CNN’s politics section headline right now:
Conservative North Florida voters: Romney’s too rich
So how much fail is Romney if he can’t even pull off being rich as a Republican?
Open Thread, now with Cayman Islands tax shelters for everyone.
Reader Interactions
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burnspbesq
If we somehow end up with a tax system that makes scuba diving the only reason for an American to go to the Caymans, I could live with that.
Elizabelle
C-Span 1: Obama speech at UPS facility in Las Vegas on natural gas policy. Live now.
feebog
David Shuster was in for KO last night on Current. He made a good point; Mitten’s 2010 tax return suggests that Romney may have paid NO tax in 2008 and 2009. Shuster called on Romney to release all of his returns back to 1984, noting that he had released them to the McCain campaign in 2008 when he was being considered for the VP slot.
General Stuck
It’s the total nature of Romney making money off of money thing. Even republicans dislike that, and given the fact he’s done nothing resembling work since he was governor, other than being a professional POTUS candidate. He should have taken up underwater basket weaving, or something, to have at least made something for his cash.
WereBear
It might not mean much to Austrian economists, but the Herbal Cat Toy Index is finally trending upwards!
We got some nice sales right after the State of the Union address. Thank you, President Obama. Food for everyone!
some guy
North Florida is certainly Gingrich Country, filled with ignorant crackers who nurture and cherish their resentments and petty jealousies with a fervor unmatched elsewhere.
srv
North Florida might as well be Newt’s moonbase.
KG
@feebog: here’s what I don’t get about this… Romney has basically wanted to be president since he was 15 or so. He has to know how it works, part of it is releasing your tax returns. This was a battle that was lost in the 70s — Reagan is the only other politician that I can think of that didn’t want to release his tax returns and he was pummeled for it. Not releasing returns makes it look like you have something to hide. On the flip side, you release them and say “I complied with the law” and maybe throw in the Learned Hand line about having a patriotic duty to pay as little tax as legally required. How can someone who has always wanted to be president be so politically inept? I just don’t get it.
Mike Goetz
North Florida Republicans (panhandle, Georgia border, Jacksonville). These are your working class white, “cultural” Republican voters. Not Romney’s sort at all.
Romney’s people are the coastal elites.
Ugh
Well, we’re going to be stuck with Romney or Gingrich as the GOP nominee, who would we rather have? For example, assume Romney has a 40% chance of ascending to the presidency should he be the nominee and Gingrich 25%, would we want Gingrich over Romney, or do we need to factor in just how much more horrible a Gingrich presidency would be (at least, that’s how it seems to me)?
SteveM
I don’t buy it. Romney’s had a mini-surge in the Florida polls ever since he released his tax information. Most wingnuts love fat cats.
schrodinger's cat
I can has Swiss Bank account plz?
ETA: Checking the edit button, it works! Thanks, Tunch almighty!
Brian R.
Mitt Romney is the Frankenstein monster created by Republican policies that favor the superwealthy and reward their sloth.
He even looks the part — he’s wooden, with stiff hair and an inhuman grimace, and he stumbles around scaring hard-working townspeople by screaming “Fire!” at them.
kindness
One Cayman Island in every pot!
to which the deadhead in the back wonders if the pot in the Cayman Islands is any good.
rikyrah
gENERAL STUCK
add into it ‘ corporations are people’, and ‘SWISS BANK ACCOUNTS’…plus 15% tax rate…and the hiding of the tax returns…
it doesn’t look well.
Kane
I like the new phrase of describing Romney’s Swiss bank and Cayman Islands accounts as Benedict Arnold accounts.
amk
10,000 dollars that mitt quits if FL kicks him in the nuts ?
mark
What if in exchange for a nation-wide, world-top-speed HS rail with limited mag-lev lines, we offer the right, on each and every train, one or two “first class only” cars reserved for only the richest 10,000 people’s free, unlimited use. They could be selected based of that years’ tax returns, they’d get a card mailed back or cell phone qr code or something, no “hard limit” for late filers, whatever. and like the post office, it has to be priced to cover operating costs off the rest of us, and be run like a non-profit, yet unlike the post-office, health care is taken care of in the new exchanges?
anyone think this would help anything?
KG
@Ugh: Personally, I think both of those numbers are a bit high. Still, I think Romney is the better answer. Why take the chance on a President Gingrich? Romney, for all his faults, won’t be a complete disaster if only because he’d be so beholden to the polling data that he’d be everything the GOP accused Clinton of being. Gingrich, on the other hand, would make Nixon look noble.
rikyrah
who was it that put up that map of Florida…I do believe this guy in the story is from the IT MIGHT AS WELL BE ALABAMA part of Florid.
KG
@amk: nah, he’s got too many firewalls later in the process. Barring a Ron Paul miracle, Romney wins Virginia, he should win or at least place in the upcoming caucuses. No, I think Arizona probably decides the race.
Linda Featheringill
@WereBear:
Wonderful!
Wonder if that could serve as an economic barometer?
pragmatism
@some guy: yup. noot is the angry person’s candidate.
Ugh
@KG:
I hope they’re too high, but wanted to make them different enough (and less that 50%) so that it mattered.
Linda Featheringill
@rikyrah:
The map of Florida was posted by Betty Cracker.
twiffer
@KG: “How can someone who has always wanted to be president be so politically inept? I just don’t get it.”
if just wanting something was enough, i’d be playing shortstop for boston.
some guy
North Florida could go 100% for Gnut, won’t matter, it’s relatively sparsely populated, way overmatched by the Fort lkauderdale/Plam Beach base of Romney support.
the battle will be in the 1-4 corridor, from orlando to tampa. plenty of Tea party paltroons and Upwardly Mobile Country Club wannabe’s, so the candidates will saturate that market with attack ads.
flukebucket
I already had predicted this after studying The Map.
dmsilev
It’s not just that Mitt is wealthy. We’ve had wealthy people do well in politics since, well, forever. FDR, to give one pretty prominent example. It’s that Mitt emanates a constant aura of “I don’t care about anyone who isn’t as wealthy as I am”. Why shouldn’t he have bank accounts in Zurich and the Cayman Islands? I mean, doesn’t everybody? And what’s the problem with him doubling the size of his oceanside mansion in La Jolla? He’ll just vacation in the ski chalet until the work is done.
amk
perry goes to washington and get fcuked.
Suffern ACE
I’m not sure I’m seeing the difference between Newt and Romney that you’re seeing that would make a preference for one over the other. Romney has the “Compassionate Conservative I’m not a bomb thrower” fake moderation written all over him. It’s like choosing which sith you’d rather have.
Donut
Oh, my…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/newt-gingrich-mitt-romney-youtube_n_1233726.html
The question is whether Gnu-ewt will keep up this line of attack tonight.
I gotta say, too, attacking Romney from both the left and the right at the same time is … impressive.
4tehlulz
So Mittens has his base in Miami and
DisneyOrlando, Newt has the Panhandle, and everyone is fighting over Tampa?The Moar You Know
@KG: The debate audiences would have leapt to their feet and cheered for this one. Romney would have been a hero overnight.
I find it equally incomprehensible. They managed to get W. presentable to a national audience. It probably took electroshock and that thing with the eyeclips and video screens they did in Clockwork Orange, but they did it.
Maybe Romney’s a “slow learner”?
WaterGirl
@SteveM: If I recall correctly, Romney’s tax return for 2010 was released almost immediately after the last debate.
I was under the impression that Mitt spiked and Newt lost ground because Newt feeds off of the audience, and the debate audience was unable to get involved in the last debate. Not so?
Donut
@The Moar You Know:
Not to be contrarian, but W actually had outstanding instincts when it came to the GOP and especially the GOP base, and I think Rove is often over-credited when it comes to W’s electoral success.
And W had enough in him to win two national electrons (or rather, keep it close enough to steal).
But agree 1000 times over that Romney is just about the deafest of tone-deaf politicos, and seems to do worse the more scrutiny he draws.
Cat Lady
@KG:
Mitt’s lived in a bubble his whole life, and hasn’t had to learn anything other than what he needed or wanted to know. Other people have only provided utility to him, and now he’s finding that his fate is at the mercy of peons (and Newt the Unstable Barbarian) he can’t control, and he can’t manage it. He’s got no golden parachute this time – and you can believe he’s terrified of being a two time loser of the thing he’s always believed he’s been entitled to – the presidency. Newt’s got his shiny scrubbed nuts in a vise, and it’s exceedingly fun to watch.
flukebucket
Do you guys expect the crowd in Jacksonville tonight to be as subdued as the crowd at Temple Terrace? I want to hear barking and stomping and shouting. I want to see that smug look of self satisfaction on Newt’s face when the natives start to get restless. And can anybody tell me what kind of lapel pin Newt is wearing? I can’t figure out what it is. It is not a flag or a cross. What else would it be?
Mark S.
@dmsilev:
Exactly. Charles Pierce said a couple of months ago that with Romney, any minute you feel like he’s going to tell you to trim his hedges or something like that.
It didn’t help that his programmers decided against implanting the experimental empathy chip into his circuitry. It causes him to say things like he once worried about getting a pink slip, that he likes firing people, and that anyone who’s wondering when they’re going to get some trickle down should go back to Russia.
gelfling545
@Linda Featheringill: Actually, I read a couple of years ago that the REAL economic barometer is – the sale of men’s underwear. Apparently this figure is remarkable stable as it is mostly only purchased on a necessity basis and if the sale figures fall it means times are tough indeed.
Lolis
@WaterGirl:
It probably has more to do with how massively Romney is outspending Gingrich in Florida. I think I read it was 6 to 1.
General Stuck
@SteveM:
Yes, but there is much confusion in Republican Mudville, over which lizard to pick.
wrb
Newt is undergoing an amazing, apparently coordinated, right-wing assault right now.
Be amazing if he can survive this. We know who the powers don’t want.
Only Rush could save him, methinks.
Rommie
If Newt gets in “We aren’t that stupid, and you aren’t that clever” to Mitt in the debate there may be actual fainting.
pragmatism
@wrb: Let the
St. RonnieZombie Reagan purity tests commence! I betsome AIPAC personJennifer Rubin will let them use a festivus pole for the feats of strength/poledancing portion. I heard that someone is going to replace all of the jelly bellies in the eating contest with the Harry Potter earwax jelly beans. Let’s see how they react.wrb
@SteveM:
There hasn’t been enough digestion of the tax returns to have an effect.
He released them, he paid about what he’d said he’d paid. Game unchanged.
If they are to hurt him it will be because people find damaging info after digging into them.
Brachiator
Mitt and Newt, singing at the next debate…
Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground, You in mid-air..
Where are the clowns?
Schlemizel
@Ugh:
Have you listened to Salamander? They had a clip on NPR this morning & he was deadly in hitting the right sounds. He will slide into the lizard brains of low-information voters in ways normal people can’t comprehend. Add to that the fact that the media has labeled him a genius and I think you have the numbers backwards – 25/75 change of Willard beating Obama and 45/55 of the slimy amphibian doing it.
Lets hope the damn GOP can stop this monster.
Rafer Janders
@dmsilev:
You can even give off an aura of not caring about the poor as long as you are seen to be enjoying — even flaunting — your wealth. It’s the Donald Trump effect — he obviously enjoys money so much that, paradoxically, Republican voters didn’t seem to hold it against him.
Romney, on the other hand, manages to come across as both greedy and miserly. He has hundreds of millions, he doesn’t pay taxes, and yet he still posts stupid photos of him doing his own laundry while wearing starched blue jeans and a dress shirt. It doesn’t seem authentic, but forced, phoney, staged. If you’re going to be rich, you have to own it.
Brachiator
@Schlemizel:
Why? I want to see Newt do as much damage to the GOP as possible. I want the Tea Party People and the fundamentalists to demand that Newt be made the nominee. I want to see Newt scorch through the primaries.
And then I want to see Obama best Newt and the GOP in the national election.
It would be almost as good as getting a pony.
Lurking Canadian
I do sometimes experience a bit of through-the-looking-glass feeling when I reflect that Mitt Romney, a rich man who pays very little in taxes, is for some reason struggling on that basis to win the nomination from the party that has, for the past thirty years, worked with single minded intensity to see to it that rich men pay very little in taxes.
Violet
@wrb:
Out of curiosity I listened to Rush today while I was in the car at lunchtime. He played the audio from the Nancy Reagan speech where she said Ronnie passed the torch to Newt. Then he (Limbaugh) said he was sure Nancy wouldn’t have said that if she’d known was Newt was up to in 1988 (or something like that). It really sounded like he wasn’t a Newt fan.
Then later a caller read him the riot act for supporting “a soshulist like Romney.” And Rush did the victim thing about how he didn’t say that and how Romney’s folks were screaming at him saying he wasn’t being supportive of Romney and furthermore, Romney wasn’t a soshulist. The guy got Limbaugh to say he’d vote for Romney if Romney’s the nominee (“like everyone else” Rush said).
It really felt like Rush hates Romney, but got the orders to take down Newt, so he’s doing his best.But also that Rush’s listeners love Newt so Rush has to walk a fine line lest he alienate them. Also, Romney’s the money guy, Rush is rich, so he wants to keep things the way they are. Newt is a wildcard.
I did hear an ad for Newt during the show. My state doesn’t vote for ages, so it must be a national buy.
brettvk
@pragmatism:
.
I love this image. You have a gift.
Chris
@Rafer Janders:
It’s also simply about the asshole factor, or if you prefer, the “alpha male” factor.
Gingrich, like Trump, proudly comes off as an enormous asshole. Romney comes off as peevish and defensive. Gingrich comes off as the school bully who walks through the halls pushing weaker kids into lockers, Romney comes off like the whiny kid who’s afraid of getting dirt on his clothes if he does anything like that.
One of those two gathers a posse, the other doesn’t. If you’re a conservative and never outgrew the middle-school “bluster = strength and we’re all about following strength” logic, of course you’re going to be drawn to Newt over Mitt.
Tonal Crow
@feebog:
He claimed a capital-loss carryover of 4.8M on his 2010 return (Sch. D line 14), which must mean that he had a net capital loss in 2009 and possibly earlier years. Being as capital gains constitute most of his 2010 income, yeah, he might not have paid any tax in 2009 and/or earlier years. ETA: there’s nothing legally wrong with that, but it’ll look bad.
feebog
KG @8:
I agree with you completely. Either the Romney campaign is totally inept or there is something in those prior tax returns that would completely devastate Mittens. At this point I am leaning towards door number two.
pragmatism
@brettvk: ohhh pshaw. but thanks brett. have a good one.
Brachiator
@feebog:
Actually, his tax returns are quite conservative. What is hurting him is perception. Had he released his tax returns when he was running back in 2008, or as soon as possible this year, this would have been a non-issue. Now, he has everyone angry at him, and tarnishing the Money is Good promise that serves as one of the GOP’s foundations.
Donut
@Brachiator:
Seriously, laughing at loud at that…
Mark S.
Bob Dole unloads on Newt. I liked this part:
God I want Newt to win the nomination.
Judas Escargot
@feebog:
It’s claimed that Romney submitted 23 years’ worth of tax returns to McCain’s people as part of the vetting process for VP (that would be the period 1984-2007.. note that Bain was founded in 1984).
I has assumed that McCain passed over Romney for personal reasons, because Romney was the obvious choice (to me).
Now this tax-return business has me wondering if the McCain team saw something they didn’t like.
Thoughtcrime
@Brachiator:
Fixed.
Thoughtcrime
@Brachiator:
Fixed.
Brachiator
@Violet:
Rush is hardly in Mitt’s league, in terms of wealth. This is like saying that a shark is like a guppy just because they are both fish.
Tonal Crow
@Mark S.: Bob Dole? Are you sure this isn’t some sort of reverse-psychology trick? I cannot imagine that Dole’s broadside will do anything but inflame the teatards and increase their support for Gingrich.
Me too. His general election campaign seems likely to become the new exemplar of “epic fail”.
Donut
@Judas Escargot:
Gosh, that seems like a question Rachel Maddow oughta ask of Steve Schmidt when he’s on the MSNBC TeeVee station with her later tonight, post-debate…
Judas Escargot
@Donut:
Double Gosh: I did not know that.
I just might have to switch over, afterwards.
wrb
@Tonal Crow:
Dole’s statement:
“Bob Dole thinks Newt is weird. Newt brings Bob Dole ice buckets with no ice for Bob Dole. Bob Dole says vote Romney, he’s a normal human like Bob Dole.”
Nutella
OT: Protesters take to the streets in Siberia.
dogwood
@Donut:
It’s not contrarian, it’s the truth. Rove is a competent political operative, but that doesn’t amount to crap if your candidate is a fucking phony robot who can’t stand people. Mitt’s problem isn’t that he’s too wealthy. W was wealthy and privileged, but he liked people. The main difference between W and Willard, is that when W behaved like an ass it was a conscious choice; he knew what he was doing would piss off someone he wanted to piss off. Willard simply is an ass 24/7 and doesn’t even realize it.
AA+ Bonds
Robert Reich backs me up:
AA+ Bonds
@dogwood:
I agree that Rove does not have as much to work with here, and I think that it’s in large part because he doesn’t know Romney nearly as well as he knew Bush – Romney is capable of surprising Rove and that’s no good for Rove’s work
AA+ Bonds
@Tonal Crow:
I am paranoid as shit but it’s very clear that every Republican who worked with Newt back when he was in Congress absolutely hates him, hates him on a personal level, thinks of him as The Enemy, revels in causing him pain as humans like to do to their enemies
That’s why I buy Pelosi’s line: there is something or other (maybe a few things) that he did back then that has been kept quiet by professional courtesy but won’t be soon if he keeps this up
AA+ Bonds
Let’s put it this way: when a party-machine Republican calls another Republican an opportunist, someone who will stop at nothing, etc. . . .
. . . what that probably means is: Newt slept with some other Congressman’s wife, and did it on a desk somewhere on the Hill, and it’s considered an open secret
What I question is whether the fascists in America would really give a shit
AA+ Bonds
Or, I don’t know, maybe Gingrich got caught by someone with a 15 year old in his limo, that’s another possibility that comes to mind