The term "swiftboating" will forever be linked to the disgusting, dishonest campaign that George Bush ran against John Kerry. The term has become synonymous with this type of campaign. We could say that Senator Max Cleland of Georgia was swiftboated in 2002, or even John McCain was swiftboated by George Bush in the South Carolina primary in 2000.
The Romney campaign is in such disarray lately, some journalists are describing it as "Self-Swiftboating". From around the country, from journalists and pundits and politicians, people are demanding that Mitt release his tax returns. The never ending Bain attacks from the Obama campaign has the Romney campaign curled up in the fetal position in the corner crying that Obama isn't being fair. And we haven't even begun talking about his time at the Olympics or his stint as Gov. of Massachusetts.
I know this is only July, but if the Romney campaign can't handle this now, what are they going to do in October when things start getting really rough? But the strangest thing of all is, THEY KNEW IT WAS COMING! Every time Mittens runs for something, the same issues come up over and over again. Why weren't they prepared, and since Romney knew he was going to run for president for about a decade now, why didn't he clean up his personal finances?
Below is some of what people are saying about the Romney Self-Swiftboating campaign.
From James Fallows at the Atlantic:
On Swiftboating Mitt Romney
...
Mitt Romney's business background is not only his "presumed strength"; it is the entire basis of his campaign. His argument against Obama, which he presents with admirable discipline and clarity on the campaign trail, is:
Obama said he would fix the economy;
the economy is still broken;
I am a business veteran;
therefore I am the man to fix this mess.
If you don't buy the last two parts of this sequence, you don't buy anything about Romney's candidacy at all. Romney's team must know this. They should have been prepared to handle it, since it was much of the case made against him by Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, et al during the primaries.
...
Romney's resistance to releasing his tax returns compounds this problem in a uniquely destructive way. It is uniquely problematic for him because:
his own father set such a memorable and dramatic example in the other direction by releasing 12 years' worth of tax returns during his 1968 presidential campaign;
the tax returns are unavoidably connected to the controversy over his Bain background (for how long was he getting paid by them? at what level? for what duties? with what shelters? and foreign accounts?)
perhaps worst of all, the campaign builds in a continuing story about when and whether he is going to release them. The daily drip-drip-drip story is almost always more damaging than bad news dumped out all at once. The longer the campaign delays, the more it guarantees coverage of the question: What is in these returns, that could be worse than the grief the campaign takes for not releasing them?
From Erin Burnett CNN:
Huffington Post
"It's time, Mitt, time to put them on the table," she said, hoisting up a huge pile of the tax returns Romney has already released. "If he refuses to release them, it is because one, he had a lot more money in tax shelters in prior years than he does now," she continued. "Two, he did something shady. Or, three, he's stupid."
From Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado:
CNN interview
But I think they have a different sensitivity if people are avoiding paying taxes in the United States and making profits on business done in the United States but finding ways to avoid taxation. I think as more facts come out, that's something that of all the Bain-related stories might have some serious ramifications in terms of how normal people deal with it.
What's interesting, especially with the independent voters, is there is a level of patriotism. We pay our taxes, and we don't want to pay any more taxes, we hate government waste. But everyone should pay their share. It's almost visceral.
When you've got business oriented governors from Western states calling you out for your business practices, you've got a real problem.
I could post a lot more, but you've seen so many of the stories. This is a completely inexplicable position for the Romney campaign to be in, when they knew for so long that this was coming. So as the Romney campaign keeps making things worse by ignoring the demands to turn over his tax returns, and by dodging questions about his Caymen and Swiss bank accounts, and by coming up with ideas like "retroactive retirement"... can the Romney campaign forever be linked to the term "Self-swiftboating"?