Presidential Campaign

The debate between the presidential campaigns about the need for Mitt Romney to disclose his financial and tax records will not end until Romney relents and becomes transparent. If his business transactions were in fact legal, even if not popular, he might persuade the American public he is the person to lead our economic recovery. If, however, he crossed lines of law or acceptable propriety, in or out of the statute of limitations, he won't survive the drip-drip-drip of inquiries and disclosures that are inevitable. As crisis manager Lanny Davis always advises, get it out and over with, or it will kill you.

All headlines last week and over the weekend regarding Mitt Romney's address before the NAACP emphasized that he was booed during his speech. Many were surprised to hear that he accepted the invitation to speak before a group that would be so pro-Obama. However, GOP candidate Romney not only spoke, but he spoke about the same issues he speaks about before all audiences. He didn't back down from those topics he knew would be unpopular with NAACP attendees.

This should be reassuring to many in the conservative base who have doubted his conviction on issues of concern to them. In fact, he actually takes after his father, George Romney, who marched for civil rights among civil rights activists. It is refreshing to see someone in the political arena who doesn't just speak for applause and actually believes in America.

Were there years Mitt Romney paid no taxes? Did Romney remain at Bain Capital longer than he claims, as the Boston Globe suggests? How many offshore tax havens, shelters and accounts did he use, beyond the accounts in Swiss banks, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda that we already know about?

Assuming all Romney’s actions were legal, which I definitely do, will voters see them as morally scandalous for a person of his wealth? I believe they will, but the only way to judge is for Romney to do what his father and all presidential candidates in modern history did: Release them. Now. These are grave issues I raised in my last column about why so many voters distrust Romney. As they should distrust him.

Attorney General Eric Holder is on a special campaign against the state of Texas. Why? Because Texas now requires people to display photo identification when they head to the polls to vote. It is hard to understand why the attorney general opposes voter identification, unless the motive is to try any way possible to win the election. People must have an ID to borrow books from the library or drive a car; why should voting be any different? Giving someone the responsibility to choose who will lead one of the most powerful countries in the world should be valued just as much as having responsibility for a library book or driving a car.

The June jobs report couldn't come fast enough for Mitt Romney's campaign — anything to get off the topic of Romney's "politically dumb" moment, as The Wall Street Journal described it.

The Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's healthcare reform law left the campaign tongued-tied and the resulting blunder was so big all the fireworks in the country Wednesday couldn't keep it out of the headlines.

First, Romney's top aide called the individual mandate a penalty, and then Romney decided — after taking much conservative heat — to break from his family vacation, give an interview to CBS News and call it a tax.

First Mitt Romney passes a healthcare mandate in Massachusetts with financing the Supreme Court would call a tax. Then Romney runs away from his own law faster than a rabbit in heat. Then Romney's staff says Romney believes the Obama mandate does not include a tax. Now Romney says his staff was wrong, that the Obama mandate does include a tax, but the Romney mandate does not. Huh? I have heard of politicians being called two-faced, but as I count the Romney faces on healthcare, he didn't even stop at three-faced, he went right to four-faced!

In my last column, “France to the rescue,” I praised new French President Francois Hollande for an enlightened perspective that brings progress to a Europe dominated by conservative governments with backward economic policies. Since that column Hollande has succeeded in nudging European leaders toward economic growth at their summit in Brussels, while a number of European banks face investigations about fixing interest rates in a scandal that brings further discredit to those who masquerade their tolerance for greed and corruption in the costumes of Ayn Rand and Austrian economics.

From the bottom of my heart I want to express my most sincere thanks to Mitt Romney and his brilliant campaign strategists for using Hillary Clinton in their new ad attacking President Obama. It is no secret that I have suggested, and written in recent columns, that Obama should run with Hillary Clinton as vice president. The shrewdies of the Romney campaign have now made this prospect just a little more likely. Hillary Clinton has higher favorable ratings than Mitt Romney and Republicans in Congress combined, so:

Many of my colleagues are quietly saying that there was no enthusiasm for Romney early on during the primaries because of his moderate positions on many issues. However, a careful analysis of the situation demonstrates that he might in fact be the most appropriate candidate because of his background at Bain Capital.

His congressional colleagues selected him as their leader because he fostered a sense of confidence and went on to lead one of the very first successful venture capitalist companies in the world. This is a company that not only recognizes strengths and enhances them, but also recognizes weaknesses and eliminates them if they could not be strengthened or enhanced.

Now we know more. The Washington Post has exposed even more details about how Mitt Romney's personal wealth reached such great heights in significant measure by making money by destroying American jobs through investments in firms that specialize in these attacks against American jobs. If there is one politician who embodies the destructive values I harshly criticized in my last column, titled "Dictatorship of dollars," it is Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney's "jobs experience" was not only one of the worst records of any governor in America, Democrat or Republican, creating jobs during the time he served as governor (a record Romney runs and hides from today). Now we learn even more about how Mitt Romney pioneered, and immensely profited from, the exporting of American jobs and the destruction of the American middle class when he was leading Bain Capital.