iowa, Romney's admitted bad week represented a lost chance to end the race early, and he decided to release two years of his tax returns quickly.[326][328] The race turned to the Florida Republican primary, where in debates, appearances, and advertisements, Romney unleashed a concerted, unrelenting attack on Gingrich's past record and associations and current electability.[329][330] Romney enjoyed a big spending advantage from both his campaign and his aligned Super PAC, and after a record-breaking rate of negative ads from both sides, Romney won Florida on January 31, gaining 46 percent of the vote to Gingrich's 32 percent.[331]  There were several caucuses and primaries during February, and Santorum won three in a single night early in the month, propelling him into the lead in national and some state polls and positioning him as Romney's main rival.[332] Romney won the other five, including a closely fought contest in his home state of Michigan at the end of the month.[333][334] In the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses of March 6, Romney won six of ten contests, including a narrow victory in Ohio over a greatly outspent Santorum, and although he failed to win decisively enough to end the race, still held a more than two-to-one edge over Santorum in delegates.[335] Romney maintained his delegate margin through subsequent contests,[336] and Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10.[337] Following a sweep of five more contests on April 24, the Republican National Committee put its resources behind Romney as the party's presumptive nominee.[338] Romney clinched a majority of the delegates with a win in the Texas primary on May 29. Polls have shown a generally tight race for the November general election.[339] The campaign has been dominated by negative ads from both sides, with Obama ads proclaiming that Romney shipped jobs overseas while at Bain Capital and has kept his own money in offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts.[340] A related issue has been whether Romney was responsible for actions at Bain Capital after taking the Olympics post.[100][102] Romney has faced demands from Democrats to release additional years of his tax returns, an action a number of Republicans also think would be wise, but has been adamant that he will not.[341] Romney has also largely shied away from discussing his Mormon faith on the 2012 campaign trail.[14] Political theorists have noted that were he to highlight his religion, he could run the risk of alienating voters; as a June 2012 Gallup poll found that 18 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon for U.S. President, and more than 40 percent of Americans were still unaware that Romney was even a Mormon.[14][342] In July 2012, Romney undertook a trip to the United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland to meet leaders to raise his credibility as a world statesman.[343] Comments Romney made about the readiness of the 2012 Summer Olympics were perceived as undiplomatic by the British press and leading British politicians.[344][345] In Israel, Romney was embraced by Israeli Prime Minister (and former BCG colleague) Benjamin Netanyahu, though he was criticized by some Palestinians for suggesting that Israel's greater economic success was due to "culture".[346] On August 11, 2012, the Romney campaign announced the selection of Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice-presidential running mate.[347] On August 28, 2012, the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, officially nominated Romney as their candidate for the presidency.[348] Political positionsMain article: Political positions of Mitt Romney Romney has identified himself as "pro-life" since 2005: having previously favored access to abortion during his Massachusetts runs for the U.S. Senate and governorship, he now opposes access to abortion "except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother."[349][350][nb 19] He has promised to nominate Supreme Court justices who would help overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing states to individually decide on the legality of abortion.[353] Romney opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.[354] He has signed a pledge promising to seek passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to legally define marriage as "the union of one man and one woman."[355] Romney has called for cutting federal government spending to help reduce the national debt.[356] He has proposed changes such as gradually raising the eligibility ages for receipt of Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs benefits.[356] He favors substantial increases in military spending, and has promised to invest more heavily in military weapons programs and to increase the number of active-duty military personnel.[357][358] He embraced the Paul Ryan Budget.[359][360] Romney supported the Bush administration's Troubled Asset Relief Program in response to the late-2000s financial crisis, which he has said prevented the U.S. financial system from completely collapsing.[361][362] During the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010, he opposed a bailout of the American automotive industry in the form of direct government intervention, and argued instead that struggling automobile companies should be restructured through managed bankruptcy.[363] Romney pledges to lead an effort to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and replace it with a system that give states more control over Medicaid and makes health insurance premiums tax-advantaged for individuals in the same way they are for businesses.[364] He wants to see a repeal of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in response to the financial crisis, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was enacted to prevent accounting scandals such as had occurred with Enron, with plans to eventually replace them with a "streamlined, modern regulatory framework".[365][366] Romney has said he would seek income tax law reforms that he says would help lower federal deficits and would stimulate economic growth. Among the series of tax changes he has proposed are: reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, maintaining the Bush administration-era tax rate of 15 percent on investment income from dividends and capital gains (and eliminating this tax entirely for those with annual incomes less than $200,000), cutting the top tax rate on corporations from 35 to 25 percent, and eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax.[367][368] He has promised that the loss of government revenue from these tax cuts would be offset by closing loopholes and reining in tax deductions and credits available to taxpayers with the highest incomes, so that his tax plan would not raise federal deficits,[368] but has said that aspect of the plan cannot be evaluated yet due to lack of specific details.[369] Romney opposes mandatory carbon caps known as Cap and Trade to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.[315] After previously saying human activity is contributing to global warming, he now says that it is unknown.[315] He favors increased domestic oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), and nuclear plant construction, and he would seek to reduce the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.[370][371] He believes North American energy independence can be achieved by 2020.[372] In his 2010 book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney writes of his belief in American exceptionalism.[286] He has stated that Russia is America's "number one geopolitical foe",[373] and that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability should be America's "highest national security priority".[374] He plans to label China a currency manipulator and take associated counteractions unless that country changes its trade practices.[375] He has supported the War in Afghanistan.[376][377] Romney supports the Patriot Act,[378] existence of the the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and indefinite detention of suspected terrorists without trial,[379] and use of enhanced interrogation techniques for interrogation of suspected terrorists.[378] Awards and honors Romney has received five honorary doctorates, including one in business from the University of Utah in 1999,[380] in law from Bentley College in 2002,[381] in public administration from Suffolk University Law School in 2004,[382] in public service from Hillsdale College in 2007,[383] and in humanities from Liberty University in 2012.[384] People magazine included Romney in its 50 Most Beautiful People list for 2002,[385] and in 2004, he received the inaugural Truce Ideal Award for his role in the 2002 Winter Olympics.[386] The Cranbrook School gave him their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005.[21] In 2008 he shared with his wife Ann, the Canterbury Medal from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, for "refus[ing] to compromise their principles and faith" during the presidential campaign.[387] In 2012 Romney was named to the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[388] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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them secret too? He is keeping his "agenda" secret, so what else is happening behind closed doors.
Rove tactics to the inth degree, passed on to Romney through Ed Gillespie. I don't trust this guy, at all.