Romney's Boss Politics

Romney Recorded: Asking Employers to Sway Votes?
(Image source: Mediaite)
BY KERRY LEARY
ANCHOR JASMINE BAILEY

A recording of Mitt Romney made headlines Thursday. The presidential candidate made some controversial comments in a June conference call. But what exactly did he say?

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections.”

Romney went on to say he hoped employers would share their political views no matter which candidate they support.

ThinkProgress reports, Mr. Romney’s not the first person swaying the vote in the workplace.

“There have already been some reports of employers suggesting how their employees should cast their ballots. A CEO of a Florida resort company threatened to fire his employees if Obama won. The CEO of a timeshare company did the same. And the famous right-wing Koch brothers warned of 'consequences' of not voting for Romney.”

Mr. Romney’s suggestion is legal for the first election season ever because of the Citizen United ruling that overturned FEC laws prohibiting employers from campaigning to employees. But In The Times notes, despite it being legal,

“The conference call raises troubling questions about what appears to be a growing wave of workplace political pressure unleashed by Citizens United.”

The conference call is the only evidence discovered that attributes Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign to working behind the scenes. A writer for the Atlantic Wire has a few words for the candidate.

“Okay, Mitt. You're right. It's not technically illegal for employers to tell their employees how to vote. That doesn't mean that it's ethical or understandable or even acceptable to connect people's livelihoods with their political beliefs.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign has not commented on the conference call.


"The conference call is the only evidence discovered that attributes Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign to working behind the scenes."

Well, not anymore:





Published on Oct 17, 2012 by TheBigPictureRT
"There's some breaking news from labor reporter Mike Elk with In These Times magazine...We've seen several CEOs send letters out to their employees urging them to vote for Mitt Romney or else they may lose their jobs during a second Obama term. Now we might know where these threats started...Mitt Romney! In June 6th 2012 conference call with the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Businesses) - Mitt Romney urged employers with the NFIB to make it clear to their employees who they should vote for."

Mitt Romney meet Rosie Perez!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The ONION Voter's Guide: Mitt Romney

The Onion Voter's Guide To Mitt Romney

Romney, "raw and unplugged": Thank you, David Corn

SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters

When he doesn't know a camera's rolling, the GOP candidate shows his disdain for half of America.
—By David Corn | Mon Sep. 17, 2012 1:00 PM PDT

During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at this intimate fundraiser—where he candidly discussed his campaign strategy and foreign policy ideas in stark terms he does not use in public—and has confirmed its authenticity. To protect the confidential source who provided the video, we have blurred some of the image, and we will not identify the date or location of the event, which occurred after Romney had clinched the Republican presidential nomination. [UPDATE: We can now report that this fundraiser was held at the Boca Raton home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder on May 17 and we've removed the blurring from the video. See the original blurred videos here.]

Here is Romney expressing his disdain for Americans who back the president:




At the dinner, Romney often stuck to familiar talking points. But there were moments when he went beyond the familiar campaign lines. Describing his family background, he quipped about his father, "Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this." Contending that he is a self-made millionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, "I have inherited nothing." He remarked, "There is a perception, 'Oh, we were born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and so forth.' Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America."

Romney told the contributors that "women are open to supporting me," but that "we are having a much harder time with Hispanic voters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting block has in the past, why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation." When one attendee asked how this group could help Romney sell himself to others, he answered, "Frankly, what I need you to do is to raise millions of dollars." He added, "The fact that I'm either tied or close to the president…that's very interesting."

Asked why he wouldn't go full-throttle and assail Obama as corrupt, Romney explained the internal thinking of his campaign and revealed that he and his aides, in response to focus-group studies conducted by his consultants, were hesitant to hammer the president too hard out of fear of alienating independents who voted for Obama in 2008:




We speak with voters across the country about their perceptions. Those people I told you—the 5 to 6 or 7 percent that we have to bring onto our side—they all voted for Barack Obama four years ago. So, and by the way, when you say to them, "Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?" they overwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, "Are you disappointed that his policies haven't worked?" they say yes. And because they voted for him, they don't want to be told that they were wrong, that he's a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he's corrupt. Those people that we have to get, they want to believe they did the right thing, but he just wasn't up to the task. They love the phrase that he's "over his head." But if we're—but we, but you see, you and I, we spend our day with Republicans. We spend our days with people who agree with us. And these people are people who voted for him and don't agree with us. And so the things that animate us are not the things that animate them. And the best success I have at speaking with those people is saying, you know, the president has been a disappointment. He told you he'd keep unemployment below 8 percent. Hasn't been below eight percent since. Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can't get a job. Fifty percent. Fifty percent of the kids in high school in our 50 largest cities won't graduate from high school. What're they gonna do? These are the kinds of things that I can say to that audience that they nod their head and say, "Yeah, I think you're right." What he's going to do, by the way, is try and vilify me as someone who's been successful, or who's, you know, closed businesses or laid people off, and is an evil bad guy. And that may work.

(Note: Obama did not promise his policies would keep unemployment under 8 percent, and 50 percent of college graduates are not unemployed.)

[....]

READ THE REST OF DAVID CORN'S FIRST PIECE ON THIS VIDEO FROM THE BOCA RATON FUNDRAISER HERE.

More from the secret Romney video. (Romney tells his donors he doesn't believe in a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that resolving this conflict is "almost unthinkable," and that he would merely "kick the ball down the field."): SECRET VIDEO: On Israel, Romney Trashes Two-State Solution 

Here is a surprising and shocking teaser to that second Corn piece:  "Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace."  I confess that I am still not over the shock of Romney's remarks made at the end of July, during his Gaffe World Tour:

"As you come here and you see the GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality." Mr. Romney told a group of donors gathered at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He added: "And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other: Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States."  He went on to explain that the marked décalage between the GDP in Israel versus the downright pitiful laziness exhibited in the GDP of Palestine was due to "culture."   I don't understand how the Earth continued to turn on its appointed axis after that statement, but that's just me...

As for Romney's response to the release of the Boca Raton videos [that underscore what everyone already knew, but were striking in the ease and familiarity of tone the Good Guvnor exhibited], the Christian Science Monitor reports:

At an impromptu news conference Monday, Romney offered no apologies, conceding the comments were not "elegantly stated" and were spoken "off the cuff." The Republican presidential nominee said the remarks showed a contrast between President Barack Obama's "government-centered society" and his belief in a "free-market approach." 

"Of course, I want to help all Americans, all Americans, have a bright and prosperous future," Romney told reporters.

Zofran, anyone?

Palestine's economic vitality à la Romney

As he wrapped up the Israel leg of his foreign trip, Mr. Romney reflected on Israel's economic success to a gathering of pro-Israel campaign donors at the King David Hotel, remarks that noted gaps between the Jewish state and its neighbor. Later, he suggested that Israel's culture played a role in its economic success.

Oh, me sainted mammy.  Holy mother of g_d, sweet moses, good googamooga *, and jumpin' jehoshaphat.  Another blurt of a mental wedgie, another blurt of a closely held truth, another reason to pray and beg and issue IOUs to karma, and the guy in the trenchcoat on this hot, humid day.  He's takin' names.

I have no snazzy retorts -- none that come naturally -- that include mohammed or other major islamic figures, though I'm excused, I s'pose by the fact that a good many of what does come naturally are the result of a healthy hodgepodge of judaic, islamic, and christian blurtety-blurts.

In these matters, I find wiccans major wusses (their footwear is usually contrary to the requirements of the blitzkrieg and they're either wasted in weakness or profoundly overweight;  also, 90% -- and that's conservative -- of wiccans don't bother to keep a current, ready-to-run, ready-to-act passeport).  I would like to see more training facilities for the bahá'í -- they're really an angry bunch, just prone to good logic, which can help avoid atrocities.

Siccing a sikh on Romney would be perfection, of course, with all that saint-soldier stuff and social reform.

Anyway.

Mitt Romney continued, he went on, he had a wicked bite on his analogy, a serious gnaw, nice and juicy, as most of the world searched his chest for signs of a beating heart, and by that I mean, a suspicion of compassion and historical insight,  [The world came up wanting, gasping.]

"As you come here and you see the GDP [gross domestic product] per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality." Mr. Romney told a group of donors gathered at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He added: "And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other: Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States."

Please, voting citizens, no matter your traditional ilk, give this a good think.





* I received an e-mail one day in October 2002 from a 28-year old woman I did not know asking me the strangest question. She wanted to know the meaning and origin of the word, "googamooga." She was searching this out on the internet when she found it quoted on the Jocko page of our website. She said, "I'm trying to find out what in the heck the word GOOGAMOOGA means! My boss is driving me nuts by singing the Temptations "Ball of Confusion" song."


So here is an updated version of essentially what I told her:


Yes, you are right. Yours is probably the weirdest question I have received in relation to my class website.


I must tell you, I do not know the true origin of "googamooga" (alternatively, "googa mooga" or "googa-mooga"), and I can only surmise its meaning from the context in which I have heard it used. I am not familiar with the Temptations’ 1970 record, "Ball of Confusion." (I guess I am too old for that.) I will tell you what I do know and what I have learned as a result of your inquiry.


Most likely, "googamooga" is derived from black musician's jive talk or street slang. (You might get a more authoritative response from a black history or language professor at a university.)  Like other white youths of the time, I first heard the term around 1954 as used by the great, black, pioneer, rock 'n' roll DJ, Douglas "Jocko" Henderson, as you read on my class website. The only other use of the word I was familiar with before today was in the lyric of the Cadets' 1956 recording of "Stranded in the Jungle,"1 as follows:  

I had a strange feeling I was with cookin' gear

I smelled something cookin', and a-a-a-h looked to see

That's when I found out they was ah-cookin' me

The Republican Debate: "An exchange reminiscent of Abbott and Costello's Who's on First routine"

GOP debate: Mitt Romney grows foggy on contraception

By Robin Abcarian
January 7, 2012, 7:25 p.m.

It was an exchange reminiscent of Abbott and Costello’s famous Who’s on First routine. George Stephanopoulos repeatedly asked Mitt Romney about whether he thinks that states have the right to ban contraception, and Romney repeatedly replied that he had no idea why Stephanopoulos would ask such a question.

In fact, Stephanopoulos was prodding Romney about whether he believes there is a constitutional right to privacy as the U.S. Supreme Court has found in two landmark cases, 1973’s Roe vs. Wade, and 1965’s Griswold vs. Connecticut , which found that states do not have the right to ban contraception. In that case, the court cited a right to “marital privacy.”

In recent days, Rick Santorum has raised Griswold on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. He believes Griswold and Roe were incorrectly decided by the Supreme Court because, in his view, the Constitution does not contain a privacy right.

But when Stephanopoulos asked Romney about this issue, Romney seemed to have absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“George, this is an unusual topic that you’re raising,” Romney said. “States have the right to ban contraception? I can’t imagine that states would want to ban contraception. If I were a governor or a legislator in a state, I would totally oppose any effort to ban contraception. So you’re asking -- given the fact that there’s no state that wants to do so -- you are asking could it constitutionally be done? We could we could ask our constitutionalist here,” said Romney, gesturing to Ron Paul. The audience erupted in laughter and applause.

Stephanopoulos could not be dissuaded from pursuing his question.

“I am asking you, do you believe states have that right or not?”

Romney seemed perplexed, and annoyed: “George, I don’t know whether the state has the right to ban contraception. No state wants to. The idea of you putting forward things that states might want to do that no state wants to do is kind of a silly thing, I think.”

At that point, as the audience applauded, things got a little strained.

[Read the rest of Abcarian's article HERE]