why wasn't the romney camp ready for the bain attacks? they KNEW they were coming.

[spanone]

they had no answers. no defense prepared.

no concise message on bain or refusal to release his taxes.

did they think the democrats wouldn't go there?

he's been running on his business acumen, didn't they think anyone would question him?

it's puzzling.

[RagAss]

1. Never ran against President Obama before?

Better people have tried.

[spanone]

3. could be that, but romney has the best henchmen money can buy....

you think that bain and taxes would be scenarios on the blackboard at strategy meetings.....

[oldhippydude]

18. actually

he should have known when Gingrich took him to cleaners in North Carolina in the primaries.. if Sheldon Adelson would have kept the money up behind Newt, it may have been a totally different primary.. when Adelson stopped, Willard could simply carpet bomb his opponent with cash.. it actually seems that he thought he could simply purchase the presidency. i really think that was as far as he thought ahead.. i don't think Willard is prepared for prime time against a seasoned Obama. Turd Blossom has to be going nuts right now, he has to be twitching just like he did with christine O'Donnell..

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. His advisors are idiots.

They must think he's running for governor of some back-asswards state.

[immoderate]

4. Romney knows the election is rigged. It could be.

ALEC has been pushing its voter suppression schemes for a while. They also own the voting machines, or at least some of them.

I also think Romney is stupid. Really stupid. Arrogance is part of that.


--imm

[Booster]

26. I do think they're going to steal the election but Mr. Obama has a whole lot of lawyers

at the ready should that happen & I don't think he'll roll over.

[TheDebbieDee]

32. Also, after seeing what happened the last two times the repukes

stole elections - 9/11, an unfunded and unnecessary war in Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, lack of response to Hurricane Katrina, etc., - I don't think Democrats will just sit in front of their televisions and allow the neocons to put another mouthpiece in office..........

[immoderate]

65. Don't bet on it.

Just sayin'

--imm

[SammyWinstonJack]

53. Kerry had a whole lot of lawyers at the ready in 2004 and he rolled over shockingly fast.

And yes, I do think the repugs are going to steal this election. And RMoney knows it's in the bag already.

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. Arrogance n/t

[rufus dog]

6. Arrogance and a belief that the media would cover for them

Hell, they tried with some help of four Democrats to get the focus off of Bain.

[ProSense]

7. I don't think so.

I think this privileged punk believed the entire campaign would be a "he said, she said" on outsourcing. They actually believed the bullshit factchecking organizations would shield them. Seriously, look at the asses the media made of themselves trying to defend Romney, claiming that he was being swiftboated. They dismissed the SEC report like it was simply routine to lie in those filings. For a hot minute, the WaPo factcheck was being pushed as the definitive word.

[Raine]

8. Arrogance & Entitlement nt

[rhett o rick]

12. Bingo! nm

[CaliforniaPeggy]

33. Absolutely right!

[Marr]

48. That's it, right there.

I doubt he and his campaign thought beyond "give them the old line about already having departed". They assume no one will question them, let alone pin them to the wall. A lifetime of privilege seems to make people stupid that way.

[Spazito]

9. One would think he would have been ready but...

I honestly think he, and by extension his campaign team, thought by saying he left Bain in 1999 it was no longer an issue. Why they would think that is the mystery to me especially knowing there were documents out there that would utterly contradict the 1999 date. He and his campaign team seem to be totally caught off guard on this and the foreign tax havens issue.

Kennedy trounced him in 1994 and used Romney's history with Bain to do it, one would have thought that would have been a big heads-up to them but it seems not to be the case at all.

[lunatica]

10. I think he's lied his entire life and gotten away with it so why not this time too?

And the CEO mentality of Supreme Superiority and Feeling It's His Manifest Destiny To Be President, Mandated by God himself.

[uponit7771]

14. +1! This has been my experience with these types...

[DinahMoeHum]

11. They think big $$$$ will trump everything. . .

. . .and buy Romney the election.

[ewagner]

57. That's it...right there in a concise post!

He knows he's going to "buy" the election...
He knows he's going to "carpet bomb" Obama with every negative ad he can buy in the last two weeks of the campaign
He knows that the negative ads against Obama will be HIS ETCH-A-SKETCH because people will focus on his ads and not his lies.
He knows he can lie as often as he wants now because that last two weeks will trump all
He knows he's ENTITLED to the Presidency and it takes three things to get it:

money
money
money

This man disgusts me

[SDjack]

13. Pres. Obama found out about GOP boot camp. That's where gopers like Gillespie and Barbour

hold a private retreat with the goper candidate, mean goper organizers, and mean goper donors. They have a "character building" session in which they abuse the candidate until he "gets the fire in the belly" in his commitment to win the election. They scream and shout at him, all weekend long. (Rumor is that they slapped GHW Bush until he became silly.) He must be willing to do anything -- including ____ his own grandmother (well, use your imagination). Pres. Obama had his own boot camp, and he came out of it with a raging furnace in his belly -- no more Mr. Nice Guy.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

15. "Retired retroactively" is a great defense (for a pompous ass)..... nt

[Avalux]

16. He was elected Gov. by running on that record and avoided something such as this.

Maybe they thought it would work again? Or maybe....just maybe....they underestimated the opponent.

[kentuck]

50. Yep.

They did not make his tax returns public and they thought they had put this issue behind them when he ran for Governor. They never thought it would come up again. They were caught holding the proverbial bag.

[surrealAmerican]

17. He must have thought he owned enough of the media ...

... to drown out any criticism.

[malaise]

19. Good question

but I'm having way too much fun watching him squirm -who cares?

[Politicalboi]

20. Either arrogance

Or they were told the election is in the bag by theft.

[SammyWinstonJack]

55. Both. Arrogance BECAUSE they were told the election is in the bag by theft. Here we go again.

[TBF]

21. Probably because everything he has done is legal -

Folks with that much money have tax accountants (lawyers) preparing those forms at $500+/hour ... and they will take every loophole they can find. They are not amateurs. My guess is though there might be questionable things and lower tax rates than he wants floating out in the media, they won't find anything illegal.

[Spazito]

24. Yeah, tell that to Bernie Madoff, he had lawyers, tax accountants too...

didn't stop him from doing illegal things.

[Ruby the Liberal]

30. +1 Legal, but not media-friendly for the masses.

This, however, could end up kick starting a populist movement for tax reforms. I don't think a lot of people got it when it came to batting around "jet aircraft deductions" last year at this time, but showcase what Willard has gotten away with, and it will hit home for people.

They need to hound him on the legal aspects of telling one thing to the SEC and the exact opposite to the FEC. That shit can't be squirmed away from. One or the other is a bald faced lie, and that lie is a felony. Martha Stewart wasn't tossed in jail for insider trading, she was tossed in jail for lying about it.

Not that the SEC or DOJ could touch this one. There would be too much blowback for he election.

[TBF]

37. Exactly -

and who knows how much he reported to his church? That could be embarrassing even if not strictly illegal.

[NNN0LHI]

22. The Romney campaign thought Cory Booker had made Bain off limits

What they didn't realize was that Cory Booker was part of this trap.

Don

[HopeHoops]

23. Stupid is as stupid does.

[struggle4progress]

25. Maybe because they effin expect to BUY the election

[Jim__]

27. He really believed he'd put the Bain story to bed.

His campaign is completely inept. They absolutely should have been ready to shut this down on day one. That it's gone on this long, with mitt looking worse by the hour, speaks volumes about his campaign people. But, then, they probably have to just shut up and do what mitt says - he's so brilliant.

[obxhead]

28. It's likely Romney is hiding just as much from his advisers

as he is the public.

His advisers may have taken him at his word that he left Bain in '99 and they wouldn't have to defend these attacks.

[Tom Rinaldo]

29. Maybe they thought that "Obama is a Socialist" attack line actually worked

Maybe they thought Obama, or at least the corporate Dems who raise money from Wall Street, would be too intimidated to let him do a frontal assault on a successful money making Equjity Firm. ""Democrats can't afford to look anti-business and all that crap. Maybe they forgot that OWS changed the national political and economic dialog since the 2010 mid-term elections.

[DCBob]

31. Same thing happened during the primaries.

Apparently this is their "prepared" strategy. They simply deny, deflect, deride. No direct response to the attack.

Dumb but apparently they think it works.

[alcibiades_mystery]

45. Probably does work against a cash strapped Santorum

and a Gingrich who can only drive a "Question Vulture capitalism" line so far before he looks absurd.

Doesn't work in the big leagues against a sitting Democratic president, though. Romney's like a high school kid who can passably hit a fastball walking into a major league park and facing Justin Verlander. He hasn't thought things through.

[DCBob]

49. Romney is clearly in the minor leagues when it comes to strategy..

but he has major league donors and connections who can make things happen that can influence an election.

[cilla4progress]

34. HE BELIEVES HE'S ENTITLED

He's always gotten - bought - everything he wanted!

No surprise there! He's just that arrogant.

I think the Dems are reading this really well, and I'm glad they are agressively pursuing it. Polls support the effectiveness of their strategy. I think the Dems should also mind that they don't overreach.

[magical thyme]

35. He's not used to being questioned. He's used to lying and getting away with it.

His strategy worked against Shannon O'Brien when he won Mass gov. People almost always repeat successful strategies, assuming they will continue to work and that nobody will learn from them.

They carpet bombed O'Brien with ads claiming no involvement with Bain. She probably lacked the resources to respond. Romney just assumed he's the smartest guy in the room.

They assumed they'd be able to do the same to Obama, probably not even realizing they had the goods on him.

[Kablooie]

36. Or they WERE prepared and this is the best they could do.

[TBF]

38. I think that's more likely. nt

[ananda]

41. They weren't prepared for Romney to be so dislikable and disliked...

... even by his own base and the media.

Even GH Bush and Reagan had a likeability factor that protected
them from serious mistakes and crimes, something Romney
simply doesn't have. Nobody likes him. That's why this is gaining
traction and no other reason.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

39. Because President Obama is an effete arugula chomping Ivy League liberal who'd never throw a punch.

Or so the story goes.

[Honeycombe8]

40. They misunderestimated the Democrats. After all, he'd run in primaries before.

I guess he figured what with the pansy way the Democrats have gotten these last few years, coupled with the fact that the GOP primary contenders didn't go after Bain that hard (no reason to), he thought he'd have nothing to worry about.

Others in the GOP clearly didn't know about, or think about, this stuff. Remember during the primary, all the GOP pundits talked about was that his main achilles heel was Romneycare, and that his main strength was his business experience with Bain.

Surprise!

[Ruby the Liberal]

42. They? *I* "misunderestimated the Democrats".

And I have been like a giggly school girl for days now watching this all unfold.

[Honeycombe8]

44. It HAS been good, hasn't it? I'm glad to see the Obama team fighting like hell.

By "they," I meant the Romney team. We KNOW he doesn't handle his own campaign. He's just a suit.

[Ruby the Liberal]

46. I can't remember a better few days in politic-speak.

Even the election high was sullied by the announcement of the Econ team. This is just a gift that keeps on giving!

[marlakay]

43. They expected the dems to wuss out as per usual

if dems attacked, if questioned on it to back off as normal…this time Obama is playing Chicago hard politics, something we as dems not in that area are not use to.

I for one am glad. Tired of us letting the bullies win...

[D23MIURG23]

47. He was also incompetent in the primaries.

He lost a bunch of primaries to Santorum (!) and Gingrich ( ). Gingrich has to be among the top 5 most unlikeable people on the planet.

I don't know why he is so bad at this, but his recent implosion isn't out of character at all. Maybe Rmoney has been so busy kissing babies in Iowa for the last 4 years that he failed to notice that Barack Obama is not Micheal Dukakis.

[geckosfeet]

51. Similar deal when he ran for Ted Kennedys senate seat.

The Kennedy campaign pulled that out (Bain outsourcing) and it was downhill from there. One wonders if his campaign staff even reviewed that election campaign? Or are they too young to remember? In any case, the mitster should have remembered it.

This guy is becoming just one big joke. This issue of lying on SEC filings is a thick layer of icing on the cake. The tax returns issue should get more playtime around end of Oct.

[lindysalsagal]

52. He was probably only shocked when Faux snooze went after him.

He doesn't bother with those useless network stations....

[liberal N proud]

54. I don't think they expected the Obama campaign to expose the facts.

I think they relied on history to let them slide. Democrats never go on the offensive like this. They never have gone for the throat and it finally feels good that they have started to play the same ball game that was used against them for so many years.

From Dukakis to Kerry, the republicans have attacked trivial shit and made it a campaign issue, now they are getting a taste of the same only this time, it is real, it is critical and it is factual.

The GOP is stunned!

[bowens43]

56. They correctly assumed that most Americans don't care.

for the low information voters, that is the vast majority of voters, it's not an issue.

[Scootaloo]

58. Because he thought it would be a BENEFIT

Really, these people just don't understand... They came in thinking that swinging a sack of money around was going to have people flocking to Romney, harping on that old myth "the nation should be run like a business." The idea that a filthy rich man could "turn the economy around" through the magic of being filthy rich.

They severely miscalculated. even in the best of times, America has a latent hostility towards the rich - we like wealth an awful lot, but the people who have lots of it are usually somewhere on the shit list. It's one of our weird cultural things, owing to our national image as a nation made of middle-class workers. And when times are tough, this hostility grows.

Enter Mitt. Not only is he filthy rich, but he's also extensively tied to one of the companies that is a reason for other people's LACK of riches. That's a big strike against him. Now, throw in his opposition to very popular programs - one of which he even invented; another big strike. And to wrap it up, he has absolutely nothing resembling charm, wit, or charisma; he's pretty, but he has the personality of balsa wood. Third strike.

They came in expecting to have a home team advantage, but apparently they came to a rugby pitch with polo gear.

[JHB]

59. Standard Republican procedure is to brazen it out

The big lesson Republicans have learned from dozens of scandals is that their best bet is to stonewall everything while accusing the media of liberal bias and the Democrats of hyper-partisanship.

They then try to run out the clock: sometimes "the clock" is the time limit a special prosecutor has to finish an investigation, other times it's the point at which the Media or Democrats back off because they think pressing the issue would prove the Republican accusations right (and gosh, there's nothing worse than that!).

That's not happening so far in this case. The Obama campaign is more willing to go on the offensive, and Mitt's in a position where stonewalling doesn't actually get him anything. It doesn't run the clock out as long as Obama keeps hitting him on it, and the non-response or same old tired chant makes him look weak and like he's hiding something (which he probably is).

[KurtNYC]

60. They thought they WERE ready. Their strategy was/is to keep Obama on defense

and not talk about what Romney would do as perish-the-thought President.

They just thought that they would have the upper hand and that when the Obama team went after Bain they could say "well they are just trying to change the subject" etc.

But the MSM loves polls. Polls are like media catnip and they always have to have a reason for why the number are moving. Doesn't have to be the valid one but they HAVE to have one. So with Mitt falling the media says he is falling because of Bain. In truth Romney is falling because of a variety of things: had thin support to begin with, Romney is weird, Romney went into hiding, AND Bain.

It is like a turbo charger now -- they talk about Bain because Mitt's numbers are falling and his numbers are falling (in part) because they talk about Bain.

Mitt's offense this week is going to be "crony capitalism" (yet again) and his VP announcement. The phony crony thing goes nowhere and the VP will just be a distraction. Team Romney will likely try and declare the Bain discussions to be over but it isn't up to them.

[intheflow]

61. I think the GOP knows they can't win against Obama so they're putting up a crash-dummy,

biding their time until 2016.

If I had to put on my prognostication hat, I'd think Jeb Bush/Condi Rice (or maybe Bobbie Jindal) will be their dream ticket. And honestly, who are the Dems gonna run? That's the election that's scaring me.

[randome]

62. Jindal is not telegenic. Rice is lesbian. The Bush name is toxic.

Republicans do not 'throw' elections. This is ample evidence that they are falling to pieces before our eyes.

Palin was not vetted. Romney was not vetted.

The TeaBaggers are the cattle grazing on the GOP's lawn. Rome has fallen!

The GOP have no coordination of messaging going on. They are going down!

[intheflow]

63. It does seem so.

They developed their 30-year plan during the '80s and then never revised it. However, I don't want to fall into a trap of underestimating the enemy.

[randome]

64. Not by any means should we underestimate them. I agree!

But over-estimating them can give them more power than they actually have. Bullies only have power over us if we believe they do.

I find it ludicrous that people still believe Rove is calling the shots. Ha! If he was, wouldn't Palin and Romney have been vetted? They weren't.

I think a recognition of Reality is called for.

The GOP is down and we need to make sure they don't get back up!