The Romney Economic Agenda and Its Effect on the Middle Class and Growth

The Romney Economic Agenda and Its Effect on the Middle Class and Growth

How His Economic Proposals Depend on the Failed Bush Strategy of Enriching the Wealthy at the Expense of Everyone Else

SOURCE: AP/Charles Dharapak

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pauses while speaking about the Supreme Court's health care ruling in Washington.

By Michael Linden, Seth Hanlon, Jennifer Erickson, Gadi Dechter, Adam Hersh, Karla Walter | July 31, 2012

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Endnotes and citations can be found in the pdf version of this report.


It is no exaggeration to say that the linchpin of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s economic strategy is to further enrich the richest 1 percent of Americans. Nearly every element of his economic agenda revolves around what would be good for the richest people and the biggest corporations in the United States. This shouldn’t truly surprise anyone. His approach is very much in line with the dominant conservative economic theory of the last three decades, “supply-side economics,” and shares numerous characteristics with the economic policies of the George W. Bush administration.

Indeed, there is little, if anything, in the economic agenda of the current Republican presidential aspirant that would be considered particularly revolutionary among adherents of the supply-side theory. But what is notable is the degree to which Gov. Romney doubles down on that theory and on the policies of President George W. Bush to produce a plan that would dramatically favor the very rich over the interests of everyone else. It’s especially notable given how badly that theory and those policies fared during the past decade.

Supply-side economic theory holds that the best way to ensure prosperity is to, as much as possible, minimize taxation and government regulation on those who (in the view of supply-side theorists) are the most likely to produce growth: the rich. The often-used epithet, “trickle-down economics” is actually not far off from the central idea of supply-side theory. Reward wealth, allow the rich the freedom to use their money as they see fit, give corporations a free hand in how they treat their workers and customers and the result will be eventual prosperity for everyone. This idea is why adherents of supply-side theory so often like refer to rich people as “job creators.” They honestly believe it.

The problem for supply-siders in general, and for Gov. Romney in particular, is that we have repeatedly tried using their policies and those policies have repeatedly failed—and rather spectacularly at that. The presidency of George W. Bush is, of course, the prime example. By almost any standard, economic performance under President Bush was awful, especially compared to his predecessor President Bill Clinton, who, in direct contravention to his supply-side critics, raised taxes on the rich. In fact, economic performance under President Clinton outpaced even that of the patron saint of supply-side theory: President Ronald Reagan.

The empirical evidence is very clear. Supply-side theory may sound good on paper, but it hasn’t worked in practice. Instead of prosperity trickling down, wealth seems to flow up.

Unfortunately, Gov. Romney does not appear to have taken any lessons from the Clinton and Bush presidencies. Instead, his economic plan is chock-full of policies that will make the very rich—and by extension, supply-siders—very happy.

This report takes a close look at the core of Gov. Romney’s economic agenda and describes just how just how targeted it is for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many in our nation. In brief, Gov. Romney’s plan for the economy can be summed up in four main points. His plan is built on:

• A tax plan solely for the 1 percent, raising taxes on nearly everyone else
• Massive yet unspecified spending cuts that threaten our economic competitiveness, future prosperity, and public safety
• Fiscal policies that will only exacerbate our federal budget challenges
• Extreme plans to exempt businesses from adhering to the most basic safety, health, environmental, and workplace rules and regulations

A tax plan solely for the 1 percent

The key element of any good supply-side economic plan is lower taxes for the rich and Gov. Romney’s blueprint absolutely delivers. The main element of his tax proposals consists of massive cuts for those at the very top. The total magnitude of the Romney tax cuts exceeds even that of the Bush tax cuts, a fact made all the more startling when you realize that Gov. Romney wants his new tax cuts in addition to, not instead of, the Bush tax cuts.

The Romney tax plan also reflects an unfortunate corollary of supply-side’s main argument—since the rich are the key to prosperity, everyone else doesn’t matter very much. In essence, supply-siders believe while tax cuts for everyone would be nice, it’s really only the ones for the top that matter. Though Gov. Romney’s specific proposals would, in fact, give everyone a tax cut, he has also promised to keep overall revenues where they were under President George W. Bush’s tax policies. Though Gov. Romney declines to explain how he would accomplish this feat, under any reasonable assumptions (and even most unreasonable ones) taxes for the middle class would have to go up.

The Republican presidential candidate’s tax plan, therefore, is a perfect illustration of supply-side theory—dramatically lower taxes for the rich, higher taxes for everyone else.

Promises of massive unspecified spending cuts

Gov. Romney combines his specific tax cut proposals with promises of extremely vague spending cuts. Instead of detailing which programs should be reduced or eliminated and which should be maintained, he sets forth a broad target for federal spending: 20 percent of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of overall economic activity. Gov. Romney proposes a handful of specific spending cuts but by and large, he declines to explain how he would meet that target.
Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans, the only way for a Romney administration to hit that target would be to implement massive cuts to most services, programs, benefits, and government assistance—everything from air traffic controllers to food safety inspectors, federal funding for education to investments in basic research and development, as well as a variety of assistance programs that enable low-income Americans to grasp a hand up into the middle class. And though Gov. Romney says he wants to protect Social Security and Medicare for current retirees and those soon to enter retirement, the math simply won’t work. Gov. Romney’s spending cap will, sooner or later, lead to enormous cuts for those two programs as well.

Rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, but policies that lead to more debt

The age of permanent federal budget deficits started with the first supply-side president, Ronald Reagan, and accelerated with the last one, George W. Bush. Gov. Romney’s policies promise another round of supply-side budgeting: big tax cuts financed by more debt. Gov. Romney certainly embraces the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility—as, of course, did President Bush—but the actual policies he proposes would inexorably lead to more debt.

An extreme deregulation agenda 

After low taxes for the rich, the second tenet of faith among the followers of supply-side theories is that corporations must be as free as possible from regulation and oversight. Gov. Romney’s plan embraces that ethos with gusto. His agenda includes proposals to repeal existing regulations, to make it nearly impossible to enact any new regulations, and to allow the executive branch to decline to implement any new rules or requirements that Congress does manage to pass. Gov. Romney also proposes to roll back many environmental regulations and worker protections.

Combined with spending policies that would inevitably slash the operation budgets of many regulatory agencies, Gov. Romney’s deregulation agenda would effectively give corporations nearly free reign. These policies flow from the belief that what’s good for the bottom lines of the Fortune 500 is necessarily good for everyone. They decidedly reject the notion that fair and efficient markets depend on a level playing field, clear rules, and impartial referees.

Understanding Romney’s economic worldview

Each of these elements in Gov. Romney’s economic policy proposals, in their own way, seeks to bolster those at the top. After all, that is the underlying premise of supply-side economic theory. Tax cuts that are paid for with middle-class tax hikes and cuts to middle-class programs or else not paid for at all—leaving it to future generations of Americans to pay off the debt. Less oversight of corporations and fewer rules about how those corporations can treat their customers, workers, and even shareholders.

And just as it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that Gov. Romney’s economic plan is a reflection of supply-side theory, it also shouldn’t surprise us when that plan fails to generate growth. After 30 years of economic experimentation, we know that a focus on the rich doesn’t yield broad prosperity; it only results in more inequality. Instead, a growing body of economic research points to very different ingredients for growth, chief among them a strong middle class.

But Gov. Romney doesn’t have a plan for a strong middle class. Quite the opposite. The middle class would have to pay, one way or the other, for the enormous tax cuts he promises to deliver to the rich. Average Americans would also have to shoulder the burden of any deficit reduction that occurs under a Romney administration. Middle-class workers and those aspiring to join the middle class benefit from the labor standards and fair pay laws and regulations that Gov. Romney would like to see scaled back or eliminated. It is the 99 percent who depend on the environmental protections that Gov. Romney thinks are “job killers.” And it’s largely the middle class who will be asked to pick up the tab when Wall Street inevitably gets in trouble again after Romney repeals the financial reforms enacted in the wake of the housing and financial crises that nearly brought the world economy tumbling down.

Ultimately, Gov. Romney’s economic policies are heavily tilted toward the rich and corporations because that’s who he thinks are important for economic growth. The result of implementing those policies would be higher costs, fewer services, and weaker protections for the middle class as well as for lower-income Americans aspiring to the middle class. Gov. Romney believes that the positive effects of lower taxes for the rich and looser regulations for big businesses will more than offset the increased burden for the middle class. Both recent history and empirical economic evidence demonstrate why he’s wrong.
Michael Linden is the Director for Tax and Budget Policy, Seth Hanlon is the Director of Fiscal Policy, Jennifer Erickson is the Director of Competitiveness and Economic Growth, Gadi Dechter is the Managing Director for Economic Policy, Adam Hersh is an economist with the Economic Policy team, and Karla Walter is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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Download this introduction and summary (pdf)
Endnotes and citations can be found in the pdf version of this report.

Those Aren’t Gaffes That’s the Real Willard Romney, the Ugly American

Those Aren’t Gaffes That’s the Real Mitt Romney

By: RmuseJuly 30th, 2012

After eight years of the Bush administration sullying this country’s reputation around the world, President Obama faced a Herculean task of convincing the world that the days of American arrogance and domineering were over. Indeed, ending cowboy diplomacy and American pretentiousness earned the President respect and admiration America deserves as a world leader in the community of nations. In the race for the White House, presumptive Republican nominee Willard Romney is proving to the world, and America, that he will continue the arrogance characterized by George W. Bush that portrayed all Americans negatively.

In 1958, a political novel and subsequent 1963 movie portrayed the innate arrogance and pretentiousness Romney is displaying on his world fundraising tour, and unfortunately, the American people are suffering same behavior as Willard defines himself as The Ugly American at home. In the novel, a foreign journalist says, “A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They are pretentious, they’re loud and ostentatious.” Romney certainly lived up to the Ugly American portrayal during his visit to England, and although the level of arrogance was embarrassing to America, it is the real Romney that the American people have come to know over the past six months. Obviously, not all wealthy elitist Americans stoop to Romney’s level of condescension and preeminence, but his actions are borne of arrogance associated with his wealth, religious upbringing, sense of entitlement, and apparent feeling of superiority.

By now, Romney’s embarrassing behavior is well-known and apparently knows no end. After insulting the British people, he blasted London Mayor Boris Johnson as “an eccentric, odd fellow” whose public attack on Romney was characterized as “unbecoming and an indication of his bias towards President Obama.” Whether or not Mr. Johnson is biased toward the President is of no consequence, because he was reacting to Romney’s arrogance and disregard for the British people. As it turns out, there is an international bias towards President Obama and it is his foreign policy acumen that earns high marks throughout the world. Romney is fond of portraying the President as “angering America’s allies and emboldening its enemies,” but a Pew Research poll tells a different story altogether.

The Pew Foundation released results of a global survey in June after soliciting opinions from several countries around the world. The survey asked if the countries have “some” or a “great deal of” trust in President Obama, and the numbers were overwhelmingly positive. For example, in Britain, 80% of people trust President Obama compared with 16% who trusted George W. Bush and in fact, all countries surveyed have much higher approval ratings of America in 2012 than they did in 2008, when Bush president. In some countries like China, Russia, and Arab countries, the President’s approval dropped indicating that he is not emboldening America’s enemies, and Arab countries complained the President has not been fair dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and that he uses drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan to go after terrorists. In direct contrast to Romney’s assertions, President Obama lost some of his global popularity for being too pro-Israeli and too hawkish.

However, the President’s popularity aside, it is Romney’s arrogance that causes him trouble on the world stage and at home. The disregard Romney displayed toward the British is typical of his attitude toward 98% of Americans who are not members of the wealthy elite class. His proposals exemplify that disregard for portraying average Americans as odd and eccentric for expecting government to work for them, and not against them, and it is not just Romney’s policies, it is his sense of entitlement to special advantages average Americans are prohibited from enjoying because they are not in the same income class as Willard.

His refusal to release his tax returns are because they are toxic to his candidacy, but his wife’s comments epitomize arrogance and superiority Romney is notorious for. In remarks during an interview with ABC News, Mrs. Willard said, “we’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life,” and the phrase “you people” characterizes Romney’s arrogant superiority toward the average American who will suffer under a Romney presidency. For the wealthy though, Romney’s attitude is entirely different and he proves it with a tax plan providing $6.5 trillion in tax cuts for the 1%, with the lion’s share going to the top 1/10^th of the 1%. The stunning aspect of Romney’s attitude is that he cannot comprehend why average Americans might feel put-upon for being asked to pay higher taxes to support the wealthy, or that they think the wealthy should pay the same tax rate as the middle class.

A recent poll confirmed that Americans overwhelmingly think President Obama understands Americans better than Willard 60% to 30%, and it is down to his concern for all the American people. David Axelrod, the President’s chief political strategist said the people like President Obama because he is “accessible to me, someone who understands me, and someone I can relate to.” The President has spent his entire term working for Americans at every income level despite Republican obstruction, and Romney makes no secret that his only priority is helping the richest Americans at the expense of the rest of the population. This election will not be a popularity contest by any means, but the ability to relate to, and attempt to help, average Americans struggling through the Republican-caused economic malaise gives the President an advantage.

For the past few days, pundits and media-types have enjoyed what they call “Romney’s gaffes” as if they are aberrations, but they are not gaffes, or mistakes, or miscues; they are the real Romney. His penchant for lying, secrecy, pretentiousness, and arrogance are who the man is and one thing is certain; whether he is visiting foreign countries or running for the presidency at home, Willard Romney is The Ugly American.

Genuine Political Fakes vs. the Ultimate Fake Fake

July 29, 2012 at 15:54:58

Genuine Political Fakes vs. the Ultimate Fake Fake

By Robert S. Becker (about the author)

 

Great news this week for majority rule: CNN polling reported 63% think Bain Capital exploits make Mitt Romney more likely to "make good decisions handling" the economy over the next four years. What else matters to hardscrabble anguish in towns like Peoria, Illinois? Let's hire a tough, no-nonsense CEO to remake America as Bain remade venture capital -- and none of that feel-good, sentimental socialism.    

Moreover, six in ten honorable voters (CBS/NY Times) won't let jaw-dropping Bain revelations "matter to their vote" (so much for predation, outsourcing, job demolition, and tax-avoidance sleaze). Finally, 54% (USA Today/Gallup) affirm Mitt's "personality and leadership qualities" are what a "president should have." Exactly what "qualities," pray tell, other than deviant capitalism a and gaffe-filled, policy-free pageant that glorifies his zealous "elasticity"?

When did we ever nominate, let along elect a slippery, fabulously wealthy corporate raider? Not once. So, why not worsen terrible times with more Reagan-Bush-Cheneyism? Look, do we honor majorities or not, however they tilt to ruthlessness over familiarity, the economics of hard-knocks over mushy Obama rhetoric? Of course, early polling tracks the devil voters don't yet know (really?) vs. the champion, in this corner, of podium populism loved or hated by one and all.

Ruthlessness, devoid of "ruth"
 
Predictably, more telling Romney assessments are less kind: NBC/WSJ folks confirm he's the first GOP presidential nominee whose unfavorable ratings (40%) continue to surpass favorables (35%). That means a 65% majority isn't charmed by Mitt's compassion-free conservatism and/or weird personality. Could Bain's modus operandi of take-no-prisoners, ruthless pragmatism have no impact? Add that to the GOP's politics of austerity, and let the good times roll from a Romney presidency. Hail, the righteous rich in charge, sanctifying the status quo even beyond that of Obama's miscast, non-job-creating duo, Summers and Geithner? Hail, the self-consuming dogma that socializes corporate risk while privatizing profits.

So, let's not altogether abandon distinctions between the "devoutly non-ideological," ex-liberal Democrat who fudges major campaign promises (but "means well") vs. the plastic Romney eagerly morphed into radical extremist. Brace for hard-knuckled, Republican Ruthlessness with two capital R's and no "ruths" (its word root being "pity"). Romney's like the 17-year locust, muddling along underground for decades, only to emerge with a rock-hard shell and insatiable appetites. Incredibly, the GOP's guy displays more ambition than Obama, the careerist politician who never met a higher office he didn't like better. Romney's locust eyed the White House for at least 17 years, when Obama was neither Muslim nor socialist.  

For pragmatic Yanks, Romney's merciless solutions, per Gallup survey, award him the edge vs. Obama in "getting things done." Echoes of Larry the Cable Guy: "Git-R-Done." I wait breathlessly for this era of "fooling some of the people all of the time" to end. If neither centrist voters, labor, elected officials, nor intellectual elites can offset fat cat reactionaries, the public only gets a choice of political fakes, here divided into genuine fakes (W. or Obama) vs. fake fakes (Romney).

Distinction without a Difference?
 
Thus, Dubya exemplifies the genuine fake, his calculated oafish manner in sync with benighted Tea Baggers. Likenesses attract so W. never presumed great intellectual or educational prowess (rightly so). His mind was so genuinely ordinary that completing an entire book made news, more evidence this genuine fake was educated outside of Texas. W. wasn't nearly as stupid as he appeared, though clumsy articulations encouraged many to misunderestimate his tenure. In the end, while he conned the majority (and got re-elected), one sensed this dim bulb only got part of the con. Bush's one talent: making fakery seem downright, down home genuine, like another great phony, Sarah Palin. Hokey, western, cowboy, chainsaw manliness made Bush "easy to have a beer with" -- and genuine fakes rarely threaten the intellectual comfort zone of others.

Though far more literate, smarter and self-aware, Obama sadly qualifies as genuine fake, especially compared to the utterly fake fake called Romney. The president is a genuinely fake liberal, despite populist rhetoric and one truly progressive speech a year. He has a woefully, genuinely fake awareness of economic and military matters, displaying no more expertise now than three years ago. Is backdoor plutocrat Geithner not still in charge, with or without scandals? Is not militarism in high gear, what we'd expect from a fake anti-war candidate? Worst of all for a law school instructor on the Constitution, not only has he extended the Bush-Cheney whack job, he embraces transparently phony legal stances, alleging the Supreme Court wouldn't dare, even lacked the authority, to deny his health insurance reform.   Oh, yeah?

In not protecting the middle-class decline, Obama nearly matches Dubya's duplicity about helping "the people." Obama is truly a genuine fake, Chicago-crunch politician, so lacking in backbone he gets whipped by the insipid Senate and the shrill House. Considering his '08 mandate, Obama shows he's the most genuinely fake, backroom Washington deal-maker since Carter. In short, here's a fake reformer, systemic or otherwise, a fake challenger to crazed military spending (or gun sales) and fake populist, defective on economic matters. What's genuine about Obama is how seamlessly he's morphed into garden-variety politician, scared to death of any risk jeopardizing re-election. That one of the weakest GOP nominees in years, a mismatch for today's Republican party, is running neck and neck implies that genuine fakery just isn't selling as it did in '04.

Drum roll . . . the ultimate fake fake
 
And now the fabulous fake fake of our time -- the secretive, weird, protean shape-shifter whose only identifiable political constants over 20 years are his last name and loyalty to the LDS. With more oblique sides than a diamond ring, without signature policy on any major issue, without clear incentive why he merits high office -- and performance blunders in league with Palin, Romney takes the cake as political fake. Of course, as presumptive, bloviating pretender, he's not yet even a real nominee. We're breaking new ground here, pockmarked by huge blunders during an England trip intended to establish his overseas and diplomatic bona fides. Irony, anyone?

Mitt's effortless transformation from a 20-year moderate to extremist bespeaks no ordinary fakery. One feels W. and Obama have some overlap between personal and political beliefs, now and again. Not Romney, not in public, and his smug presumption that vulture capitalism makes him presidential signals an especially noxious fraud, capped off by having so little to lose (not HIS fortune). We've never had a genuinely super-rich industrialist for good reason: the skill-set between finance and politics is opposite, especially at the top. Autocratic control lets a strong CEO have his/her way, say hire or fire at will as long as money flows in along with market share.

What does Romney the fake fake bring to the White House table where nuanced people-management reigns supreme?   With less elected experience than any other recent top nominee, he disowns awful "mistakes" in his sole public office. Consider what he doesn't know about diplomacy, foreign affairs, the Pentagon, or about Washington, history, or the Constitution. Other than Herbert Hoover, what business tycoon succeeded in winning a campaign, let alone gaining White House success? The number of failed business wizards, athletes, actors and astronauts who tried politics is legion. Romney's beyond a disaster waiting to happen, he's halfway home. 

Finally, that Romney displays the tinniest of tin-ears, coming across as a bullying, cold fish with a weird non-sense of humor, makes him appear dumber than he probably is. But it's his rare package of phony "qualities," personal and political, that gain gold in the Olympic Fraud competition.   With the wrong skills and the wrong instincts -- plus, no Karl Rove -- no wonder Romney staggers into a shrill party's convention for which he's hardly the perfect fit. As more scandals pour out over the months, on Bain, Massachusetts, Mormonism, the Olympics, and unknowns yet to surface (please, no more pet abuse), I ponder: what can this guy deliver that wins over cranky centrists in a dozen key states -- other than that Obama stinks? That may work if jobs wither but where's Mitt's legitimacy after winning.  

Educated at Rutgers College (BA) and UC Berkeley (Ph.D, English) Becker left university teaching (Northwestern, U. Chicago) for business, founding and heading SOTA Industries, high end audio company from '80 to '92. From '92-02 he did marketing (more...)
 

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

12 Bigoted Taunts Peddled By Romney Camp and Allies

Election 2012  

AlteNet / By Adele M. Stan

12 Bigoted Taunts Peddled By Romney Camp and Allies

Corporate media largely ignored the subtext of Romney's earliest race-coded comments, and have been content to let more recent and blatant examples die after a day in the news cycle.

July 26, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Maria Dryfhout / Shutterstock.com

 

Mitt Romney's named campaign advisers want you to know that they had nothing, nada -- oops, didn't mean to use a foreign word -- to do with the assertion of an unnamed campaign adviser that Barack Obama just doesn't get that special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States on account of his father being from Kenya. From the Telegraph:

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.

Yowsa. Might that have been a bit too explicit a revelation of the Romney metamessage? Late on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported:

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said Wednesday that if an adviser did say that, the adviser wasn’t reflecting Romney’s views.

But Telegraph readers, and those of us following the campaign stateside, might be forgiven for taking the report at face value, seeing how it simply follows a pattern of race-baiting and xenophobic condemnations of the president by Romney and his surrogates -- a pattern that dates back to last January. Corporate media largely ignored the subtext of Romney's earliest race-coded comments, and have been content to let more recent and blatant examples die after a day in the news cycle. So, as a public service, AlterNet here serves up 12 of the Romney campaign's great moments in bigotry.

 

1. Only Anglo-Saxons need apply. As recounted above, and blogged by Sarah Seltzer, a Romney adviser, speaking with the Daily Telegraph's Jon Swaine, made anonymous comments that essentially boiled down to the notion that Obama couldn't understand the UK's special relationship with its former colonies across the pond because he is either a) the son of a non-American African; b) black; c) not white; d) not Anglo-Saxon; or e) all of the above.

 

While spokesperson Andrea Saul said either the story or the assertion was "not true," it's not clear from the e-mail she sent to CBS News which she meant. The story broke on the eve of Romney's visit to London to evoke his Olympic-helming triumph and raise campaign cash.

 

In fact, Anglo-Saxon-gate fits so neatly into the Romney campaign narrative that the candidate himself seemed a bit tied in knots during a Wednesday interview with Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News (via USA Today):

"I don't agree with whoever that adviser is," Romney said in an interview with NBC News that aired this evening. "But I can tell you that we have a very special relationship between the United States and Great Britain. ... I also believe the president understands that."

Note that Romney has not pledged to fire "whoever that adviser is" if he finds out who he or she is, nor has he pledged to find out who that person is. (We do, however, note that Romney foreign policy adviser John Bolton has used the term "Anglo-Saxon" before in his critique of Obama.)

 

2. Dog-whistling "Dixie." Here we speak of Romney's linguistic outreach to those Republicans for whom the Civil War never ended. During the campaign for the Iowa caucuses (which Romney lost to former U.S. senator Rick Santorum, himself a master-race-baiter), Romney unveiled his nativist, dog-whistling strategy for the general election. Chauncey DeVega unpacked an awkward bit of Romney phrasing, delivered during the heat of the Republican presidential primary:

Mitt Romney wants to "keep America America." The dropping of one letter from the Ku Klux Klan’s slogan, “Keep America American,” does not remove the intent behind Romney’s repeated use of such a virulently bigoted phrase. While Mitt Romney can claim ignorance of the slogan’s origins, he is intentionally channeling its energy.

During that same period, Romney also debuted, in more subtle form, the notion of Obama as not quite American, contending that the president "doesn't understand America."

 

3. The "lazy Negro" theme. At the end of May, the Romney campaign rolled out a new campaign based around the theme, "Obama Isn't Working." It was a neat little double entendre, with a surface-level, grammatically tortured meaning that Obama's policies aren't working, while its grammatically correct meaning implied that the African American president is, well, shiftless -- a notion that is a persistent racial stereotype of American black people.

 

As Chauncey DeVega wrote:

This is one of the core attributes of what social scientists have termed “symbolic racism.”

This stereotype is central to contemporary right-wing political discourse, and can trace its lineage back to the Southern Strategy under Richard Nixon, and through to Ronald Reagan’s mobilization of anti-black sentiment with his allusions to “welfare queens” and “strapping young black bucks” who buy steaks with food stamps.

4. Using homophobia in a race-based, anti-Obama ploy. The National Organization for Marriage is an organization run by white people who are determined to deprive same-sex couples of the very institution its leaders claim to cherish. So when a group of black pastors sprung up out of nowhere to oppose Obama's evolution on the question of marriage equality, blogger Alvin McEwen was suspicious.

 

A NOM memo leaked just weeks before outlined a brutal strategy for aiding Romney, whom NOM endorsed, in clearing a path to victory. 

"The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks -- two key Democratic constituencies," the memo reads. "Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage;...provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots."

McEwen explained:

The goal of the [Coalition of African American Pastors] protest (which NOM has so generously proven) is not to take a stand against marriage equality. Nor is it to get President Obama to rescind his support of marriage equality.

The point of the CAAP protest is to generate a hostile division between gays and blacks which would help Romney get elected.

As it turns out, this strategy has been less effective than partisans on either side would have predicted. Since Obama announced that he personally favors the legalization of same-sex marriage -- following an endorsement of same-sex marriage by the NAACP, African American opinion has moved significantly in the direction of approval of marriage equality. 

 

5. The booing strategy. And speaking of the NAACP, when one considers that Romney is still playing for the racially resentful Republican base, one has to view his seemingly hapless appearance before the civil rights group's national convention as a stroke of mastery. First of all, the kind of white people who are afraid of black people are likely to view one's appearance before a nearly all-black audience as an act of bravery. Secondly, if you say something that insults that black audience in a way that is lost on your target living-room white audience, one can be guaranteed a vociferous response from the black audience that will be viewed as impolite by the target scaredy-cat white audience. Roll 'em.

 

As I wrote earlier this week:

He had to know that trotting out his "promise to repeal Obamacare" line would generate a negative response, and the audience delivered with a chorus of boos -- just as he had to know that his right-wing base would love to watch that video clip on instant replay. And when he patronizingly asserted himself as the best candidate "for African American families," Romney was clearly playing to the the white Republican base, whose leaders often express purported knowledge of what's best for black people.

6. "Free stuff": the 21st-century "welfare queen." If you think I'm reading too much into the thinking behind Romney's NAACP strategy, consider what he told supporters at a fundraiser later that same day, when discussing the audience reaction to his speech. From my earlier report:

"I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy -- more free stuff," Romney said, according to a pool report. "But don't forget nothing is really free."

 

Given the racial context of the remark, it was, at best, insensitive. At worst, it was eerily reminiscent of Newt Gingrich's gambit in the South Carolina primary, when the former House speaker dubbed Obama the "food stamp president."

7. Subliminal reduction. As demonstrated above, Mitt Romney and his message gurus have displayed a diabolical cleverness in word choices that appear to be benign on the surface, but provoke a more precise and malevolent meaning, often subconsciously, in the minds of their target audience. And because of their subtle evocations -- nay, their inherent deniability -- of malicious content, I tread dangerous turf here. But somebody's gotta say it.

 

Since the Florida primary in January, I have been struck by the consistency with which Romney claims that Barack Obama "denigrates" things. He doesn't ever, in Romney's lexicon, "demean" these things, or "disparage" them: he "denigrates" them. Here's a bit from Romney's victory speech in Florida, from my AlterNet report:

"Like his colleagues in the faculty lounge who think they know better, President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy," Romney said.

In Ohio earlier this month, Romney said:

“Barack Obama’s attempt to denigrate and diminish the achievement of the individual diminishes us all.”

Last week, speaking in New Hampshire, Romney twisted his own syntax into a pretzel in order to accommodate the insertion of that word, saying that Obama was "denigrating making America strong." Now, check out the etymology of the word "denigrate":

denigrate --1520s, from L. denigratus, pp. of denigrare "to blacken, defame," from de- "completely" (see de-) + nigr-, stem of niger "black" (see Negro). of unknown origin. "Apparently disused in 18th c. and revived in 19th c." [OED]. Related: Denigrated; denigrating.

Perhaps this word was chosen at random by Romney and his message-mavens. Maybe it's just a word that Romney likes the sound of. (It's got that percussive "nig" syllable.) But it's definitely a word he's used repeatedly as an attribute of the president. When a word has been part of the lexicon for several centuries, people don't need to consciously know its provenance in order to feel its intent.

 

But sometimes it's not simply the word choice, but the arrangement of words in a phrase that carries the subliminal message. When, after weeks of being hammered by Obama surrogates for his mysterious status at Bain Capital from 1999-2002, Romney took a blow from the president himself, Romney and his wife Ann repeatedly said Obama's attack was "beneath the dignity of the presidency" or "beneath the dignity of his office." Note that he did not say that the attack was beneath the president's dignity. (That would imply that Barack Obama had inherent dignity.)

 

Metamessage? That Barack Obama is "beneath the dignity of the presidency." And if your target audience is people who harbor racial resentment, you're likely to find agreement with that statement for reasons that have nothing to do with where you worked and for how long. 

 

8. Explaining America to the black guy. In a story that barely survived the 24-hour news cycle, Romney surrogate John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor and chief of staff in the George H.W. Bush administration, said of Obama: "I wish this president would learn how to be an American."

 

The occasion was a Romney campaign press call with reporters. By the following day, Sununu apologized for his choice of words, and the press replied, "Bygones."

 

He did not, however, apologize for saying this (from my AlterNet report):

In three separate interviews on Tuesday, July 17, Sununu asserted that Obama was somehow foreign, having been partly raised in Indonesia, and then in Hawaii, where Sununu characterized him as "smoking something." (History be damned: Hawaii, apparently, doesn't qualify as an American state in the United States of Sununu.) 

9. Painting president with African father as "third world." In the realm of diplomacy, people who actually care about international relations long ago abandoned the term "third world" as one of disparagement -- a catch-all phrase once used to describe poor, non-white nations that conjures images of disease, disaster and upheaval. And that's what made it the perfect term for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in his guise as Romney surrogate and running-mate hopeful, to describe Obama. As the Romney campaign's resident Latino, it was left to Rubio to challenge Obama's assessment of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez as not such a big threat to the U.S., as he did on July 11.

 

But after Sununu's stellar performance, Rubio, not to be upstaged, took to Twitter to compare Obama to Chavez and his ilk:

Listening to @barackobama wage #classwarfare in #Jacksonville #Florida.Parts of it sound like speech by left-wing 3rd world leader.#sayfie
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 19, 2012

10. "Foreigner" affairs. And in case those angry white people didn't get the message that Romney and his pals just "know" that the black president with the Kenyan father and the internationalist mother who says he's from Hawaii isn't, like, really from here, the candidate himself stepped out to make his meaning abundantly clear last week, in a speech delivered in New Hampshire. As I wrote:

Romney himself followed up [Sununu's comments] a few hours later, characterizing his own vision as "Celebrating success instead of attacking it and denigrating making America strong." He continued: "That’s the right course for the country. [Obama's] course is extraordinarily foreign."

11. Courting the birther vote. On the very day he hosted a fundraiser for Romney, casino owner, reality show star and failed presidential candidate Donald Trump took to the airwaves to assert the perennial trope Barack Obama's birth certificate is not authentic and that Obama is ineligible for the presidency. That didn't stop Romney from appearing at Trump's side later in the day. On his campaign plane, Romney told reporters, according to Reuters:

"You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me," Romney said. "My guess is they don't agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."

12. Michele Bachmann's Islamophobic crusade. Would it be wrong to tar Romney with brush wielded by former presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., for her McCarthyite attempt to paint Obama administration staffers as closet jihadis? It might, if only Romney had disavowed her actions. But Bachmann endorsed Romney, with the presidential candidate at her side, at a high-profile event in May, and Romney hasn't uttered a peep about the Tea Party leader's preposterous attack against State Department aide Huma Abedin, who Bachmann has suggested is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. (She also alleges a broader infiltration of the Brotherhood into the U.S. government.)

 

It's hardly a subtle attack; Obama has been a target of Islamophobes since it was learned that his father's family is Muslim. The timing of its revival seems geared to energize the anti-Muslim segment of the GOP base just in time for the election, and to stoke fears among swing voters.

 

While other Republicans, including 2008 presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, Ariz., and House Majority Leader John Boehner, Ohio, have condemned Bachmann's broadsides, one prominent Romney surrogate sought to steer clear of the controversy while another threw in with Bachmann.

 

Marco Rubio, when questioned on NPR's "Diane Rehm Show," simply said he didn't agree "with the feelings expressed" in Bachmann's letter to five national security agencies that challenges Abedin's security clearance and alleges that her relatives are linked to the Brotherhood. That's hardly the "condemnation" some headlines claimed Rubio has made.

 

Romney campaign foreign policy adviser John Bolton, however, is all for the Bachmann witch hunt. Right Wing Watch's Brian Tashman caught Bolton's performance this week on the radio show of Islamophobe extremist Frank Gaffney:

What I think these members of Congress have done is simply raise the question, to a variety of inspectors general in key agencies, are your departments following their own security clearance guidelines, are they adhering to the standards that presumably everybody who seeks a security clearance should have to go through, are they making special exemptions? What is wrong with raising the question? Why is even asking whether we are living up to our standards a legitimate area of congressional oversight, why has that generated this criticism? I’m just mystified by it.

To which Romney replied -- oh, right -- he didn't.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief. Follow her on Twitter: @addiestan.

Romney’s War With Iran Rhetoric Jeopardizes Both Israel and the United States

Romney’s War With Iran Rhetoric Jeopardizes Both Israel and the United States

By: RmuseJuly 28th, 2012see more posts by Rmuse

If there is one thing nations of the world understand with impeccable clarity, it is that the United States of America stands by its allies. If there is one thing Willard Romney fails to comprehend, it is that America is Israel’s staunchest ally in the world, and his contention that President Obama “threw Israel under the bus” is a recurring claim with no basis in fact, but then again, Willard is renowned for making fallacious claims for political expediency and campaign donations. There are several reasons for Romney’s alleged “special relationship” with Israel, but regardless the motives, he certainly is not looking out for America’s best interests and by extension, jeopardizes Israel’s security every time he talks about war with Iran.

As Willard proceeds on his “fundraising world tour” after insulting the British people, he meets with his old pal Benjamin Netanyahu to plot a course for war with Iran if he wins the White House in November. It may seem curious for a cowardly draft-dodger to pant for another war in the Middle East, but there are ulterior motives other than just being Israel’s protector. Romney has impugned President Obama for not supporting Israel for some time, but the facts tell a different story. On Friday, the President signed a bill enhancing the U.S.-Israeli military partnership that “underscores our unshakeable commitment to Israel,” and announced an additional $70 million in military aid to support the expansion of Israel’s short-range rocket defense system, Iron Dome. The President  said Iron Dome “is a program that has been tested, and prevented missile strikes inside Israel, and is critical in terms of providing security and safety for Israeli families.” Still, it is not enough for Romney because it does not start the war with Iran his Bush foreign policy advisors are planning. But that is another story.

Romney’s allegiance to Israel has a deep connection to his cult’s history that states Hebrews traveled to America 2600 years ago to build a civilization. The Mormon ties to Israelites include the founding of New Jerusalem in “the land of Missouri” that was “appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints.” Mormon literature contends that Independence Missouri was established as the “center place” because “the Lord spoke of gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes.” Now, fantasy notwithstanding, if New Jerusalem and the center of Zion are in Missouri, why is Romney so intent on “protecting Israel” by attacking Iran? As with all things Romney and neo-conservatives, it is money and warmongering.

Last week, Dick Cheney hosted a fundraiser for Willard shortly before traveling to Washington to warn Republicans defense cuts resulting from their refusal to take a balanced approach to deficit reduction will be an epic disaster. Cheney’s company, Halliburton stands to lose hefty contracts with the DOD as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars come to an end, and Romney has pledged to increase defense spending despite the drain on the economy and winding down two wars, but if there is one thing conservatives have figured out, it’s that the quickest way to engender support for increased defense spending is starting another war against Islam under the guise of defending Israel. Besides profits for the corporations Romney is beholden to, his philosophy mirrors George W. Bush’s belief that America’s military might is the source of diplomacy, and imposing America’s will on Muslim countries is an inherent duty. However, America has a duty to its own people that is as foreign to Willard Romney as the absurd notion that Israelites founded a civilization in America 2600 years ago is to reasonable human beings.

America will always defend Israel, and one would think that providing Israel with at least $8.2 million each day in military aid is very generous, especially when social safety net spending is facing more horrendous cuts. President Obama has provided aid and support to Israel throughout his term, and yet Romney and Congressional Republicans have spent no small amount of energy decrying the President’s abandonment of “our closest ally.” There are Americans who wonder exactly what Israel provides America for all its military largesse and it is a valid question that engenders accusations of anti-Semitism any time it is brought up. It is also curious that America funds 18% of Israel’s military budget at the same time funding Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Iraq’s military while 46-million American children, seniors, and disabled citizens face drastic cuts to food assistance programs. Again, that is another story.

Romney will surely have better success in Israel than he did in the United Kingdom because he will fellowship with his old friend and real Israeli Netanyahu along with his new best-friend Sheldon Adelson who is probably happy to escape questions about violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a bid to get approval for projects in Macau, a special administrative region in China. However, Willard will be right at home demeaning President Obama in spite of increasing military aid to Israel, and bemoan his reluctance to pre-emptively strike Iran that Romney’s war council guarantees will “start a very substantial war throughout the region.” Many pundits think conservatives pant to wage war in the Middle East for oil, and to a great extent that is true, but another, more worrisome reason is a Christian crusade against Islam. Once again, that is another story.

For Netanyahu, Romney’s visit is an opportunity to help raise funds to install a lap-dog in the White House to do Israel’s bidding in the Middle East. Last year when Netanyahu visited Washington, he treated the President like a petulant child when Obama followed Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggestion that Israel use pre-1967 borders in a land swap to finally achieve peace in the region. One would think that for all the wealth America heaps on the nation of Israel, they could make a concession to give Palestinians a homeland that the rest of the world provided for Israel, but apparently being “chosen people” precludes making concessions, especially when the United States funds 18% of their military and guarantees to come to their aid if they attack Iran.

Israel knows full well that America will always be their staunchest (and maybe only) ally and will defend them at great cost to the American people, so does Willard Romney; and yet he travels the nation claiming the President abandoned Israel. However, more than anything, Willard will be with real Israeli’s instead of neo-Israelites entrenched in Mormonism awaiting New Jerusalem’s founding in Missouri, but just like the fallacy he is British because he likes Downton Abbey, he is still a wealthy elitist liar who will do anything to win the White House to start a war with Iran, create wealth for the oil industry, enrich the military-industrial complex, and begin installing his cult’s long-awaited theocracy.

SALON

Saturday, Jul 28, 2012 07:00 AM EDT

Why Mitt screws up

Let's put Romney on the shrink's couch: His disastrous London gaffes reveal a deep-seated anxiety

By Justin Frank


  
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to the press during his meeting with Labour Party leader Ed Miliband (not pictured) in London, July 26, 2012. (Credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed)


People are asking, “What’s with Mitt Romney’s trip to the London Olympics?” He has made so many gaffes that the Daily Mail’s political editor asked, “Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?”

That question is most important for the American voter. What drove Dubya were anxiety and fear, much of which he masked with his tough-guy swagger and rhetoric – and with his disarming sense of humor. When asked direct questions by the press, however, Bush would often freeze like a deer in the headlights. His slips of the tongue became the stuff of talk-show hosts, magazine articles and even books.

Now we have Mitt Romney, the putative Republican candidate for president in the 2012 election. His gaffes are different from the 43rd president’s; they don’t involve mispronouncing words or frequently issuing nonsensical sentences. They are more social gaffes, ones that seem to be made without much thought – if any.  Bush was trying to say things he couldn’t say. Romney is not trying to say anything in particular, other than answer questions or make comments when called upon to do so. In fact he is too casual, and what comes out is often carelessly hostile.

When Brian Williams asked him what he thought about the London games, Romney first tried to answer the question directly – something most politicians usually don’t do. He said, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.” He then began to talk about his own work running the 2002 SLC winter Olympics in what seemed like a canned response. What strikes me is the confidence with which he spoke and the remarkable lack of thought he exhibited. This has become a pattern for him, and not just on this trip. But it is more noticeable than before because he is largely left to his own devices, without prepared remarks that he could use in informal conversation.

That he was mocked and even rebuked by British leaders is less important to me than what lay beneath their criticism. Both the Mayor of London and the British Prime Minister commented separately about what they felt to be Romney’s insults regarding how Great Britain was running the games.

Psychoanalysts look for patterns of behavior and the meaning behind those patterns. But we also — especially in the case of public figures — look at the pressures brought to bear on the individual, both internally (what I do in my consulting room) and externally (social pressures that affect behavior). In Romney’s case, he is competing in his own Olympics against President Obama, who also happens to be the most internationally popular American leader in generations. So the pressure is on for him to prove himself.

Part of that pressure is self-generated, since a central component of Romney’s claim to greatness is that he ran the winter Olympics in 2002. Thus, he is under pressure to let people know that he can do it better – and he gave that impression in London. He has to prove to himself and others that he is indeed a superstar – especially since he knows he can’t touch Obama in a British popularity contest.

Salon’s Joan Walsh has remarked over the months about Romney’s seeming indifference to answering questions. His casualness led her to use the psychiatric term “dissociated” when describing his style. I think her observations are most trenchant, though it is hard for me to move into the territory of diagnosis.

But what is not hard to do is to think about what most likely motivates this behavior that puzzles so many in the media – including supporters who are frustrated with Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more of his tax returns. I think the force behind this behavior is massive anxiety, pure and simple. He is anxious about revealing who he is and about interacting with people he doesn’t know. He appears to have much less experience than Obama in interacting with people from all walks of life. Basically, he is uncomfortable except within his own family and in the presence of those who share his wealthy background and Mormon faith. There are many ways to defend against overwhelming anxiety, one of which is to act certain about every answer given.

What comes out besides this sense of smiling certainty are signs of anxious contempt toward others – whether it is how the British run their Games or saying that kids who can’t afford college should borrow money from their parents. Put together, these and many similar statements – his pleasure at firing people or his belief that corporations are people (is that why he can comfortably bankrupt some?) – are all evidence of a hostility not dissimilar to stories about his bullying of others during his prep school days. At this stage, I suspect Mitt Romney is too anxious to be an effective president.

Mitt Romney the Bane of the Dark Knight Rises?

The Internet Newspaper: News, Blogs, Video, Community

Dan Treadway

Associate blog editor, The Huffington Post

The Dark Knight Rises' Bane Might Have Been a Swipe at Mitt Romney, But He's Far From Alone

Posted: 07/23/2012 12:19 pm

Last week, noted conservative commentator -- and, apparently, cultural critic -- Rush Limbaugh battered the airwaves with a fresh conspiracy that had somehow eluded the greater public.

Limbaugh called shenanigans in relation to the The Dark Knight Rises, the third installment in Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise. More specifically, Rush thought something was fishy about the name of the main villain in the film:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire-breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bane?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not going to doubt that Limbaugh is an authority on this subject as he must watch a lot of action movies -- how else would he have cultivated such a grand imagination, love of weapons and robust vocabulary? And while he's been accused of perhaps being a little over the top in the past, I have to commend him because I feel like he is spot on with his assessment in this case. Credit to Christopher Nolan -- who reportedly finalized the movie's story in February 2010 -- for having the foresight to know Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee two and a half years later. And if that wasn't enough, Nolan also allegedly took into account the name of the corporation that Romney used to run, Bain Capital, while naming his villain for the movie. It's remarkable that Nolan foresaw that Bain Capital would come under scrutiny around the release of the movie which again, occurred two and a half years after he decided on the story. Many people have called Nolan a genius for his cinematic exploits, but he really outdid himself here.

While I do think Mr. Limbaugh hit the nail on the head, I can't help but feel like he overlooked the many, many examples of movie characters who were clearly created just to take swipes at political figures. But not to worry, I decided to take it upon myself to acknowledge these characters who were created, in some cases decades before the candidate rose to prominence, merely as a half-baked attempt to sully the name of a politician.

The first and most obvious example in Newt Gingrich, who has been taking shots from Hollywood since the 1940s, when Man killed Bambi. Gingrich can be fairly convincingly linked to every major motion picture villain the past few decades, although in recent months the prevailing argument is that he is most obviously compared to either a Batman foe or a Bond villain. Personally, I'm shocked that he managed to carry the Georgia primary last spring despite being the obvious inspiration for Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard. The voters in Hazzard County, Georgia must have been horrified.

And let's not forget Josh Brolin's portrayal of George W. Bush in the Oliver Stone movie W. Watching this character, I couldn't help but conclude that Brolin was in fact just making a statement about Texas governor Rick Perry, who just so happens to more or less share everything in common with George W. Bush. The embarrassment from this smear campaign clearly hit Perry hard as even years later he remained too flustered to remember his own political platform -- or three governmental departments.

But Republican politicians aren't the only ones taking fire -- surely I'm not the only person who noticed the pervasive similarities between New York fashionista/liberal Carrie Bradshaw and five-term senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry. Even though they're spelled differently -- similar to Bane and Bain -- whenever I hear Kerry, I just connect it to an out-of-touch rich Northeastern liberal, with a flair for fashion and an obsession with spending. This is the type of word association that probably cost him the election, and I can't believe Rush managed to overlook it.

Now Herman Cain -- and I'm really shocked Mr. Limbaugh never credited him for this -- took the bold stance of attacking these sinister movie makers head on by running a campaign so outlandish and whimsical, there was literally no way to possibly invent a character to lampoon him. Such a figure would simply be too far-fetched to possibly be taken seriously. Cain was so dedicated to breaking the mold of politicians berated by Hollywood, that he struck back by stealing lyrics from a song in a beloved Hollywood movie to inspire his devoted followers. I am of course referring to "Power of One," the ballad played during the end credits of cinematic classic Pokemon: The Movie 2000.
Seriously.

But as much as these blatant negative portrayals by movie characters can hurt a politician, we shouldn't discredit how much a positive portrayal can help them. I'll never forget the time Barack Obama and Jeff Goldblum saved the world from aliens.

What Mitt Romney's Really Doing in London

John Nichols

Mitt Romney's Bankster Ball

John Nichols on July 26, 2012 - 12:05 AM ET

 

Mitt Romney will show his true colors tonight, when he slips behind closed doors in a foreign capital to collect money from international bankers who are mired in scandal.

The presidential contender is officially in London to cheer on the US team in the Olympics. But Romney doesn’t always cheer for Team USA. When it comes to global economics, Romney remains very much the “vulture capitalist” his Republican primary foes decried. And tonight, he’ll be swooping into central London to party with masters of the universe who know no country—and, it would appear, no ethical bounds.

London is abuzz over the Libor (London InterBank Offered Rate) scandal, which saw some of the biggest banks in the world report false interest rates in order to fool investors and game the international economy. Bob Diamond, the top man in Barclays Bank, had to resign from his position after that bank paid almost $500 million in fines.

Diamond also resigned as the co-chair of Mitt Romney’s $75,000-a-person fundraising event in London tonight.

Not to worry. Another Barclay’s insider (chief lobbyist Patrick Durkin) took Diamond’s place as a co-chair for the Romney event, along with officials of Bank of Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Wells Fargo Securities—and, of course, Bain Capital Europe.

As the investigation of banks implicated in Libor rate-fixing expands, Romney’s decision to go ahead with the London fundraising events is an act either of boldness or recklessness. The presumptive Republican nominee for president seems to think he can get away with raising as much as $2 million at a series of fund-raising events held on foreign soil. The cheapest of Romney’s “lavish” London events has a $2,500-per-person entry fee, while the evening gathering where the most scandal-plagued of international bankers will mingle with their favorite American charges from $25,000-per-person to $75,000 a head.
That’s the kind of event that candidates like to keep secret.

But grassroots activists in the United States are upping the ante by demanding that Romney immediately reveal the names of the bankers and financial insiders attending his London fundraising events. In particularly, they are pushing for the release of any and all information relating to Romney’s interactions with donors associated with Barclays and any other institutions that have been linked to the Libor scandal.

The Center for Responsive Politics identifies Barclays as the largest source of campaign donations to Romney, and a Maine state legislator who has been in the forefront of campaign finance reform and corporate watchdog fights wants to know more about the relationship between Romney and the Barclays donors.
“Americans have a right to know who Romney’s donors are so they can understand what policy agendas are in line with those donations,” says Maine State Representative Diane Russell, D-Portland. “We all have the right to donate to political campaigns, and the responsibility to own up to those donations. It’s part of the democratic process.”

Russell has launched a national petition drive demanding that Romney come clean about the Barclays ties and the London fundraising event.
The “Mitt Romney: Reveal Your Secret Donors” petition reads:

It’s time we return to government of, by and for the people—not government of, bought, and paid for by special interests. The job of a Wall Street banker is to get a good return on their investment, and unfortunately, they’ve taken those skills to Washington—and now the presidency.

Mitt Romney is attending an elite London fundraiser—$25,000 to $75,000 per plate—hosted by the CEOs at the center of the Libor scandal threatening our already fragile economy. Executives of at least three other banks under investigation are co-chairs of the fundraiser, according to invitations obtained by The Washington Post.
At the same time, too many Americans are falling out of the middle class when they are working hard to climb the ladder into it. In fact, middle-class workers have seen their incomes drop by nearly 8 percent in three years and their wealth disappear by a staggering 40%.
We believe politicians should work for us, not their corporate sponsors. It is time for Mitt Romney to fully disclose his donors—and how much they are giving to his campaign.

Russell set out to collect 10,000 signatures.

She’ll get them. And a lot more.

Mitt Romney’s connection to Barclays and the Libor scandal is a big deal. Americans have a right to be angry that a man who wants to be president of the United States jets off to London to collect checks from international banksters. And the more they learn about Romney, Barclays and Libor, the angrier they’ll get.

Related Topics: Campaign Finance | Citizens United v. FEC | Corporations | Election 2012 | Politics

TPM

TPM2012

Mitt’s British Blunders: How It Played In The UK Press

 

by David Taintor July 26, 2012, 2:33 PM 49784

 

 

Mitt Romney is off to a spectacularly bad start in London, at least according to the British press ridiculing the Republican candidate on his first major foreign trip.

British officials — and the newspapers that cover them — took offense to Romney questioning whether London is well-prepared to handle the security issues ahead of the summer games. Romney called the situation “disconcerting.” British Prime Minister David Cameron hit back, saying there is no doubt “Britain can deliver.”

“We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron added. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”

Then there was the issue of whether Romney forgot Labour leader Ed Miliband’s name, referring to him as “Mr. Leader.” All in all, “not a great day at the office,” Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun tabloid wrote.

Here’s how Romney’s visit to London played in the UK press.

• The Financial Times played it relatively straight, writing: “Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican candidate for the US presidency, got off to a shaky start in his effort to show a statesmanlike profile when he seemed to get into a public spat with the UK prime minister over London’s readiness to host the Olympics.”

• Guardian Web News Editor Jonathan Haynes tweeted:

Jonathan Haynes @JonathanHaynes

Mitt Romney has questioned whether Britain is ready for Olympic Games?! Damnit Mitt! That's the job of the British!

26 Jul 12

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• In fact, The Guardian has an entire live blog devoted to Britons rebuking Romney’s visit.

• The Times of London’s home page led with the following headline:

• Times of London columnist Janice Turner tweeted:

Janice Turner @VictoriaPeckham

So Mitt Romney disses our Olympics. We're the Special Relationship, the easypeasy bit of US foreign relations. How will he deal with China?

26 Jul 12

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• The Independent wondered whether Romney forgot Ed Miliband’s name during their meeting, writing that it followed his earlier “gaffe” of questioning the Olympic preparedness.

• Watch the video of Romney meeting “Mr. Leader”:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk//world/video/2012/jul/26/mitt-romney-ed-miliband-leader-video              
                 
                 

• In an op-ed, the Telegraph’s Alex Spillius wrote: “[I]f Mitt Romney doesn’t like us, we shouldn’t care.”

• In The Daily Mail’s classic punchy style, the paper carried this headline:

The paper called the start of Romney’s trip “humiliating.”

• Sticking with the slapping theme, the London Evening Standard wrote: “David Cameron slaps down US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney over Games gaffe.”

• The UK’s Channel 4 news even awarded medal status to Romney visit: a “golden gaffe.”

“It probably wasn’t the most diplomatic way to begin his London trip - but Mitt Romney told US television network NBC that he wasn’t sure if Britain was really ready to host the Olympic Games,” Felicity Spector wrote.

• Even the BBC couldn’t help but get in on the fun. “Mr Romney is credited with rescuing the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, now he’s appeared to question London’s readiness to host a successful olympics,” host George Alagiah said. Throwing it over to North America editor Mark Mardell, Alagiah said: “If (Romney’s) here to make friends, he’s got a funny way of showing it.”

Watch the video:

David Cameron, London Olympics, Mitt Romney

 

David Taintor

David Taintor is the Front Page Editor at TPM, where he contributes to TPM's Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com