Mitt Romney Emerges On The Scene And Joins Rand Paul In Resurrecting Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky Affair. Watch Video.

Andrew Kohut: The GOP Might Be Out Of Step With Some Voters, But Mitt Romney Was An Unusually Unpopular Party Standard-Bearer.

Misreading Election 2012 The GOP might be out of step with some voters, but Mitt Romney was an unusually unpopular party standard-bearer.
By ANDREW KOHUT

Postelection talk of "lessons learned" is often exaggerated and misleading, and so it is in 2012.

A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, that the growing size of these voting blocs represents a decisive challenge for the Republican Party.

Both points are true, but most observers are overstating the gravity of the GOP's problem. In particular, they are paying too little attention to how weak a candidate Mitt Romney was, and how much that hurt Republican prospects.

Here is what the exit poll found. Mr. Romney's personal image took a hard hit during the primary campaign and remained weak on election day. Just 47% of exit-poll respondents viewed him favorably, compared with 53% for Mr. Obama. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Romney's favorable ratings were among the lowest recorded for a presidential candidate in the modern era. A persistent problem was doubt about his empathy with the average voter. By 53% to 43%, exit-poll respondents said that Mr. Obama was more in touch than Mr. Romney with people like themselves.

Mr. Romney was never fully embraced by Republicans themselves, which may have inhibited the expected strong Republican turnout. Pew's election-weekend survey found Mr. Romney with fewer strong supporters (33%) than Mr. Obama (39%). Similarly, a much greater percentage of Obama supporters (80%) than Romney supporters (60%) told Pew that they were voting for their candidate rather than against his opponent.

Surprisingly, Mr. Romney proved unable to exploit Mr. Obama's biggest weakness: the economy. Seventy-six percent of exit-poll respondents rated the national economy "poor" or only "fair," and just 25% said their finances were better off than they were four years ago. Yet voters expressed roughly equal confidence in Mr. Obama's ability to handle the economy (48%) as in Mr. Romney's (49%).

Mr. Romney was hurt by the perception—reinforced by Democratic attack ads and his secretly recorded comments about the "47%"—that he wasn't for the average voter. With 55% of voters in the exit poll saying they think the U.S. economic system favors the wealthy, a large majority believed that Mr. Obama's policies favor the middle class (44%) or the poor (31%). By contrast, 53% thought Mr. Romney's policies would favor the rich.

Despite their weak candidate, Republicans increased their share of the presidential vote among many major demographic groups. Compared with 2008, they made significant gains among men (four percentage points), whites (four points), younger voters (six points), white Catholics (seven points) and Jews (nine points). Mr. Romney also carried the independent vote 50% to 45%. Four years ago, independents voted for Mr. Obama 52% to 44%.

Republicans can take some solace from these gains. In addition, only 43% of voters this year said they wanted an activist government (compared with 52% in 2008), and 49% continued to disapprove of Mr. Obama's health-care law (compared with 44% approving).

In short, the current American electorate is hardly stacked against the Republican Party. But Republicans should recognize that, on balance, Americans remain moderate—holding a mix of liberal and conservative views. They generally believe that small government is better and that ObamaCare is bad. But the exit poll shows that 59% believe abortion should be legal, 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and a surprising plurality support legalizing same-sex marriage in their states.

Threading the ideological needle with this electorate is vital for the Republicans in the future—and for the Democrats, too.

— Mr. Kohut is president of the Pew Research Center.
EDITOR'S COMMENT: MITT ROMNEY IS A PHONY OF THE WORST KIND, BAR NONE!

MICHAEL COHEN: GOOD RIDDANCE TO [PHONY] MITT ROMNEY.

Good riddance to Mitt Romney
BY MICHAEL COHEN

On Tuesday night, as I watched the election returns roll in, there were moments of great joy – but one of the happiest moment came after the losing candidate delivered his concession speech and disappeared through the backstage curtains at the Boston Convention Center. I realized at that moment that I would likely never again have to write or even, for that matter, think about Mitt Romney.

Now, I understand that, as a general rule, you don’t hit a guy when he’s down. Romney suffered a crushing defeat, one that according to aides he was completely unprepared for.

But at the end of the day, Romney’s campaign should be assessed in the most accurate possible manner. Its failings should not be sugarcoated or glossed over. Instead, it should be described precisely as it was: One of the most cynical, dishonest and disreputable presidential campaigns in modern American history.

From the Republican primaries to practically the final days of his failed presidential campaign, Romney was either blatantly lying about his opponent’s record, adopting policy positions of convenience that ran counter to his past positions, regularly misleading Americans about his own plans or stirring racial acrimony. I don’t feel sorry that Romney lost on Tuesday night; I feel sorry that a great nation had to be subjected to his presidential campaign.

Think I’m being too harsh? Well, harken back to the GOP primaries and the ad run by Romney ran against Rick Perry. It attacked Perry for allowing illegal immigrants to attend Texas state universities and then used a supporting statement from former Mexican President Vincente Fox as a bludgeon to castigate Perry – as if being endorsed by Mexico’s president were a scarlet letter.

Over the summer, he produced an ad attacking President Obama for lifting work requirements for those on welfare – a charge that not only wasn’t true but was almost certainly intended to promulgate the notion that Obama was providing government benefits to people who didn’t work. Anyone who questions the racial implications of this charge is severely unfamiliar with decades of Republican welfare politics.

Later, when toxic curmudgeon and Romney campaign surrogate John Sununu went on television and insinuated that Obama needed to “learn how to be a real American” he wasn’t upbraided by the Romney campaign - he was sent back out on television to make such cheery arguments like the only reason Colin Powell endorsed Obama was because they both were black.

Then there was the “you didn’t build it” charge – an out-of-context statement uttered by Obama but in the hands of Romney and his minions became proof positive that Obama hates the free market and entrepreneurship.

This was all at pace with Romney’s regular assaults on the truth, such as his oft-repeated charge that Obamacare would lead to government-run health care; that the President had doubled the deficit; that he intended to cut more than $700 billion from Medicare; or that Obama had ventured on a global apology tour. All were untrue, but none of this stopped Romney from repeating them over and over and over again on the campaign trail.

Indeed, Romney finished his campaign on yet another lie – an ad claiming that Chrysler was intending to move its Jeep production to China. Once again, even after being called out by reporters who pointed out that the assertion wasn’t true, Romney was unfazed – as he ran another radio ad that made the exact same false charge.

Now to be fair, President Obama had his share of truth-stretching assertions, but it was hardly endemic to his campaign. For Romney, daily assaults on the truth were not simply par for the course; they were reflective of his campaign’s overall political strategy. Over the past several years, conservatives have created their own alternate reality with their own set of “facts” about President Obama and the federal government. Romney regularly fanned the flames of conservative delusion, recognizing that an angry, misinformed yet enthusiastic GOP electorate was key to his political aspirations. It was a cynical ploy – and in the hands of a more competent politician it might actually have succeeded.

Finally, there was Romney’s extraordinary and unprecedented refusal to engage in traditional campaign transparency. He never released his tax returns. He refused to reveal the names of people who raised money on behalf of his campaign. He was even less forthright about his plans of he were to be elected. The cornerstone of his economic plan was a proposal for a 20% across-the-board tax cut, which he claimed would not explode the deficit and would be paid for by closing loopholes and capping deductions. Never once did he detail what those loopholes or deductions might be.

Quite simply, Romney and his campaign were simply allergic to truth, veracity and openness.

Now as Romney fades off into the sunset he will likely be little remembered. Democrats feel no affection toward him, but neither do Republicans. Romney was a distinctly unloved presidential nominee. During the GOP primaries he was forced into a protracted political struggle against a motley collection of cranks, also-rans and mediocrities. In the end Republicans accepted him as the party standard bearer because frankly they didn’t have much of a choice.

He was just a means to an end for Republicans desperate to defeat the President they hated, a warm body that if he was lucky enough to win the presidency could sign the legislation they pined to enact.

Beyond that, Republicans had little use for Mitt Romney.

Like Michael Dukakis in 1988, Romney will almost certainly fade into political oblivion, rarely to be heard from again in the realm of national politics. In the end, I’d like to feel a little sorry for a man who suffered such a public defeat and humiliation. But sometimes in life, you get what you deserve.

WITH THE ELECTION OVER, I WOULD LIKE FOR POTUS BARACK OBAMA TO APPOINT MITT ROMNEY COMMERCE SECRETARY, AND BILL CLINTON TO THE U. S. SUPREME COURT. YEP.

YOU HEARD ME.

AS I CORRECTLY PREDICTED HERE AND EVERYWHERE, POTUS BARACK OBAMA SPANKS PHONY MITT ROMNEY IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. WATCH POTUS' VICTORY SPEECH AND THE PHONY'S DEFEAT SPEECH. RACISTS CAN NOW CRAWL BACK IN THEIR CAVES!

POTUS: PHONY: MAYBE, NEXT TIME THE GOP WILL NOMINATE A CANDIDATE WE CAN'T CHOKE ON! THE ELECTORAL MAP:

As Election Looms Tomorrow, Many Voters Fear The Process Is Compromised.

As election looms, many voters fear the process is compromised
By Tony Pugh

WASHINGTON — Only days before millions of Americans cast their ballots, a climate of suspicion hangs over Tuesday’s national elections.

Accusations of partisan dirty tricks and concerns about long voter lines, voting equipment failures and computer errors are rampant, particularly in key battleground states such as Ohio and Colorado, where absentee and provisional ballots could decide a close election.

“Those will be the states that are the most prone to confusion and chaos and contesting if the election is close or within what some people call the ‘margin of litigation,’ ” said Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

State and local election officials and partisan watchdogs are on high alert for problems, as is the U.S. Department of Justice. All of them plan to post election monitors at potential trouble spots across the country.

The extra preparations will certainly help, but they haven’t stopped reports of phony election workers showing up at people’s homes to collect their absentee ballots or anonymous callers falsely claiming that voters can stay home on Election Day and cast their ballots by phone.

With concerns running high about voter intimidation, voter suppression and poorly trained poll workers, many think that the integrity of the elections – and the officials who run them – has been compromised. Nowhere is that more true than in Ohio, where Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has drawn the ire of Democrats by limiting the amount of time for early voting.

“It’s highly unfortunate that the rules of the game have become hyper-politicized,” Stewart said. “It sets up a situation that, regardless of who wins the election next Tuesday, the losers, especially the most zealous partisans, will be set up to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome.”

In their national bid to root out voter fraud, True the Vote, a conservative organization, might have hundreds of thousands of poll watchers nationwide. They plan to challenge voters they suspect of casting ballots illegally. This could slow the election process and force challenged voters to cast provisional ballots, which are counted later.

“True the Vote has reported instances of procedural and technical errors occurring in polls that could lend themselves to abuse,” a statement by group founder Catherine Engelbrecht said.

Labor organizations and voting rights groups, such as Common Cause and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, also will have poll watchers making sure that voters aren’t harassed, intimidated or threatened by True the Vote members.

“Our monitors will be monitoring their monitors,” said Judith Browne Dianis, a co-director of the Advancement Project, a national nonpartisan voting-rights organization. “We are going to make sure they’re not engaging in bullying at the polling places.”

The recent high-water mark for voter distrust is the 2000 presidential election, when Florida’s disputed votes and the resulting challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court left the race undecided for several weeks. The high court eventually declared Republican George W. Bush the winner.

Concerns about the 2012 election mushroomed last year as Republican state lawmakers around the country introduced a series of restrictive voting laws that critics claimed would affect minorities, college students and the poor disproportionately. Democrats and civil rights advocates argued that the laws were a less-than-subtle attempt to suppress the votes of some of the party’s strongest supporters.

Federal and state courts in 14 states ended up reversing, weakening or postponing many of the laws’ most contentious provisions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

In the aftermath of those legal battles, a skeptical electorate wonders whether innocent mistakes, computer glitches and human error by elections workers have a deeper, more sinister intent.

After printing the incorrect election date on voter materials printed in Spanish – but not in English – election officials in Maricopa County, Ariz., made the same mistake a week later with a different document. Once again, the identical English-language materials didn’t have the error.

County Recorder Helen Purcell called the errors regrettable but said accusations that her office was trying to suppress Hispanic voter turnout were “simply a malicious lie.”

Polling by MIT’s Stewart found that roughly 25 percent of voters had doubts about the legitimacy of the 2008 presidential election results. He said recent polls by others suggested that that rate hadn’t changed, nor had there been a large outcry for election revisions as there was after the disputed 2000 election.

“I think what has changed is that this has become a major rallying point for the bases of the parties and for surrogates of the candidates,” he said.

Accusations of partisan politics continue to roil Election Day preparations in Ohio, which many experts think could decide a close presidential race.

Earlier this week, Norman Robbins, the research director at the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates, a nonpartisan voter-education group, notified Husted’s office that thousands of requests for absentee ballots may have been rejected improperly statewide because of incomplete data checks by local election officials. The checks mistakenly showed that the applicants weren’t registered to vote. Nearly 900 wrongly rejected ballot requests were found in Cuyahoga County alone, Robbins said.

Cuyahoga is Ohio’s most populous county and a Democratic stronghold.

In response, Husted’s office sent a directive to county election offices to try “at least one (of four) additional search criteria” if the name of an absentee ballot applicant doesn’t appear on the list of registered voters.

These kinds of problems are why Stewart thinks Ohio is the wild card in a close presidential election.

“If Ohio is within 2 percent either way,” he said, “then I think we’re in for about a three-week period of high drama over the canvassing of that election.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/02/173485/as-election-looms-many-voters.html#storylink=cpy

FROM AN ASTUTE POLITICAL OBSERVER: POTUS BARACK OBAMA, MITT ROMNEY AND A HURICANE NAMED "SANDY".

Osi,

My contention is that Chris Christie took over the Republican Party last week. He owns it now. He took it right out from under Mitt Romney's nose. I'm not saying that was his plan, and I don’t even think it’s something he did consciously. I'm just saying that he is a natural politician, like Bill Clinton, and he senses an opportunity and acts on it almost without thinking.

By being so effusive in his praise for President Obama's work with him in Hurricane Sandy recovery, being next to Obama viewing the damage, slapping down Steve Doocey on F&F when Doocey asked him if Gov. Romney was going to tour damage sites with him--Christie has practically given the election to Obama.

I realize, of course, that Christie and Obama both understand the depth of the human suffering the storm is causing. They also know that their asses are on the line, that they'd both better do well with the Sandy recovery if either one of them is going to survive politically. Again, I don't think this is something politicians discuss; it's just something that the good ones understand without saying anything.

Christie knows his party is in trouble, even if Romney were to win. Romney, with his wishy-washiness, would be a poor leader of the Republican Party. Christie is not wishy-washy, and he's a born politician, a born leader. Republicans know that, and if he had wanted to run for President in 2012 he would have won the nomination with relative ease.

Christie will run against Hillary, probably, in 2016. Obama apparently has made a deal with the Clintons that he will campaign hard for her--even in the primary--as long as Bill does everything as he can to get Obama reelected. If it works out that way, don't look for Obama to say anything negative about Christie in 2016. He may disagree with his philosophy, his policies as governor; but he won't attack him. He will owe Chris Christie, big time. Assuming Obama wins next Tuesday, he has Christie to thank as much as Bill Clinton.

By the way, where was Romney during the immediate storm aftermath? Not in New Jersey, certainly. He was manufacturing photo ops in Florida. All Christie had to do was call, and Romney would have come running. But I don't think that call was ever made, and won’t be.

So, what do you think?

Eugene Robinson: Election Is A Struggle For National Meaning, Identity.

Eugene Robinson | Election is a struggle for national meaning, identity

WASHINGTON — This election is only tangentially a fight over policy. It is also a fight about meaning and identity — and that’s one reason why voters are so polarized. It’s about who we are and who we aspire to be.

President Obama enters the final days of the campaign with a substantial lead among women — about 15 points, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — and enormous leads among Latinos and African-Americans, the nation’s two largest minority groups. Mitt Romney leads among white voters, with an incredible 2-1 advantage among white men.

It is too simplistic to conclude that demography equals destiny. Both men are being sincere when they vow to serve the interests of all Americans. But it would be disingenuous to pretend not to notice the obvious cleavage between those who have long held power in this society and those who are beginning to attain it.

When Republicans vow to “take back our country,” they never say from whom. But we can guess.

Issues of race, power and privilege are less explicit this year than in 2008, but in some ways they are even stronger.

Four years ago, we asked ourselves whether the nation would ever elect a black president. The question was front and center. Every time we see the President and his family walk across the White House lawn to board Marine One, we’re reminded of the answer.

The intensity of the opposition to Obama has less to do with who he is than with the changes in American society he not only represents but incarnates. Citing his race as a factor in the way some of his opponents have bitterly resisted his policies immediately draws an outraged cry: “You’re saying that just because I oppose Obama, I’m a racist.” No, I’m not saying that at all.

What I’m saying is that Obama’s racial identity is a constant reminder of how much the nation has changed in a relatively short period of time. In my lifetime, we’ve experienced the civil rights movement, the countercultural explosion of the 1960s, the sexual revolution, the women’s movement and an unprecedented wave of Latino immigration. Within a few decades, there will be no white majority in this country — no majority of any kind, in fact. We will be a nation of racial and ethnic minorities, and we will only prosper if everyone learns to give and take.

Our place in the world has changed as well. The United States remains the dominant economic and military power; our ideals remain a beacon for those around the globe still yearning to breathe free. But our capacity for unilateral action is diminished; we can assert but not dictate, and we must learn to persuade.

Obama’s great sin, for some who oppose him, is to make it impossible to ignore these domestic and international megatrends. Take one look at Obama and the phenomenon of demographic change is inescapable. Observe his approach to international crises in places such as Libya or Syria and the reality of America’s place in the world is unavoidable.

I’m deliberately leaving aside what should be the biggest factor in the election: Obama’s policies. It happens that I have supported most of them, but of course there are legitimate reasons to favor Romney’s proposals, insofar as we know what they really are — and the extent to which they really differ from Obama’s.

In foreign affairs, judging by the most recent debate, the differences are too small to discern; Romney promises to speak in a louder voice and perhaps deploy more battleships, but that’s about it. Domestically, however, I see a clear choice. I consider the Affordable Care Act a great achievement, and Romney’s promise to repeal it would alone be reason enough for me to oppose him. Add in the tax cuts for the wealthy, the plan to “voucherize” Medicare and the appointments Romney would likely make to the Supreme Court, and the implications of this election become even weightier.

Issues may explain our sharp political divisions, but they can’t be the cause of our demographic polarization. White men need medical care, too. African Americans and Latinos understand the need to get our fiscal house in order. The recession and the slow recovery have taken a toll across the board.

Some of Obama’s opponents have tried to delegitimize his presidency because he doesn’t embody the America they once knew. He embodies the America of now.

BREAKING NEWS: Watch Retired General, Colin Powell, Endorses POTUS Barack Obama For President. So Where Are My Fellow Republicans To Call Him A Traitor (Notice They Would Have Called Him Our New George Washington Had He Endorsed PHONY MItt Romney -- WINK.)?!

YOU CAN WATCH THE LAST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE HERE. POTUS BARACK OBAMA BESTED MITT ROMNEY, WHO APPEARED LIKE A NOVICE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SUPPORTED NEARLY ALL OF OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICIES.

MITT ROMNEY WON'T RUN AGAIN IF HE LOSES, SAYS WIFE ANN ROMNEY ON THE "VIEW". WATCH.

Like A Man Who Woke Up From A Self Induced Semi Conscious Coma, POTUS Barack Obama "Comes Out Swinging The Fists" At Presidential Debate And Bests Rival Mitt Romney. Watch Debate Video Here.

DID YOU MISS THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE BETWEEN POTUS BARACK OBAMA AND CHALLENGER MITT ROMNEY? WATCH IT HERE.

AT TONIGHT'S DEBATE WITH POTUS BARACK OBAMA, ONE HAS TO WONDER WHICH MITT ROMNEY WILL SHOW UP ...

... THE REAL MITT ROMNEY OR THE EVER PRESENT PHONY ONE? HINT: THERE IS NO REAL MITT ROMNEY!

WATCH CBS "60 MINUTES" INTERVIEW WITH POTUS BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY.

WATCH PART 1, MITT ROMNEY: WATCH PART 11, POTUS BARACK OBAMA: WATCH PART 111, MITT ROMNEY: WATCH PART IV, POTUS BARACK OBAMA: WATCH UNAIRED EXCERPTS BELOW. FIRST UP MITT ROMNEY: NOW IT'S POTUS BARACK OBAMA'S TURN: HOW HAVE THE CANDIDATES DIFFERENT NOW THAN 5 YEARS AGO? WATCH:

Mitt Romney Gives Democrats Support For "Politically Manipulated" 2011 Tax Deductions Claim. .

Romney gives Dem support for tax deductions claim

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to supporters during a rally Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, in Las Vegas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney has given Democrats plenty of support for their claim he manipulated his deductions to keep his overall 2011 federal income tax rate above a certain threshold for political purposes.

The Republican presidential nominee, whose wealth is estimated as high as $250 million, seems hemmed in by a comment to reporters in August that he had never paid less than 13 percent in taxes in any single year over the past 10. Had he taken the full charitable deduction last year, it would have pushed his tax liability below 13 percent.

The former Massachusetts governor and his wife, Ann, could have claimed more in deductions, the trustee of Romney's blind trust said when the candidate's 2011 tax returns were released.

But, Brad Malt acknowledged, the couple "limited their deductions of charitable contributions to conform to the governor's statement in August, based on the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years."

The tax returns had become a distraction for his campaign, with Democrats and even some fellow Republicans this summer urging Romney, who earlier had released 2010 data and a preliminary 2011 return, to disclose more than two years of information. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had kept the issue alive by making an unsubstantiated and roundly criticized claim that Romney had not paid any taxes for 10 years. Romney's statement about the 13 percent level had come in reaction to Reid's assertion.

Romney probably also will be reminded by the Democrats by something else he said in August. Defending his right to pay no more taxes than he owed, he said, "I don't pay more than are legally due, and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president."

The decision of Romney's trustee to limit the use of charitable deductions in 2011 in order to adhere to the candidate's claim raised the eyebrows of several tax law experts. They noted that the trustee's use of numerous tax strategies gives Romney the rare ability to loosen or limit his tax payments at will.

The Romneys donated roughly $4 million to charities last year, but only claimed a deduction of $2.25 million on their tax return, filed with the Internal Revenue Service on Friday.

That information, Reid said, "reveals that Mitt Romney manipulated one of the only two years of tax returns he's seen fit to show the American people - and then only to 'conform' with his public statements. That raises the question: What else in those returns has Romney manipulated?"

Romney made $13.7 million last year and paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes, giving him an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. That was a bit above the 13.9 percent rate paid on 2010 income.

More precisely, the returns showed that the couple paid $1,935,708 in taxes on income of $13,696,951.

Romney, one of the wealthiest candidates ever to seek the presidency, paid taxes at a rate lower than taxpayers whose income was mostly from wages, which can be taxed at higher rates.

He released his 2010 returns in January, but he continues to decline to disclose returns from previous years — including those while he worked at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded.

The Obama campaign and other Democrats have pushed for fuller disclosures, reminding the Republican candidate that his father, George Romney, released a dozen years of returns when he ran for president.

Overall, the Romneys' main tax return and separate forms for blind trusts totaled more than 800 pages. The blind-trust income came from hedge funds and other complex investment vehicles. The couple also reported $3.5 million in income "from sources outside the United States," citing "various countries." Their forms included filings on holdings in Switzerland, Ireland, Germany and the Cayman Islands.

The Obama campaign accused Romney anew of profiting from millions invested overseas and "loopholes and tax shelters only available to those at the top." Apparently hoping to resolve basic questions voters might have, the Romney campaign released a letter from his accountants saying that in the 20 years prior to 2010 the Romneys paid an average annual effective rate of 20.2 percent, never lower than 13.66 percent.

On average, middle-income families — those making from $50,000 to $75,000 a year — pay 12.8 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation. But many pay a higher rate.

Romney is aggressively competing with Obama for the support of middle-class voters.

Obama's tax return for last year showed that he and his wife, Michelle, paid $162,074 in federal taxes on $789,674 in adjusted gross income, an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent. Their income plunged from $1.7 million in 2010, with declining sales of the president's books. In 2009, the Obamas reported income of $5.5 million, fueled by the best-selling books.

The Romneys' tax bill could have been lower. They gave $2.6 million in cash to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the documents show. They gave just over $2 million in noncash charitable contributions, including donations of stock holdings in Domino's Pizza, Dunkin Donuts and Warner Chilcott, to a family trust.

"It's interesting he didn't take the full charitable deduction," said Victor Fleischer, a University of Colorado law professor who has testified before Congress urging tightened oversight of private equity firms. "You're in a pretty lucky position when you can pay more tax" to get up to a 13 percent rate. Fleischer and several others said it was doubtful Romney could later take any unclaimed deductions in future years.

The Romneys had obtained a filing extension beyond the usual April 15 tax deadline.

Most of their income is from investments held in a blind trust, and campaign aides have stressed that he makes no decisions on how his money is invested. Capital gains and dividend interest is now generally taxed at 15 percent whereas the top marginal rate for income from wages is 35 percent.

The Romneys reported $6.8 million in capital gains, such as from the sale of stocks and other securities, and $6.37 million from dividends and taxable interest.

Several tax law experts said the newly released tax returns would not be much help in resolving critics' questions about his finances: whether he used aggressive tax-deferral strategies, what might be the specifics and tax advantages of his numerous offshore investments, what was the source of his massive retirement account and what are the details behind his now-closed $3 million Swiss bank account.

Analysts said details about his investments could emerge only if Romney provided far more of his tax returns, including files dating back to his years at Bain, the private firm he left in 2001. Romney, who initially refused to disclose any tax returns, has drawn the line at providing those from the past two years.

The Republican vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and his wife, Janna, whose returns were also released Friday by the Romney campaign, paid $64,764 in taxes on $323,416 of adjusted gross income in 2011, for an effective rate of 20 percent.

Just over half of their income came from Ryan's congressional salary. Other income flowed from rental real estate and other investments, including a trust inherited by Janna Ryan. They donated $12,991 to charity, including to the Boy Scouts of America.

WATCH MITT ROMNEY DECIDE TO LOSE THE VOTES OF THE 47% OF AMERICANS (HE CALLS THEM "VICTIMS") WHO DON'T PAY TAXES (WE DON'T KNOW IF HE PAID ANY BECAUSE HE WON'T RELEASE HIS INCOME TAX RETURNS) AND WHO DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS. MITT ROMNEY SEES HIS "JOB AS NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT" THEM!

WATCH THE SHORT VERSION OF THE VIDEO BELOW: NOW WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BELOW:

Thurston Howell Romney. Mr. PHONY!

Thurston Howell Romney By DAVID Brooks In 1980, about 30 percent of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today, as Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out, about 49 percent

In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large. Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years. This spending surge, Eberstadt notes, has increased faster under Republican administrations than Democratic ones.

There are sensible conclusions to be drawn from these facts. You could say that the entitlement state is growing at an unsustainable rate and will bankrupt the country. You could also say that America is spending way too much on health care for the elderly and way too little on young families and investments in the future.

But these are not the sensible arguments that Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser earlier this year. Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers. Forty-seven percent of the country, he said, are people “who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.

It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.

The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view — from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There’s no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn’t have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.

The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation. The formula he sketches is this: People who are forced to make it on their own have drive. People who receive benefits have dependency.

But, of course, no middle-class parent acts as if this is true. Middle-class parents don’t deprive their children of benefits so they can learn to struggle on their own. They shower benefits on their children to give them more opportunities — so they can play travel sports, go on foreign trips and develop more skills.

People are motivated when they feel competent. They are motivated when they have more opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour through the world’s poorest regions makes clear.

Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I’d put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category. But, as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.

Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?

Why [POTUS] Barack Obama Will Win The Election Easily.

Why Barack Obama Will Win the Election Easily
By BRUCE BARTLETT

Having failed rather spectacularly to correctly predict Mitt Romney’s running mate—I said it definitely would not be Paul Ryan less than 24 hours before he was picked -- I should probably avoid political predictions for a while. But as all those who make their livings in the prediction business know, the secret to success is to make so many of them that a few are bound to be right.

That said, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Barack Obama will win the election easily, at least in the all-important Electoral College. I have thought so for some time, but wanted to wait and see if the party conventions changed the political dynamics. They have; they have made me more certain of Obama’s victory.

Pollster Nate Silver has done an excellent job of assembling all of the known political data on where the presidential race stood as of Wednesday. His analysis leads him to project that Obama will beat Romney 51.2 percent to 47.6 percent in the popular vote, and 311 to 227 in the Electoral College where only 270 votes are needed to win. Overall, Silver gives Obama a 76 percent chance of winning the election.

Those who don’t follow the data intensively can be forgiven for not knowing what good shape Obama is in, because it is rarely reported in the mainstream media. There is a simple reason for this: it has a huge vested interest in maintaining the idea that the election is so close it cannot be called and will come down to the last vote cast on Election Day.

That is because the media have huge political operations with many highly-paid commentators who need people reading and tuning in daily to see if their preferred candidate has made any headway. There is also an enormous amount of data being produced daily that requires reporting and analysis—polls, campaign contributions, charges and counter charges, endorsements, gaffes and so on. It is not hard to spin this vast cacophony of material in such a way as to maintain the fiction that the election will be close.

The media, collectively, are in the position of sports announcers calling a game where one team is heavily favored and well ahead. They need to keep people watching so that advertisers will get value for their money. So they use every cliché in the book to tell viewers that “it ain’t over till it’s over” and about all the times the losing team has come from behind to win and so on and so on.

Of course, it goes without saying that once in a while, the losing team does make a comeback and wins unexpectedly. But by the time that happens, all except the winning team’s hardcore fans have changed the channel or left the stadium. However, we all know about those magical come-from-behind victories because the media have an incentive to hype them as a warning to fickle fans that they better stay tuned next time.

The same is going on today with the presidential race. Reporters and commentators are building up Romney’s chances and downplaying Obama’s to keep people interested. This was most evident last week when Republican speakers at their convention were played up and their talking points repeated, as if they were changing the course of the election as they spoke. This week, they are doing the same for the Democrats.

I thought the Republican convention went very poorly. And apparently, I was not the only one. According to Nielsen, television ratings for the Republican convention were down sharply from 2008. And according to Gallup, Romney’s convention “bounce” was the worst for any candidate of either party except for John Kerry in 2004—and we know what happened to him.

We don’t yet know what kind of bounce Obama will get, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it will at least be significantly better than Romney’s. Whereas few Republicans raved about any convention speech other than actor Clint Eastwood’s rambling conversation with an empty chair, Democrats are raving about those by Michele Obama, Bill Clinton and a number of other speakers at their convention.

To be sure, there are still opportunities for Republicans to level the playing field. There will be three debates between Romney and Obama, as well as one between the respective vice presidential nominees. They could make a difference, but history does not show that debates have much impact.

There is also the possibility that the Republicans’ huge money advantage could tilt the race in their favor. However, academic research and anecdotal evidence say that over a certain threshold, additional campaign spending has very little value. For example, in the 2010 governor’s race in California, Republican Meg Whitman outspent Democrat Jerry Brown $177 million to $36 million, yet Brown won very easily, 54 percent to 41 percent.

Too much money in a campaign can be counterproductive to a candidate. Voters become annoyed seeing the same commercials day after day, and resent intrusive phone calls and junk mail from candidates who do too much of it. But it is contrary to human nature for candidates not to spend whatever money is contributed to them. It has no value the day after the election.

In short, while it is not impossible for Romney to win the election, it is Obama’s to lose. As we get closer to the election and this view becomes widespread, it could influence congressional races and tilt the balance in the next Congress. Democrats may be able to free up some money budgeted for Obama to help candidates just needing an extra push to win, while Republicans may pull money from their winnable congressional races in hopes that still more advertising can pull the election out for Romney.

Finally, there is the unknown factor. I won’t even speculate on what that could be. But it goes without saying that Obama could royally screw up in some way or suffer from some foreign policy or other crisis beyond his control. But knowing what is known today, I am comfortable predicting an Obama victory in November.

Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/09/07/Why-Barack-Obama-Will-Win-the-Election-Easily.aspx#mS81GOk4eQLZ1pwT.99

The [Mitt] Romney Campaign Implodes After Libya.

The Romney Campaign Implodes after Libya
By BRUCE BARTLETT

As I discussed last week, I think Barack Obama will win the election easily. Now, with Mitt’s Romney’s gross miscalculation in politicizing the Libyan massacre, thereby failing the 3:00 am phone call test, the election is shaping up as a rout for Republicans. This new reality undoubtedly will affect the campaign’s final days and how both parties will adjust to it.

Republican frustration with Romney for failing to clinch what they have long viewed as a slam-dunk election was already evident among right-wing talk radio hosts even before the Libyan business. On Monday, Rush Limbaugh said, “If the Republican Party cannot win in this environment, it has to get out of politics.” That same day, Laura Ingraham said, “If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party.”

MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough succinctly listed the reasons why conservatives are disappointed with Romney in a Sept. 12 commentary:

Barack Obama has sunk America $5 trillion deeper into debt, has enacted the largest stimulus plan ever, pushed through the biggest health care boondoggle in U.S. history and posted trillion-dollar deficits every year of his presidency.
And yet unemployment is still over 8 percent.
Two-thirds of Americans still think their country is headed in the wrong direction.
And Mitt Romney is still losing.
Really???

How can it be that this man who turned around countless businesses, saved the 2002 Olympics and ran Democratic Massachusetts like a pro be the head of such a disastrous campaign?
Who was responsible for burying his moving convention video behind the bumbling bluster of Clint Eastwood?

Who told Mr. Romney to issue a political broadside against the commander in chief the day after a U.S. ambassador was murdered?
And who decided that Romney would use his general election campaign to stand for absolutely nothing? The Wall Street Journal described this ideological listlessness as a “pre-existing decision.” The question conservatives should be asking is whether that strategy was hatched by a misguided consultant or the candidate himself.

This points to a problem I have discussed previously entered this election cycle overconfident of their prospects. As a consequence, electability was not as significant a factor in the primaries as it should have been. Republicans indulged themselves by searching for the purest, most principled conservative to represent them. As the RealClearPolitics poll compilation shows, at different times Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all led in the polls before Romney finally pulled ahead late in the game.

Say what you want about these various competitors for the Republican presidential nomination, but none made their electability a factor in why they deserved it. It was always about how they would push harder to implement the agenda of the party’s most conservative members than the other guys would, whether the issue was abortion, tax cuts, spending cuts, being tough on Russia, terrorists, drugs or whatever.

Only Romney really made electability an issue, but he did so very, very quietly. The reason is that the primary basis of his electability was his moderate record as governor of Massachusetts, where he implemented a health care reform very similar to the one Obama enacted in 2010. The problem is that the protracted Republican primary forced him far to the right and required him to bury or repudiate just about everything he did as governor.

Many political observers nevertheless assumed that Romney would tack to the center at the Republican convention. But since tacking to the center for a Republican means moving to the left, this was not really doable. Romney’s position within the GOP is still too tenuous to allow him the flexibility of doing that. Indeed, given the issues he has emphasized during and since the convention, he is still working to solidify the Republican base, rather than reaching out to independent and undecided voters.

Personally, I suspect that Romney knows that he can’t win the election and is, at this point, trying to protect himself from personal blame for losing an easy election. I think that is one reason why he picked Paul Ryan as his running mate. The right loves him, because to them Ryan is everything Romney isn’t—charismatic, principled, versed in conservative/libertarian philosophy and dogma, detail oriented, charming and so on.

Having Ryan on his right flank means that Romney can’t be blamed for not running the sort of campaign the Tea Party wing of the GOP wanted. But it should have also given Romney the running room to tack to the center. Ryan would keep the natives from getting restless while Romney softened his party’s hard edges and put together a winning coalition that must necessarily include moderates. I think it is now too late for that.

In the near term, it is likely that some Romney contributors may hedge their bets by giving to Obama as well. This could even the money disparity between the two campaigns, although I have never thought that Romney’s money advantage was as valuable as commonly believed.

I also think that there will be some shift in the fortunes of Democrats running for House and Senate seats. The more secure Obama looks for re-election, the more Democratic money can be spared to help them. Moreover, I don’t think Democrats have yet fully exploited Republican vulnerabilities on issues such as abortion and sharp cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that Romney and Ryan have promised.

It’s also likely that Democrats will become more engaged in the election and Republicans less so. A Pew poll released this week found sharply rising Democratic enthusiasm after lagging Republicans all year. It is likely that next week’s polls will show a deterioration of Republican support for Romney in light of his Libyan gaffe.

Romney’s reaction to the Libyan crisis shows that not only does he lack the temperament to be president, but has no viable strategy for achieving victory. If there was a better way of turning off moderates than by being sharply partisan at a moment when most Americans wanted nonpartisan unity, I don’t know what it is. Romney deserves to lose.

Read more at http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/09/14/The-Romney-Campaign-Implodes-after-Libya.aspx#AdfDYWK5pYpB8oCh.99