Preview of the RNC Convention Events for Wealthy Big Donors/Bundlers

Update 6:47 cdt, 25 Aug 2012:  On Monday the RNC will convene and then adjourn until Tuesday due to threat from Isaac.  Scheduled on Monday night were Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Nikki Haley.

More details from Michael Isakoff on the RNC Convention are emerging.  Looks like the House Republicans were not serious in 2007 when new rules about lobbying were enacted when the Democrats took over after Abramoff:

Craig Holman, a lawyer for Public Citizen, a campaign watchdog group that plans to "bird dog" the parties , says that this year's convention is showcasing new ways that lobbyists are bypassing ethics rules. Those rules -- enacted in 2007 after the Abramoff scandal -- barred lobbyists from throwing parties honoring "a member of Congress." So this year's parties don't honor individual members; they honor groups of members such as "A Salute to the House and Senate Energy and Commerce Committees" being thrown by a new consulting firm called GOP Convention Strategies at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. ("It's a Home Run!" reads the invite.) 

This is beyond disgusting out of Republican House members and lends credibility to the stories that keeping coming up that a lot of the GOP Committee people especially Chairman are bought and paid for by lobbyists.  More evidence that rules do not apply to Republicans today.  They should know better after the Abramoff scandal but it doesn't seem to have phased them as they march on to the drums of the lobbyist.  This article has additional information from the video of Isakoff on the Rachel Maddow show last night:

Tampa soirees will again blur lines between lobbying, partying
By Michael Isikoff, NBC News 

A "salute" to oil baron David Koch. A fete bankrolled by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. And gala bashes for GOP super PAC donors and bundlers featuring rock stars like Kid Rock and ex-Eagles guitarist Don Felder. 

Those are only a handful of the big parties planned for Republican delegates, lawmakers and donors in Tampa starting this weekend. While some of the events are well advertised and open to the public, private schedules, prepared for GOP fundraisers and obtained by NBC News, show that this year's convention will once again provide a unique opportunity for lobbyists and big dollar donors to wine and dine lawmakers -- and press their agendas. 

"It's a mega-fundraising, lobbying extravaganza. Everybody is in one place at one time," says Jack Abramoff, the onetime kingpin lobbyist whose 2006 conviction for corruption led to reforms aimed at cracking down on lobbyist influence peddling. 

Abramoff, who was released from prison last year and will be attending this year's GOP convention as a commentator for "Inside Edition," said that, as far as he can see, lobbyists and their lawyers have merely figured out creative new ways to skirt the rules -- a point underscored by the dizzying array of parties all week in Tampa. "Nothing has really changed," he said. 

Storm warnings notwithstanding, the action begins in earnest Sunday at 5:30 p.m. when one of Washington's biggest lobbying firms, Williams and Jensen (whose current clients include the American Bankers Association, Pfizer and Comcast, which owns NBC) hosts a kick-off reception and dinner for GOP delegates at a local eatery called Bern's Steakhouse. 

Just a half hour later, another big D.C. lobbying powerhouse -- Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock (current clients: the American Gaming Association, Ford Motor, J.P. Morgan and Time Warner Cable) -- hosts a dinner for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee at the Tampa Museum of Art. 

Then later in the evening, oil giant Chevron and Aflac, the insurance firm, are co-hosts of a "Two Step, Soul and Rock 'N Roll" party at the Historic Cuban Club; AT& T throws a competing party at Armani's Grand Hyatt; and the American Action Network, an "issues advocacy group" headed by former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, teams up with Citizens United for a bash at Liberty Plaza. 

But delegates may have to pace themselves. On Monday night, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joins the Distilled Spirits Council for a "Celebrate the Spirit of Tampa" party at the Tampa Aquarium. On Tuesday, Barbour Griffith and Rogers, another of Washington's biggest lobbying firms (among its current clients: Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and the country of Qatar) hosts the delegates at Stump's Supper Club with a party honoring its founding partner, Haley Barbour, who, after serving as governor of Mississippi and toying with the idea of running for president, has rejoined the firm. 

The next morning, Restore Our Future, the Romney super PAC, offers a private briefing for its mega donors by Sen. Marco Rubio. And that afternoon, the Republican Jewish Coalition throws a "Salute to Pro-Israel Elected Officials at the Crowne Plaza, where the coalition's major bankroller, casino kingpin Adelson, is expected to make a grand appearance. (That's not the only Adelson presence at the convention. According to a report in Yahoo News on Friday, the YG Network -- named for House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor's Young Guns -- has named a "Woman Up!" pavilion for Miriam Adelson, the mogul's Israeli-born wife.) 

(snip)

But perhaps the most conspicuous honoree is not any member or delegate: It's David Koch, the billionaire oil man who helps run energy giant Koch Industries. Along with his brother, Charles, Koch has emerged as one of the biggest and most controversial financiers of conservative advocacy groups that gave rise to the Tea Party and other GOP causes. On Thursday, Americans for Prosperity -- one of the Koch-backed groups that has announced it plans to spend $151 million on this year's campaign, including a new blitz of TV ads attacking President Barack Obama -- will sponsor "A Salute to Entrepreneurs Building America." 

There will be two men honored at the event: Art Pope, the group's chairman, and Koch. 

Source:  NBC News

*****

Michael Isakoff joins Rachel Maddow to explain how Partisans take a back seat to Big Money in Tampa. This is well worth watching if you really want to know what events are being held for the wealthy donors and the bundlers many of them anonymous:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It is shocking that the events are for the wealthy as the most important part of the RNC Convention this year but probably shouldn't be shocked the way the Republican Party starting with the candidate Romney has bowed down to the major donors.  Money corrupts would be an apt statement for a lot of the GOP today in Congress who vote like they are told by lobbyists of the wealthy.

If you are a partisan there is little you can attend outside of the Convention. You can vote on the Platform which is the most conservative in recent history and attend a function honoring one of the Koch Brothers for a reasonable price. They are going back to 1981 to choose the Oak Ridge Boys as the band for the biggest closed door event for wealthy donors and bundlers. Most events are closed to the media so they won't find out who the big donors are. Lobbyists are very prominent this time even though there are rules in place from the Abramoff scandal but as we have learned as this election season has progresses, rules don't apply to Republicans in 2012. Is Abramoff type lobbying scandal just around the Country for some Republicans in Congress?  BTW Abramoff is going to be reporting from the RNC Convention.  How ironic that he now gives a presentation on ethics and corruption in DC.  Guess prison time will do that to a person.

FYI!  The speech by Ann Romney has been moved to a network night from Monday night in hopes the networks will cover her speech.

Think you know MItt? Video that has been so talked about!

Received this in email this morning and unlike some conservative pundits who want to keep it buried so no one can view, this site is not being told what to do.  Conservatives need to take their blinders off that beating Obama is the most important thing in the world and are willing to sacrifice their principles by nominating Romney to beat Obama.  Now I am sounding like a 'democrat' according to the media who has redefined capitalism to mean it is all about making money and workers in this Country are supposed to shoved aside so CEO's and others can get million dollar bonuses.

There is an excellent blog post that everyone needs to read Venture Capitalism v. Vulture Capitalism at The Pink Flamingo who is another blogger that is not for sale and is willing to speak out.  She has been following what has been happening with the conservative media and how they have banded together to protect Romney and now Paul.

Even on the blogs if you dare criticize Romney, you get clobbered by his paid surrogates out policing the blogs.  A few 'real' conservatives are standing up like Erickson from Red State but not many.  They have swallowed the Bush 41 koolaid about Romney being more conservative then we think but his record and his comments say otherwise.  American conservatives are being scammed by the establishment Republicans once again like with Bob Dole.  This time instead of Buchanan, Ron Paul is the bogeyman to make Romney look better.

Now you can decide for yourself about Romney by watching this video the conservative punditry and especially the Romney group doesn't want you to see:

Think you know Mitt?

YOU OWE IT TO AMERICA TO WATCH THIS! It's not about Capitalism, it's about JOBS

Source: www.KingofBain.com, Winning our Future PAC

The lies and the attacks on Perry and Newt are so far over the top that it brings into question the motives of the Bush 41 Cartel  (Webster's Dictionary for word Cartel:   a combination of political groups for common action) because we have so-called conservative pundits who work for Clear Channel that belongs to Bain Capital whose attacks to protect Romney are getting so vicious that you have to wonder what is being hidden.

Have establishment Republicans and their pundits forgotten what small business is about.  The big corporations who pay the million dollar bonuses are not the backbone of this Country, it is the small business owner who is will to sacrifice to create jobs and takes very little from the company.  Their workers are much happier because they work for people who care about them rather than the mega companies that have come about with all the mergers.

Every time there is a merger employees lose more benefits -- there is no better example than Lockheed-Martin.  When it was two separate companies the people at Lockheed were always complaining about their company, and how they treated their employees and basically how crooked their management was.  My husband used to travel to the big Lockheed facility at Marietta, GA, during the C-141 stretch and the C-5 upgrades coming back with the same stories each time.  While at the same time the employees at Martin Marietta were happy with their company and their management.  My husband who also traveled to Martin Marietta in Denver always thought it would be a great company to work for with the attitude of their employees and management so what I am about to say comes from years of knowing people at both companies through my husband.

Martin was a mid size company with the reputation of accountability by telling it like it was on contracts and keeping the big guys like Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, and Grumman in line with doing the right thing for the war fighter.  Then in March 1995, the two were forced into a merger now called Lockheed-Martin by the Clinton Administration in what was a bi-partisan deal for the company.  The CEO of Martin along with others  received millions and millions to merge -- that is our tax dollars at work in order to form a mega company because some nitwits in Congress and the White House thought bigger would bring down the cost of Government contracts with less competition.  That sure backfired big time.  Lockheed rates for their contracts are astronomical.

Then we have the tale of what happened to benefits as they merged.  The pension plan that was grandfathered in the merger went downhill several years after the merger took place so in the end future hires can no longer join the pension plan.  This is why Lockheed-Martin is more than happy to see older employees leave who were a part of that original pension plan of Martin.  Slowly the benefits continued to erode as they merged with additional or bought out more companies and are still eroding today as witnessed by a decline in health benefits this year.

GE on the Aerospace side had taken over RCA where people had great benefits which went down when GE took over.  That wasn't the end because when GE merged with Lockheed, the RCA benefits went down even more just like GE and Martin Marietta employees.  RCA employees were totally shafted as the deal between Lockheed and Martin was not the same deal as between GE and Lockheed.  Former Martin employees fared much better with their pension than GE/RCA but today join former Martin people in being disgruntled by the MBA's running various areas of Lockheed-Martin.

This was not the only mega company that was forged in the aerospace community because we also have Northrup Grumman and Boeing who swallowed up smaller companies to get to the three mega aerospace companies we have today with costs for contracts through the roof.

As anyone who knows me understands I am not a union person but there was a reason the unions were started.  They were necessary to protect the employees from long hours, little pay, and bad working conditions while the company owners were becoming wealthy.  The Unions did a lot of good in this Country at the beginning but then they morphed into what we see today with overpaid, arrogant leaders who keep things stirred up in order to get more money in their pockets as union leaders are not honest brokers today.

If you want to move American forward, it is the small businesses of America who need the break not the major corporations who pay their CEO's big bonuses even when they are laying off employees or moving jobs overseas.  The American worker is getting it from both sides now -- major corporations and the unions which is why a lot have chosen to go to work for small business but that now seems to be a dirty word in the Republican Party as the so-called conservative pundits defend Big Business as the answer for jobs.  But then we have a lot of Republicans who are for Big Government as we have witnessed in the last two decades.

During the days of the oil bust in the 80's, we had independent oil producers take care of their workers helping pay their bills, get food on the table, and making sure they kept their homes.  Instead of continuing to take the big bucks out of the companies they owned for themselves, those oil producers gave back to their employees and their families.  Not sure you will see that in most sectors but domestic oil and gas have been made the boogeyman from some from both parties.  Why?

Palin: Mitt needs Bain show & tell

Several sites were saying she should be considered for VP again.  First of all I could never see her running with Romney after last time with McCain.  After this from her interview on Fox News, she will be upset the Romney camp and will be blacklisted with the rest of the conservatives by the pseudo conservatives running the show at the RNC and Romney campaign not to mention Bain Capital, Crossroads, Clear Channel for starters. Read this and burst out laughing because what she says is so true.  She had to answer all kinds of questions as the VP candidate in 2008 but Romney expects a pass.  Are Republicans supposed to vet all candidates but the elitist Romney?  Sure sounds like it.  Palin gave me the chuckle for the week with this interview.  This sounds like the Sarah Palin most of us supported in 2008 not the Fox pundit version we have seen for the last few years.

Palin: Mitt needs Bain show & tellBy: MJ LeeJanuary 12, 2012 06:37 AM EST

Sarah Palin suggested Wednesday that Mitt Romney has brought his Bain problems on himself by not being transparent and offering no documentation for the claim that he created 100,000 net jobs and refusing to release his tax returns.  “Gov. Romney has claimed to have created a 100,00 jobs at Bain, and people are wanting to know, is there proof of that claim and was it U.S. jobs created for United States citizens? … And that’s fair,” Palin told Sean Hannity of Fox News when asked about Rick Perry’s “vulture” caplitalism charge against Romney. “That’s not negative campaigning — that’s fair to get a candidate to be held accountable to what’s being claimed.”  Palin added, “Nobody should be surprised that things about Bain Capital and maybe tax returns not being released yet and maybe some record not being as transparently provided to the public as voters deserve to see right now — don’t be surprised that that’s’ all coming out today.” Excerpt:  Read More at Politico

Dead People Receive Ballots in NH Primary

Once again we ask, "Why is New Hampshire the first primary in the Republican Party?"  They should change their motto from "Live Free or Die" to "Live Free or Cheat" because that it exactly what they did.  Is this going to be another state like Iowa who refuses to let people look at registrations and who voted?

Video Proof Dead People Allowed to Vote in NH Primary
January 11, 2012

Video footage provided exclusively to The Daily Caller shows election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday.

The bombshell video is the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas.

Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said.

“Live free or die,” an election worker told one of the investigators in the video. “This is New Hampshire. No ID needed.”

Yet we have some State Chairs saying we should encourage independents and Democrats to vote in our primary to get more Republicans.  Excuse me but I will take a pass.  Guess I am old fashioned to believe that only 'live' Republicans should be choosing our nominee.  Guess the dead voters have now become bi-partisan and appear in both primaries.  I sided with the Democrats on their being mad about Limbaugh's Operation Chaos in 2008 wanting Republicans to register and vote in the Democrat primaries.

Same so-called conservative pundit who now compares Rick Perry to Castro. Getting more obvious by the day IMHO and that of others Rush is bought and paid for by Clear Channel which happens to be owned by Bain Capital.  It was all over the net about Limbaugh's comments and the fact that Bain Capital owns Clear Channel.  Connect the dots because it is not difficult when you hear some of the pretzel wording by the so-called conservative pundits in defense of Romney.  On the other hand maybe Rush is defending Bain because he knows Clear Channel gave him his big fat contract of $400M while 3,000 employees of Clear Channel are purged.  More non-reporting by the so-called conservative media.  The cover-up for Romney and stories like this on Rush is getting worse by the day.

This idea that Romney and Bain Capital are not to be criticized makes one wonder what are they hiding.  Don't expect the so-called conservative media to find out what that is -- we will have to wait for the Obama campaign to drop it in October or even earlier.  Why wait?

Sarah Palin called for Romney to release his tax forms yesterday  Has Romney ever released his birth certificate, passport, medical or his college records like we were all demanding of Obama?.  If you are running for President, you should be an open book.  Guess that only applies to Democrat candidates from the hypocrites in the so-called conservative punditry.  They had enough to say about Obama's background and his lack of records but for Romney fellow Republicans are taken to the wood shed for dare bringing up Bain Capital.  I side with Perry and Newt that what Bain has been doing may not be against the law but it is not capitalism and it sure is not ethical to put the US taxpayer on the hook when they take millions.  If you don't believe me, check this out and then tell me why Romney and his time at Bain Capital are off limits.

Rush is Wrong - and Increasingly So ...

When I received this in email, I knew it needed posted on here.  Quit listening to both Rush and Hannity after their attacks on women who came forward against Cain.  They lost all credibility when they started attacking the women and defending Cain.  I have been wondering for weeks who pulls their strings. The astronomical worth of Limbaugh's eight-year pact: $400 million contract from Clear Channel at the same time Clear Channel was on its back and laying off thousands people.  That made no sense until you realize that Clear Channel is owned by Bain Capital, Romney's company which is supposed to be in blind trust.  If you believe that Romney doesn't know what is going on with Bain, then I still have some swampland for sale in AZ.

From Huffington Post in 2008 which also applies for 2012:

What would it cost to buy the support of just about every nationally-syndicated neocon talk show host in America? About $19.5 Billion, which is what Mitt Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners have agreed to pay in a leveraged buyout agreement with Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio station owner in the country. 

Ed. Note -- The original story we posted on this topic inferred that Bain Capital had recently purchased Clear Channel Communications. That is not true. The transaction took place in November of 2006. The facts remain that Bain earns a share of Clear Channel's profits and that Mitt Romney, while a retired partner, still earns money from the private equity firm. 

Did Bain Capital buy Clear Channel in order to get Mitt Romney the Presidency?  It is a question that begs answering but Rush, Hannity, and Beck along with others don't even acknowledge when propping up Mitt that they work for Clear Channel that is owned by Bain Capital started by Romney and where a lot of his campaign donation bundlers are employed or have ties to Bain.  This is an interesting read on the situation from someone who actually is conservative:

Rush is Wrong - And Increasingly So ...by ThinkFirst 

Arrogance, pride, and isolating-fame and wealth seems to make for strange bedfellows.
Rush Limbaugh has made a recent pattern of curious, if not disturbing choices, often echoed in the afternoon by me-too talker Sean Hannity. 

I confess that I used to find both of these men entertaining and informative, and I used to think of them as core voices for the conservative movement, but no longer. I am hearing the same from other conservatives - not faux-Republican faux-conservative Libertarians, and not Tea Party self-promoters and fad-chasing fan-boys and fan-girls, and not single-issue zealots, but solid fiscal and social conservative Republicans who have many years of Party activism behind them.

The pattern includes defending the antics of inveterate self-promoter, faux-billionaire, and television clown Donald Trump in his effort to influence the GOP Primary. Somehow they never mention his bizarre financial and personal history and his non-conservative views on multiple issues. 

It also includes James Carville-like personal attacks on the women who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment, and anyone who came to their aid, plus attacks on the woman who said she’d had an 11-year affair with him. Somehow they never get around to mentioning his support for non-conservative policies such as affirmative-action, his opposition to school choice vouchers, his church where the radical-Muslim Malcolm X is listed as a “major influence", that Godfather’s Pizza was never “near bankruptcy” before he took over, nor the fraud of 9-9-9 (which was really 9-9-9. 9-0-9, 3-3-3, and all of that mess a stalking-horse for an European-style 30% national sales tax). 

The pattern continued with a sneering attack on critics of faux-conservative Newt Gingrich; including even more-solid conservative men than Gingrich such as Senator Tom Coburn and Steve Largent. No mention of Gingrich’s history of preferring the company of fellow-adulterer Bill Clinton to fellow Republicans during his stint as Speaker, no mention of his apparent preference for Democrats following his sudden-resignation in the face of pending ethics violation investigations, no mention of his foolish endorsement of Hillary-care (a parallel socialist healthcare policy to Romneycare and Obamacare), and his equally-foolish endorsement of Al Gore’s global warming hoax alongside Nancy Pelosi. 

Meanwhile, the 11-year highly-experienced and successful conservative Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is ignored - or ridiculed - by these two men. The most-conservative candidate with the strongest resume and the fewest skeletons of the remaining serious candidates (Gingrich, Perry, and Romney) and they all-but dismiss and ignore him. Why?
Were Rush and Hannity to make as big of a thing of Perry (and aggressively defended him against attacks) as they have Cain and Gingrich, and even Romney before that, he’d already be back over 20%. 

One has to wonder what is the anti-Perry influence of Mormon-controlled ClearChannel, Romney-sympathetic Drudge, and Romney/Rove-controlled Fox on these men. Or is there some other explanation? 

One also has to wonder if either of them even remember what it means to be a genuine conservative with the desire to support a candidate whom one respects for their leadership and their lifestyle and not merely for their convenient campaign promises. 

Rush and Hannity disappoint so badly that, in-common with many fellow conservatives and former regular listeners, I almost never tune-in any more and when I do I soon just turn off ‘the noise’ and do something else. 

As the Internet comic goes “Disappointed, disappointed, disappointed …” 

Source:
http://nevils-station.com/qp_files/quam-plures/blog5.php/2011/12/05/rush-is-wrong-and-increasingly-so

Are Rush and Hannity along with other Clear Channel pundits doing the bidding of Clear Channel for Bain Capital who supports Romney 100%?  Time will tell, but would explain why they are ignoring other candidates to concentrate on Romney and Newt who are not conservative when you look at their records.

Politico: The Bain of Mitt Romney's campaign from 1994 -- Kennedy versus Romney

With the release of these two ads on Politico from the Kennedy/Romney race in 1994, it brings up the question, 'Who wants Romney out of the race?'  Must admit my mouth dropped open when I played the ads on Politico after I read the article on Hot Air "Is it time Romney to start Rick Perry?."  With all of this touting by Romney of his background as a business leader, you would think he would have thought twice before running after reading about his time as head of Bain Capital.

Earlier this spring, Republican Donald Trump became the first presidential aspirant to attack Romney’s record in the open, dismissing him as “a funds guy” who would “buy companies, he’d close companies, he’d get rid of the jobs.”

Wondered at the time what Trump was saying and why.  No need to wonder now as these ads plus this Politico article tell the story of a company under the leadership of Romeny that was more worried about making money then what happened to the employees of the companies they bought.  Not a very good background to run in today's environment.

If you take his background at Bain and add his tearing down a 3,000 sq ft home in La Jolla, CA, to build a $12M mansion on the ocean, you are left with the impression Romney will not play well people who are struggling to buy gas and groceries.  Have no problem with Romney building this mansion, but he is the one who while talking to a group of unemployed people in Florida declared he was also unemployed.  How is building a mansion by a GOP candidate going to relate the average person?  The timing couldn't be worse.  One article suggested Romney was building the Western White House which would be highly presumptuous of him.

Romney has his shares of Bain Capital in a blind trust, but continues to hire some of his advisors from Bain.  In late June Bain Capital's Hedge Fund's Brookside Capital was fined by the SEC for shorting stock which they bought back in three days.  You can find article after article going back into the 1990's of how Bain operated -- buying up business while Romney was the head of Bain, laying off employees, and then bringing them back at lower wages and benefits.  It is all in the archives.  It wasn't brought out in the 2008 race because the United States economy was not in such bad shape with so many laid off.  Now his time as head of Bain Capital is being put under the microscope which brings up the question of 'Why is he running again?'

Whatever the reason for the release of these two unused ads from 1994 along with this article is open for speculation by a number of people:

The Bain of Mitt Romney’s campaign

• Print

Mitt Romney's work at Bain & Co. ties him to countless controversial decisions. | AP PhotoClose

By ALEXANDER BURNS | 7/14/11 4:37 AM EDT 

A company that laid off hundreds of employees. A federal “bailout” to rescue a failing bank. Mitt Romney, at the center of it all. 

It’s a story line from a tough Democratic ad that was teed up for use against Romney in his 1994 Senate campaign in Massachusetts. The spot, which was provided exclusively to POLITICO, never actually aired. But it’s all but certain that some version of its allegations will surface in the GOP primary or the general election, if Romney makes it that far.

That ad would have been damaging had it appeared when it was produced nearly two decades ago. But it could take on new relevance in a 2012 campaign in which Romney is touting his business career as proof he can lead a national economic turnaround.

In every one of Romney’s campaigns, his time in the private sector — specifically, at the consulting firm Bain & Co. and the investment company Bain Capital — has been a double-edged credential, branding him as a savvy businessman while tying him to countless controversial management decisions.

Romney has served as chief executive at both Bain Capital, which he helped found in the 1980s, and Bain & Co., which launched his career and which he later helped rescue from failure. 

When Romney challenged Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994, it was his connection to those two companies that played a significant role in sinking his campaign as Democrats tied him to plant closings and worker firings.

In 2012, those familiar attacks from his past are likely to take on a new potency: Bain Capital’s involvement in mass layoffs is likely to haunt Romney in a campaign focused on jobs. Other episodes, such as the claims that Romney benefited from a federal bank rescue, could ignite anew.

The never-aired “bailout” ad, shared with POLITICO by one of Kennedy’s advisers, remains an unexploded grenade from that race, underscoring Romney’s vulnerability in the first presidential election fought since the 2008 financial meltdown.

According to former Kennedy advisers, the ad never ran because it turned out to be unnecessary: Kennedy had already broken Romney with a series of ads tying him to layoffs in Indiana.

The commercial — produced for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee by the firm Doak, Shrum, Harris, Carrier, Devine — highlights Romney’s role in turning around Bain & Co. during its financial distress.

“The way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout of $10 million,” the ad says. “The rest of us had to absorb the loss … Romney? He and others made $4 million in this deal. … Mitt Romney: Maybe he’s just against government when it helps working men and women.” 

The facts of the Bain & Co. turnaround are a little more complicated, but a Boston Globe report from 1994 confirms that Bain saw several million dollars in loans forgiven by the FDIC, which had taken over Bain’s failed creditor, the Bank of New England.

Romney aides pushed back strongly on the Democratic charge that Bain & Co. received anything like a TARP-style “bailout.” While the FDIC is a government agency, it is funded by deposit insurance payments rather than taxes. The agency agreed to reduce Bain & Co.’s liability to the Bank of New England, but didn’t pump new funds into the flagging firm. Other Bain creditors also took a haircut in order to avert the company’s collapse.

Excerpt:  Read more at Politico

Here are the two Kennedy ads: 

Larry Kudlow: Perry's Red-Hot Bernanke Slam: A Much Needed Defense of the Dollar

Larry Kudlow says that Perry shouldn't have used the words he did but his analysis was correct.  We did find out one thing from all of this that Perry and the rest of us out here including the Dallas Fed Governor and two others from Minneapolis and Philadelphia are not the least bit happy with Bernanke while Mitt Romney thinks he is on the right track defending Ben Bernanke and dollar depreciation.

Updated in red to reflect the current status of Romney and Bain Capital according to his aides:  Guess Romney likes making lots of money with Bain Capital (Held in a blind trust for Romney and his wife) but Bain was fined  (Jun 29, 2011 ... Bain Capital's hedge fund unit has agreed to return $1.7 million it earned for buying stock it had shorted three days earlier).  We don't need more of the same that we have been seeing.  We need someone who is not afraid to make the hard cuts to spending and get this budget balanced and who is not involved with Wall Street.  (NOTE:  Romney was the founder of Bain Capital which when he headed the Olympic Committee he had to resign and then as Governor of Massachusetts he put everything in a blind trust but has continued to be surrounded by Bain Capital people for his campaign)

There was an interesting discussion on Bloomberg this afternoon with  Michael Aronstein and David Stockman about how Bernanke and the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low is helping the big guys and hedge funds grow wealthier while the individual who is trying to save is getting basically nothing on their savings.  Both believe there should be no Fed involvement in interest rates as it is harming the recovery.

Personally could care less what the financial world has to say as they are part of the reason for this mess with thinking that bigger is better in banking and taking bailouts of our tax dollars to prop up failing banks, car companies, and others holding their hands out.  Here is the money quote of the article:

So in this sense Governor Perry’s red-hot riposte at Bernanke may be shrewd politics, as well as a much needed defense of stable money. 

Kudlow details what happened after QE2 Bernanke pushed which ended up being a terrible decision but Romney thought it was the right decision.  There is an old saying 'follow the money' and we are seeing the rich get richer off the low Fed interest rates for borrowing.  Too much borrowed money and not enough investment of a companies of their own money IMHO.

Very interesting take by Kudlow:

Perry's Red-Hot Bernanke Slam:  A Much Needed Defense of the Dollarby Larry Kudlow 16 Aug 2011

Gov. Rick Perry scorched the political pot on Tuesday with a red-hot rhetorical attack on Fed-head Ben Bernanke. When asked about the Fed reopening the monetary spigots, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we — we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.” 

And that wasn’t all. In a more controversial slam, Perry said, “Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous — in my opinion.”  

Pretty rough stuff. Very aggressive language. And undoubtedly way too strong. It was poorly received in the financial world. 

No, Ben Bernanke is not a traitor. This is a policy dispute; it’s not a matter of patriotism. However, and this is an important however, the rest of Perry’s statement suggests that his analysis of Fed policy is right on target.

In other words, wrong words, right analysis. 

The Texas governor, who by some polls is the new Republican presidential frontrunner, went on to say, “We’ve already tried this. All it’s going to be doing is devaluing the dollar in your pocket. And we cannot afford that.” 

Well, to me that is exactly right. 

Let’s take a quick look at Bernanke’s QE2 record of pump-priming: The dollar fell 12 percent on foreign-exchange markets. The consumer price index jumped over 5 percent at an annual rate. And the $600 billion cheapening of the greenback led to skyrocketing commodity prices, including oil, gasoline, and food. That oil-price shock is one of the principal factors behind the 0.8 percent first-half economic stutter. As a result of the jump in inflation linked to QE2, real consumer incomes slumped badly and consumer spending fell substantially. 

Before QE2 the economy was growing about 2.5 percent, even though it was already blunted by numerous tax and regulatory obstacles. But the cheap-dollar oil shock came perilously close to pushing us into recession. 

So it turns out that Governor Perry — even with his overly strong language — is a pretty sharp economic and monetary analyst. 

In fact, Perry’s analysis actually channels recent Fed dissents by reserve-bank president’s Dick Fisher of Dallas, Charles Plosser of Philadelphia, and Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis. They object to a two-year extension of the Fed’s zero-interest-rate policy, and in so doing have set down an opposition marker to a potential new shock-and-awe quantitative easing that many fear will be announced on August 26 when Bernanke speaks to the Jackson Hole Fed conference. 

What makes Governor Perry’s position even more interesting is his disagreement with former governor Mitt Romney. When I interviewed Mr. Romney this past April, he essentially defended Ben Bernanke and dollar depreciation. “Well, you know, I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy,” Romney said. “He’s doing as good a job as he thinks he can do in the Federal Reserve.” 

Meanwhile, in Tea Party circles on the campaign trail, Mr. Bernanke is a much disliked figure. Rightly or wrongly he is blamed for bailing out Wall Street. Also, many view Bernanke’s massive money-creation, along with President Obama’s massive federal-stimulus spending, as another failed big-government attempt to revive the economy. 

Tea partiers and many others fervently believe in lower spending, reduced tax burdens, and a regulatory rollback to strengthen small businesses and the private economy. They’re against Uncle Sam just throwing money at problems. 

So in this sense Governor Perry’s red-hot riposte at Bernanke may be shrewd politics, as well as a much needed defense of stable money. 

The former Air Force captain piloted C-130 missions in Central and South America, North Africa, and all over Europe. He’s a fierce devotee of American exceptionalism and greatness. My hunch is, just like Ronald Reagan, Governor Perry views a collapsing-dollar threat as more evidence of American decline. And he is very much opposed to any of that.   

Source:  Big Government