Posts Tagged ‘scandal’
“Is there any evidence that this poll contacted anyone in Iowa who was not a Romney staffer or supporter?”—asks eye of eyeon08.com in a post titled ‘Voters’ Who Broke Story on Romney Calls On Romney Payroll
If not, is there any evidence that the calls actually occurred? Could this be a story manufactured by the Romney campaign? After all, Western Wats only seems to talk through another Romney official, Justin Hart.
Second, were they directed by either Boston or Des Moines to deliver these messages? If so, were they told to hide their relationship with the Romney campaign?
Is Romney auditioning for FEMA Administrator?
Romney’s response? To stonewall and ridicule. Says Greg Sargent in a TPM ElectionCentral post titled Romney: Theories About Me Polling Myself Are Like 9/11 Conspiracy Theories:
A CNN reporter just asked Mitt Romney about all the theories that his campaign is behind the anti-Mormon calls. His response? Push the 9/11 button…
Key quote: “It’s the same kind of conspiracy theorists that you’re raising that say, `Oh, we brought down the World Trade Center ourselves.'”
The emphasis is ours. This is the first step of the Romney crisis protocol, to stonewall and ridicule. Byron York walks us through the full process. We append our comments below.
… In our discussion, I mentioned to Romney a similar statement by Rep. Bob Inglis, a conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina, who recently recounted a meeting he had with Romney. Inglis told him, “You cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, ‘I am a Christian just like you,’“ according to an account of the conversation by Bloomberg News. “If he does that,” said Inglis, “every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences.” I wanted to know what Romney thought about that; Romney wasn’t eager to talk.
“Did Inglis say that to you?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Romney said. “He may well have.”
“You don’t recall the conversation?”
“I have a lot of conversations. I don’t recall the exact words of people, but if he says he said that, I’ll take his word for it.”
“What was your reaction?”
“I don’t recall the conversation so precisely that I can describe my exact reaction to that.”
Recall precisely. My exact reaction. Sometimes one forgets that Romney was trained as a lawyer, but not on that day. I tried one more time. “Well, okay, if you have been told that by other people, what is your reaction to the substance of what they are saying?” “You know, the term ‘Christian’ means different things to different people,” Romney told me. “Jews aren’t Christian. That doesn’t preclude a Jew from being able to run for office and become president. I believe that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and is the son of God. Now, some people say, well, that doesn’t necessarily make you a Christian because Christian refers to a certain group of evangelical Christian faiths. That’s fine. That’s their view. Others say, no, anyone who believes in Jesus Christ as the son of God and the Savior should be called Christian. That’s fine, too. I’ll just describe what I believe and not try to distinguish my faith from others. That’s really something for my faith to do and for the churches amongst themselves to consider” …
So: Here is the full Romney protocol as we understand it.
(1) Stonewall and ridicule: “Did Inglis say that to you?” I asked. “I don’t know,” Romney said. “He may well have.” “You don’t recall the conversation?” “I have a lot of conversations. I don’t recall the exact words of people, but if he says he said that, I’ll take his word for it.”
(2) Muddy the waters: “You know, the term ‘Christian’ means different things to different people,” Romney told me.
(3) Blur distinctions: “I’ll just describe what I believe and not try to distinguish my faith from others.”
Please note that (3) is precisely the reverse of what Inglis has asked for:
… Inglis told him, “You cannot equate Mormonism with Christianity; you cannot say, ‘I am a Christian just like you,’“ according to an account of the conversation by Bloomberg News. “If he does that,” said Inglis, “every Baptist preacher in the South is going to have to go to the pulpit on Sunday and explain the differences” …
Conclusion: The Romney protocol is designed to dis-clarify and deconstrue (dis-articulate)—it is a technique of equivocation.
Our prediction? Expect steps (2) and (3) very soon. Well, unless step (1) proves successful for the hapless candidate.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
While Justin Hart continues to insist that the push-poll scandal is an non-story, stories abound. This, friends and well-wishers, is how not to manage a crisis. Note how the political primitives of team Romney allow their pursuers to develop one revelation after another, just enough to keep the story alive, just enough to justify the next wave of scrutiny.
Please understand: issuing piecemeal denials, rationales, explanations etc. in exchange for every new revelation only confirms people in their suspicions. Examples follow.
“More facts emerge that further raise questions about the Mitt Romney Phone Scandal phone calls placed to two Iowan supporters of Mitt Romney, Marshan Roth and Rose Kramer,” writes eye of eyeon08 in a post titled Iowa Romney staff/’voters’ change story
They both told reporters that they received phone calls on Wednesday of last week. Marshan Roth told the Salt Lake Tribune that she “got a call on Wednesday night.” Rose Kramer told Dave Lightman from McClatchy that she was “waiting for the TV show ‘House’ to start at 8 p.m. Tuesday when a pollster called.” However, she then told Reid Wilson from RCP that “she received around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile:
“Deepening the mystery surrounding the anti-Mormon polling calls, the Romney campaign is confirming that it referred reporters to two recipients of the calls without disclosing that the two were also on the Romney campaign payroll, TPM Election Central has learned,” writes Greg Sargent in a TPM ElectionCentral post titled Exclusive: Romney Campaign Referred Reporters to Anti-Romney Call Recipients Without Disclosing That They Were On Romney Payroll
In response to questions from TPM Election Central, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden confirmed that the campaign had failed to disclose this info to reporters. Madden suggested that the campaign had identified them as “supporters,” which is a far cry from being directly paid by the campaign, as the two call recipients were.
The revelation could add grist to the theory — now spreading on conservative blogs and even getting coverage by news organizations — that the Romney campaign itself is behind the calls. Some have speculated that the calls — which attack Romney and refer to his Mormon faith while saying positive things about McCain — are an effort by the campaign to test negative messages about itself while getting McCain blamed for the calls.
Elsewhere:
“Yet another connection, albeit an indirect one, now ties Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to the recent spat of anti-Mormon phone calls made in New Hampshire and Iowa,” writes Huffpo’s Sam Stein in an article titled Mystery Deepens: Several Recipients Of Anti-Mormon Calls Are Romney Staffers
Several recipients of the calls, which raised questions about Romney’s Mormon faith and military deferments, are prominent supporters of the former Massachusetts governor.
Marshan Roth of Fairfield, Iowa, who is paid $500 a month as a GOTV (get out the vote) consultant for the Romney campaign, received a call on this past Wednesday night. Rose Kramer of Dubuque, Iowa, who co-chairs Romney’s Iowa faith & values steering committee and is a $1,000-a-month GOTV consultant, received a call either that same day or a day earlier, depending on conflicting reports.
Roth and Kramer are now the third members of Romney’s Iowa campaign to have publicly acknowledged received the calls. Ralph Watts, a state representative in Iowa, who also backs the former governor, was one of the first people to come forward.
And yet, during subsequent press interviews, neither Roth nor Kramer disclosed the positions they held on Romney’s team. In fact, as several other reporters have pointed out, both individuals drastically downplayed their campaign associations. And in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, Roth took the opportunity to lash out against Sen. John McCain, the presidential candidate initially thought to be behind the calls.
Dear Team Romney. Either prepare to die the death of a thousand cuts, or get your lazy pear-shaped side-ways organization in gear and get out in front of this. The only way you can do that is to
(a) immediately reveal everything that you know about this,
and,
(b) mount your own investigation promise to take action against any staffer who may be involved.
You need to position yourself as being on the side of law and order. Right now, Team Romney, your’e behaving as if you’re hiding something.
Were you anything other than a joke-campaign—and if your negatives were not higher than space—we would further recommend mounting and circulating a vigorous counter-narrative. Do you remember Prosecutor Star and the constant revalations about Monica Lewinski etc. leading up to Pres. Clinton’s impeachment? Clinton partisans has a counter-narrative that they repeated constantly: THIS IS ALL ABOUT SEX. This would not work for you, however. Your candidate’s ultra-high negatives and icy-cold humanoid persona will not support a negative message.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
“John McCain must be causing Mitt Romney some serious heartburn in New Hampshire,” writes Jay Carney in a Time-Blog Swampland post titled Romney Blames…McCain??
How else to explain Romney’s magnificently absurd claim that the recently-reported push polls attacking Romney’s Mormonism are somehow the fault of…that’s right, John McCain — more specifically, the campaign finance reform law known as McCain-Feingold, which passed in 2002. Politico’s Jonathan Martin has the story here. Of course, push polling existed long before McCain-Feingold became law, as Mark Salter, McCain’s senior aide, alter ego and co-author points out in this lacerating riposte:
It is appalling, but not surprising, that Mitt Romney would seek to take advantage of this disturbing incident to launch yet another hypocritical attack. It’s the hallmark of his campaign.
Back when Governor Romney was calling for public financing and taxing political donations, and before McCain-Feingold was passed, push polling was, regrettably, alive and well in American politics. Anyone who spent a day in South Carolina in 2000 can testify to that. It is not a surprise that Governor Romney would use even an attack on him to make yet another hypocritical statement. It is the hallmark of his campaign … etc., etc.
Liz Mair offers her take on why Romney wants to blame the victim in a post titled Romney and the religion bashing calls
… I’ve been less impressed with the Romney camp’s swift move to tie all of this to McCain-Feingold. The issue here is one of religious bigotry being shopped to voters– not of the utility of campaign finance reform, of which I personally am no great fan. And, it’s interesting that the Romney camp has moved in this direction so quickly. Sure, they never miss an opportunity to beat up on McCain, so it’s not surprising that they’re doing it here. Still, it seems as though this whole incident has thus far proved pretty beneficial to Romney. He is now in the victim/underdog role that one of his campaign aides indicated a couple months back could prove helpful to his campaign. He’s also been given another prime opportunity to denounce an initiative that has been widely unpopular with conservatives, and make himself out to be the anti-McCain (something that still has a lot of appeal with some members of the GOP base). Despite the fact that it’s Romney’s religion that’s been beat up on here, he’s looking like the overall winner from the whole episode … etc.
We were wondering how Romney would botch his response to these events.
Romney!—dude—your negatives are soaring!—a more effective response strategy to the push-poll revelation would have been to:
(a) Praise Sen. McCain for his integrity; infer your confidence that neither the Senator nor any of his people were involved. If later events undermine that confidence you can express surprise etc.
(b) Praise the Attorney General for his swift response; infer your confidence in the US justice system etc.
(c) Praise the American people—in particular, the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire—for their tolerance; infer your confidence in their wisdom, temperance, moderation, and sense of fair play, then segue into your own commitments to those values by means of a personal story.
Then, and only then, and without naming any names, decry dirty tricks, dishonest campaigners, and the laws and loopholes that enable them. This way, Romney, you would appear larger than you are, as opposed to smaller—and you still get to say everything that you want to say. This is how you affect to appear statesmanlike, even presidential, as opposed to, say, affecting the pose of an angry department of motor vehicles clerk (Romney’s usual pose). This, Boy Romney, is how you address the world when your own negatives are somewhere in the stratosphere.
Otherwise, you get responsa like Carney’s, Mair’s et al.—which is precisely what you got, and precisely what you will continue to get until you dismiss your entire communications staff down to the last unpaid-intern fetcher of coffee. Speaking of which, is there anyone in Team Romney that has any actual experience in, or any actual training or study in, rhetoric or communications?—we’re just wondering. So far, Team Romney has provided us with between 12 and, we think, 15 separate case studies for how not to develop and manage a message campaign.
Our students will be grateful to Romney for years to come.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
You can find it here and here, attached as responsa to our August 30, 2007 post titled evidence of Romney corruption and incompetence continues to build; GOP needs to start thinking post-Romney.
Thank you, Laserhaas.
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
AIKEN, S.C. (TPS) – “Rumors that Republican State Senate candidate Shane Massey has a hidden liberal record have been circulating the Internet amidst claims that his campaign has been working to silence critics only hours before voters head to the polls for Tuesday’s primary election runoff in district 25. The Aiken County-based blog Kaolin Kronicle, who has had in-depth coverage of the race, had a posting on its website Monday that said Terry Sullivan, a partner in the Tompkins, Thompson and Sullivan political consulting firm which is running Massey’s campaign, demanded an e-mail attacking his candidate be taken down,” writes the editor of the Palmetto Scoop in a post titled Massey campaign up in arms over ‘outing’ of alleged liberal record.
Fascinating. Where does Romney find these people?—we mean, seriously. Are all the Romneys and their hangers-on ideological cross-dressers? Are they all corrupt? Do they all wax indignant when confronted with proof of their duplicities and inconsistencies? Do they all behave like petty criminals?
We lived in Charleston SC for several years—our mother was born there, and our father is from Mt. Pleasant—and we never met anyone like any of these people.
- USA TODAY cites Thompson aide: “Romney will ‘do anything, say anything, flip-flop on any position’ to win”
- Romney and Tompkins throw junior “associate” Donahue “under a bus” to cover up their dirty tricks
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
“Most Americans probably are not intimately familiar with Huawei (pronounced “Wa-way,” as if Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live fame were asked to pronounce the name). The company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei is a former officer of the People’s Liberation Army,” writes the estimable Charles Cooper for CNET’s Tech news blog in a post titled Mitt Romney’s communist connection
Tough to know what to make of that. When it comes to speaking with the press, Ren is a regular Greta Garbo. A mini-profile Forbes ran three years ago noted that many of Huawei’s major customers are state-run businesses in China. And while Ren owns 1 percent of the company, the rest belongs to an unidentified “union.”
Go figure.
Meanwhile, Ren has gone about building Huawei into a success story disregarding the usual corporate niceties. In 2000–three years before the WMD craze got us all nutso about taking out Saddam–the CIA accused Huawei of secretly selling a communications system to Iraq. In the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, Huawei and two other Chinese companies were singled out for carrying out “extensive work in and around Baghdad”–mainly telecommunication switches and the installation of fiber-optic cable.
Then in 2003, Cisco socked Huawei with a patent infringement lawsuit. Cisco claimed Huawei ripped off its intellectual property to make a lineup of routers and switches. Huawei denied the allegations though in the end caved.
But if at all possible, business doesn’t let politics intrude. So it is that Friday we learned that Bain Capital is paying $2.2 billion to acquire 3Com. Part of the deal involves China’s Huawei Technologies, which will acquire a minority stake in 3Com.
And, oh, by the way, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor running for the Republican presidential nomination–he headed Bain Capital for 14 years … more
More on Romney’s web of corruption:
Was it really hard work and clean living that issued in Romney’s vast personal fortune?—we mean, really?
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
“Mitt Romney has remained mum on the alleged killing of 11 Iraqis by a company where one of his top advisers serves as vice chairman, even as the case has led to an uproar in Baghdad and Washington. Barack Obama, John McCain and other politicians have raised the possibility of tighter controls on the firm,” reports the estimable and precise Kenneth P. Vogel in a politico.com post titled Romney silent on Blackwater shooting
The top counterterrorism and national security adviser to Romney’s presidential campaign is Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA.
The Iraqis died after guards employed by the private security firm opened fire following an alleged attack on a State Department convoy under their protection. Blackwater has a lucrative contract to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq … more
See:
- more Romney scandal: Blackwater USA–chaired by Romney’s security advisor–expelled from Iraq
- Romney and Tompkins throw junior “associate” Donahue “under a bus” to cover up their dirty tricks
- update: Romney campaign now claims that Robert Lichfield “left [his Romney campaign finance co-chair position] of his own accord”
- Hart answers Oliver on the issue of Romney’s despicable, indefensible treatment of former friend, Craig
yours &c.
dr. g.d.
willard milton romney
hebrew date-
- blog-buzz on wonkosphere.com (beta)
- blogometer national journal
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- wonk-o-blog
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- virtual vantage points
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- willard milton romney on technorati.com, blogpulse.com, DIGG.com, reddit.com, The American Federalist’s Romney Ramblings etc., etc.
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- random romney
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- memorandum
- Florida to become 26th state allowing permitless carry of concealed guns (Sareen Habeshian/Axios)
- The arrest of an American journalist in Russia is awful. For me, it's also painfully personal (Margaret Sullivan/The Guardian)
- The same forces that made Trump who he is just got him indicted (Jonathan Lemire/Politico)
- DeSantis Reunites With a Key Adviser as Campaign Plans Unfold (New York Times)
- CBS execs bar the word 'transgender' from reports on Nashville shooter: 'This is not journalism' (Alexandra Steigrad/New York Post)
- latest Romney
- Romney accused of providing 'aid and comfort' to Democrats in proposed Emery County GOP censure - Salt Lake Tribune
- 1-year-old shot, killed by 5-year-old who found gun - Journal & Courier
- How did Mike Lee and Mitt Romney vote on Iraq military authorizations? - Deseret News
- 'We're counting on you': Mitt Romney issues an urgent plea to journalists - msnNOW
- Utah Republicans Try To Accuse Romney Of Treason In Upcoming Censure Vote - TPM
- Romney grills Biden official about Social Security in tense exchange - The Hill
- Romney Spars with 'Dishonest' Biden Budget Director on Social Security - National Review
- Trump Trashes DeSantis in Iowa Speech: ‘Ron Reminds Me a Lot of Mitt Romney’ - Mediaite
- Romney Calls out Dems' Hypocrisy at Starbucks Hearing - Mitt Romney
- Mitt Romney backs Starbucks CEO in his fight with Democrats over ... - Deseret News
who is willard milton romney? 