Well, I hate to seem like I’m piling on, that’s so unsportsmanlike and uncreative, but it sure has been a bad couple of days for Mitt Romney, maybe bad enough that the Republican party is seriously looking around for a different nominee (I doubt that will happen, but more on that in a second), and if I can in any small way add to the trend then, by golly, I’m going to go ahead and pile on.
That’s the choice
There are a couple of things going on here. One is his refusal to release very many tax returns. He showed the ones for 2010 and he’s promised to show the ones for 2011 but, he says, that’s it. No more. Of course, he’s within his legal rights to do so, but everybody knows that if he had nothing to hide, he’d release his tax records at least as far back as Obama has done, and make a huge public show of it.
I actually believe the guy when he says that he’s followed the letter of the law. Doesn’t matter. There’s something in those returns that, legal or not, would lose him the election. Now, here’s where the piling on part comes in. Of course, you can expect all the Democrats to be screaming for his tax returns. It’s their job to make Mitt Romney look bad.
However, in the last day or so, Bill Kristol, George Will, Alabama Governor Rob Bentley and former Mississippi Governor Haley (Boss Hogg) Barbour have all asked Mitt to release his tax returns. When Bill Kristol and George Will, two of the most knee jerk right wing columnists in the history of journalism, turn against you, can Rush Limbaugh be far behind?
Then there’s the whole Bain Capital foofaraw. Basically, the question is: did he resign in 1999 or 2002? It matters because Bain did some really nasty stuff – legal stuff, but it cost a lot of people their jobs – between 1999 and 2002. Also, it matters because Mitt was lying when he said he resigned in 1999.
Team Obama’s been hammering away at that point and a couple of days ago Mitt asked for an apology. He probably figured that would be an easy win, because Democrats apologize all the time, even when they’re in the right, but it didn’t happen this time. In fact, team Obama responded with this , which a lot of people are calling the most effective political ad since Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy” ad in 1964.
Then today, one of Mitt’s staffers said that he had resigned “retroactively.” Bullshit. Unless they can produce a letter from 2002 saying “I hereby resign effective retroactively from 1999, (signed) Mitt Romney” that statement is just laughable.
I doubt that it will force Mitt out of the race, though. He has no serious competition for the Republican nomination, if they tried to switch candidates at this late date they would lose anyway, and, with the hope that springs eternal within every politician’s breast, he undoubtedly thinks he can still win.
But he can’t.
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