Plan B Forum

35 questions, to be precise--and note, this is from Forbes, not some left-wing pinko rag. I personally find questions 5, 6, 7 and 8 most interesting.

35 Questions Mitt Romney Must Answer About
Bain Capital Before The Issue Can Go Away

Mitt Romney conducted numerous TV and other media interviews yesterday in order to minimize the damage his campaign has received regarding discrepancies surrounding his tenure at Bain.

During times of crisis it is often a smart strategy to give virtually unlimited access to the media in order to push out your message aggressively and satisfy reporter curiosity so that the issue can be pushed of the front burner. John McCain famously did this well earlier in his career when dealing with his own Keating five controversies.

Unfortunately for the Romney Campaign, The slew of TV interviews did little to satisfy the media. In times of crisis, a strong candidate will come up with answers that satisfy the basic questions surround the controversy and will make people want to move on to another subject. Romney, however, could not seem to come up with basic messages that resolved the controversies. Many of his answers seemed evasive or overly legalistic. The biggest problem for Romney is that all of his interviews have only increased the questions that political observers, voters and the media have regarding he subject of Bain Capital.

Specifically, Romney is going to have to answer the following 35 questions before this issue subsides:

1. Are you contending that an individual can simultaneously be the CEO, president, managing director of a company, and its sole stockholder and somehow be “disassociated” from the company or accurately classified as someone not having “any” formal involvement with a company?

2. You have stated that in “Feb. 1999 I left Bain capital and all management responsibility” and “I had no ongoing activity or involvement.” It depends on what the definition of “involvement” is, doesn’t it? Clearly you were involved with Bain to the extent that you owned it. Are you defining “involvement” in a uniquely specific way that only means “full-time, active, 60-hours-a-week, hands-on manager?”

3. How exactly are you defining “involvement?”

4. Surely someone from Bain occasionally called you up and asked your opinion about something work related from 1999 to 2002. Wouldn’t that qualify as “involvement,” if only on a minor level?

5. You earned at least $100,000 as an executive from Bain in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings according to filings with State of Massachusetts. Can you give an example of anyone else you personally know getting a six figure income, not dividend or investment return, but actual income, from a company they had nothing to do with?

6. What did you do for this $100,000 salary you earned from Bain in both 2000 and 2001?

7. If you did nothing to earn this salary, did the Bain managers violate their fiduciary duty by paying you a salary for no discernible reason?

8. Are there other companies that pay you six figures a year as earned income, not investment income, for which you have no involvement?

9. In 2002, you are listed as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors LLC in its annual report. What does this mean?

10. On the very day after you took over the Winter Olympics, the Boston Herald reported that “Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions.” Do you now contend this was factually inaccurate?

11. Do you have records of having written to the Boston Herald asking them to make a correction on this story?

12. On July 19, 1999, a news release about the resignation of two Bain Capital managing directors describes you as CEO and “currently on a part-time leave of absence to head the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee.” Was this wrong?

13. Did you ask for a retraction?

14. Why would Bain say this if you had severed all ties in Feb 1999?

15. Isn’t it possible that if Bain had made an investment during 1999 to 2002 that you felt was truly odious, for example ownership of a legal Nevada brothel, that you could have and would have used your authority to veto such a decision?

16. If, in fact, you did not veto any major investment decision during your 1999 though 2002 ownership, doesn’t that imply your broad consent of management’s decisions?

17. According to the Boston Globe, “In a November 2000 interview with the Globe, Romney’s wife, Ann, said he had been forced to lessen, but not end entirely, his involvement with Bain Capital.” Did your wife misspeak?

18. Did you correct her?

That's enough cut-and-paste. Go here for the other 17 questions

You cut it off before some of my favourites:

24. Why do SEC documents claim you were Chief Executive Officer, President, and Managing Director of Bain Capital 2000 and 2001 if you were merely the sole owner?

25. Did you sign this SEC document?

26. Is this accurate or not?

27. If you didn’t sign it, is someone guilty of lying to the SEC?

28. True or false, it is a felony to lie on SEC filings?

I understand there's going to be a caucus later this week of all the persuadable voters who give two shits about this...

They've already selected the venue for the meeting:

Lord Jim wrote:I understand there's going to be a caucus later this week of all the persuadable voters who give two shits about this...

Sad, isn't it? Kind of scary also.

Romney supporters will accept Romney's lying because they want him to be President instead of Obama.

They don't "give two shits" about his character because they've already decided he would be the best leader of the most powerful country on earth and nothing he does between now and the election will convince them otherwise.

If that's really true (and it probably is) I feel very sorry for us.

Sure, that which constituted a major part of Romney's working career is completely unimportant. But in 2008, a few quotes taken from exactly two sermons by Jeremiah Wright were the defining elements of Obama's character.

that which constituted a major part of Romney's working career is completely unimportant.

That's not what this is about....

This is about some paper work issues covering the end of his time at Bain.

This is a contrived controversy of no real significance; it's a measure of how desperately Team Obama wants to talk about anything other than the condition of the economy that they've been whipping this up....

It's like the diversionary nonsense about Romney's bank accounts...

In November, the undecideds are going to be casting their votes based a lot more on the condition of their bank accounts than they are about Romney's....

This prospect apparently has Team Obama scared to death.... nothing else they've tried has moved the numbers, so they are attempting to try to get the electorate to believe that Romney is some sort of crook, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever...

They're trying to draw him into some sort of tar baby combat where he spends so much time answering endless questions about these diversions, that he loses focus on what really matters to voters, and what Obama is most vulnerable on.

Romney does not seem to be taking the bait.

These are the kinds of tactics one usually sees towards the end of the campaign; the fact that they have chosen to roll these smear jobs out so early really does seem to indicate that they're running scared. It's a high risk strategy because these kinds of tactics can backfire and turn voters off over the long term.

If I were advising Romney, I would tell him to let Obama and his spinners and surrogates talk about "Surely someone from Bain occasionally called you up and asked your opinion about something work related from 1999 to 2002. Wouldn’t that qualify as “involvement,” if only on a minor level?" and you keep focused on the unemployment numbers.

Lord Jim wrote:
That's not what this is about....

This is about some paper work issues covering his birth registration..

If no one gives two shits about this, why doesn't he just answer the questions honestly and be done with it?

BTW...anyone here know where I can find a company that will pay me $100,000 for not doing anything and having "no involvement" with the company? A lot of people (including me) work 60+ hours a week to earn less than half that. If Romney thinks there's nothing unusual about his arrangement, he's further out of touch with the average Joe than I ever imagined.

Gob wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:
That's not what this is about....

This is about some paper work issues covering his birth registration..

Excellent analogy.

Or "a fine bit of piss taking", depending on your orientation to US politics.

Sorry, no, that anology doesn't work, Jim.

Obama, from the very start, answered honestly and completely any questions that were raised about his birth certificate. I ask again: if no one gives two shits about this, why doesn't Romney just answer the questions honestly and be done with it?

The analogy works fine if you are pointing out the borderline insanity of a US presidential election mate!

If no one gives two shits about this, why doesn't he just answer the questions honestly and be done with it?

Oh come on Econo, that's not how it works....

He answers these questions, and there'll be 35 more and 35 more....

That's how this game is played...(Especially "The Chicago Way")

This is basically a psy-ops ploy on the part of Team Obama....

They know damn well there's nothing of any significance here, but they want to get under Romney's skin, and get him to get into the weeds on this and throw him off message about the economy....

They want to try and get Romney to spend every day explaining how he's "not a crook" rather than talking about the fact that 3 years plus into Obama's Presidency the economy is in the toilet with no end in sight....

The "Romney as the out of touch rich guy" narrative wasn't moving the numbers, so now they're trying to ramp it up to "Romney the crook"...

I don't really blame them for trying to do this; as I've pointed out many times, as Harry Hopkins correctly observed, "politics ain't bean bag"....

The only thing I don't understand is why they're going to this so early....

If they're going with this now, what are they going to have left to throw at him down the stretch?

Maybe they're looking at the fundraising arcs, and figuring that they're going to get outspent in September in October, so they need to try to go for the jugular now; maybe they have some internal polling that tells them they're in bigger trouble in the swing states than the public polling indicates (There isn't a single swing state where Obama is over 50%, and usually that spells bad news for the incumbent, since late breaking undecideds in national elections tend to break for the challenger...maybe they don't feel they have the luxury of waiting)

But for whatever reason, they have decided to embark on a strategy that generally isn't pursued until the closing days of the race.

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Businessweek which recently was sold to Bloomberg. The magazine is well known for its lists, including its lists of the richest Americans (the Forbes 400) and its list of billionaires. The motto of Forbes magazine is "The Capitalist Tool." Its editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes.

Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, Jr. (born July 18, 1947) is an American publishing executive who was twice a candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for president. He is the editor-in-chief of business magazine Forbes as well as president and chief executive officer of its publisher, Forbes Inc. He was a Republican candidate in the U.S. Presidential primaries in 1996 and 2000. He is the son of longtime Forbes magazine publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandson of that publication's founder, B.C. Forbes.

Gob wrote:The analogy works fine if you are pointing out the borderline insanity of a US presidential election mate!

From outside, where you are, it may look that way. But a big part of Romney's claim of competence, experience, and financial know-how rests on his record at Bain Capital. If that record involved dishonesty, the public has a right to know that before the election. (Perhaps a better analogy might be Nixon's refusal to answer questions about a "third-rate burglary"?)

Perhaps Jim is right in saying that most voters don't care...but the longer he avoids answering these questions--or repeats demonstrably untrue answers--the more it looks like he has something to hide, and the longer it will take for the issue to go away.

Lord Jim wrote:This is basically a psy-ops ploy on the part of Team Obama....

Oh, Steve Forbes is on Team Obama now? Cool!

Apparently, you would-be humorists are not familiar with Mr. TJ Walker, the author of this article....

He is the resident lefty voice at Forbes, in the same way that George F. Will is the token conservative at The Washington Post....

His works include:

It's Great to be a Liberal!

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Great-be-Libe ... 0942963474

You can see more examples of Mr. Walker's POV on his own web site, here:

http://www.tjwalker.com/2011/12/05/youn ... elevision/

Damn, you got my hopes up there!

I'm almost tempted to switch back to my old signature line; anyway, I'm sure glad I'm not a Republican, and I almost feel sorry for those who are.

Romney is a creepy, lying, flip-flopping, magic underpants wearing animal abuser. Nice candidate!

Lord Jim wrote:Apparently, you would-be humorists are not familiar with Mr. TJ Walker, the author of this article....

I'm familiar with him, I was a big fan of his TV series.

What Romney needs right now is a Vice Presidential running mate who can say, in response to non-stories like this, something like,

"Now let me get this straight: Mitt Romney has to answers bullshit questions like this from a man who has never created a job in his life - in fact, a man who has barely ever HAD a job in his life, at least in the way that most Americans understand the term."

or,

"These questions are not surprising, coming from someone whose record is so horrible that he can't even talk about it, except in a conference room filled with brain-dead sycophants."