Who donates so much money to Mitt Romney, and why?

After the release of a secret video of Mitt Romney during a fundraiser several months ago; during which he expressed his gratitude and undying affection for American voters, or would have if he had any idea that his words were being recorded, I got to thinking about the people listening to him at the $50,000 per plate fundraiser.  What motivated them to donate so much money?

Mitt Romney Supported By A Third Of Low-Income Voters: Poll

-The Huffington Post

 

 

Mitt Romney's campaign still has a shot at winning the Presidency in November, even though he has been stuck in either a statistical dead heat, or a few points behind in the race.  This map at the New York Times hasn't really changed in months.  It's predicting an Obama win of course, as some of you have no doubt drily noted.

But despite the fact that he constantly makes missteps, has an image problem even with other Republicans, including the folks at Politico, and can’t seem to make up his mind up about where he stands on any issue, he is still riding high just behind the President in opinion polls.

 

So the contender is feckless, undisciplined with his mouth while appearing to also be physically cut from a sheet of starch, and he casually dismisses almost half the American electorate as dependent victims.  His disdain for voters could have been guessed from all of the above, but it was cathartic to hear it from his own mouth, unvarnished by the need to pander to the group sitting in front of him.

It might have seemed risky, dismissing tens of millions of potential votes out of hand, but Mitt knew that none of those in front of him would say anything.  They are elite enough to buy a $50,000 plate.  If people who can afford to spend that much for dinner and some live entertainment think about social issues or society at all, they only do it in an abstract way related to how much slower the money pile will grow if the government appears to replace economic growth with concerns not directly related to making money.

I know there are many wealthy philanthropists.  Those people are almost universally NOT in the business of making money with money.  The group Mitt spoke to was primarily made up of men from the financial industry.   People at the C-level in the financial world don’t suffer fools lightly, unless he happens to be running for an important political office.

And yes, I just called Mitt Romney a fool.  You can stop reading here if you like, but this isn’t actually about him.  It’s about the motivation of wealthy financiers to inject as much money as fast as possible into Mitt Romney’s campaign, even though he appears to be a lame horse in this race because of his many proven failings.

Mitt Romney brought his little dog and pony show (the live entertainment) to this group of men, and talked about voters, his beliefs, how dependency on government was a bad thing, yadda yadda yadda.   He trotted out all his talking points and played the part of social conservative.

I submit that the listeners didn’t care.  They saw his mouth move and sound come out of it.  But that wasn’t what they were evaluating.

The real test for them was, given the money they had just spent, was whether or not Mitt Romney was their man.  Picture if you will a couple of C-levels at the Country Club discussing the upcoming election.

“But can we trust him?”

“Of course we can trust him.”

“There was that thing in Massachusetts.  How do we know he won’t try the same thing in the Big Chair?”

“Oh, that.  It’s nothing.  State politics is different.  Besides, we own him.  He’s our man.  He can do whatever he likes, as long as he leaves our interests alone.”

“Did we have any luck choosing his running mate for him?”

“We’re working on getting the name to float to the top, but there’s still time.”

“It worked pretty well last time didn’t it?”

“Yes, Cheney kept our boy in line for 6 years.  We started to lose him near the end, but it didn’t matter by then.”

“Those folks down at Bear and Lehman got hit hard though.”

“I told them, but they didn’t get out in time.  We took care of the ones that mattered.”

Fiction?  Of course.  There is no way a group of financiers would conspire to put someone in the White House.  It would be almost impossible even for them to hide machinations involving thousands of people in hundreds of locations.  They are happy to support efforts that chip away at the edges, such as voter ID laws, voting times, voting methods,

But they don’t have to buy the election.  They just have to buy the fiction that there is a battle between two opposing points of view, and keep Mitt Romney front and centre as long as possible.  It's icing on the cake that the dialogue that started 20 years ago with the Neocons has progressed to the point where without any convincing whatsoever, millions of poor Americans will continue to vote against their own interests.

The Romney campaign has been raising incredible amounts of money, beating President Obama four months in a row, although August numbers put the President on top.

Mitt Romney doesn't need to win for the financiers to be successful, because they have paid for people on both sides of the aisle.  All they need to do is convince enough people that there is a solid division in American politics.

Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts

So who has had worse job performance?  I think the answer is really starting to become clear.

Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts: p10 years ago tomorrow, the first of the Bush tax cuts was enacted. That 2001 tax cut was followed up by a second tax cut in 2003, passed after Vice-President Dick Cheney reportedly asserted that “deficits don’t matter.” The tax cuts were sold as necessary economic stimulus that would boost job creation and a moribund [...]/p

The Never Ending Policy Retread

From Mike Konczal comes this little gem of an article: http://www.nationalmemo.com/romney-will-solve-the-crisis-with-the-exact-same-gop-plan-of-2008-2006-2004/

Basically, through good times and bad, Republicans have promoted the same policies over and over and over, over the last decade.  The answers to the ever-impending end of the world - the apocalypse that is the impending doom of the United States, or rather, it`s loss of status as the pre-eminent power of our time - are always the same.

Talk about cutting spending, talk about reigning in `broken` `entitlements programs`, talk about making teachers more accountable.  Blah blah blah.  A never ending farce of political showmanship in the center ring, including enough glittering accoutrements such as military adventurism, (foreign) nation-building, marriage rights, reproductive rights, the Christian Nation only under which perfection can be achieved.

Over in the shadows is the House of Horrors, the Freak show, the dabblers in witchcraft, those who know with certainty so whatever they believe must be true.

Contrast this with the single issue retread that is the (if you can read French) Parti Quebecois in Quebec, Canada.  English readers can go here instead.  Initially and, objectively speaking not without merit, Quebec felt it was losing its identity as a French-speaking corner of North America.  Top business leaders tended to be anglophones, in the parlance of Quebec communications, and more often than not unilingual English speakers in a Canadian Province where the majority spoke French.

Quebec culture had since the colonial days and subjugation by English Canada (notwithstanding its accession to the Dominion of Canada, the first four Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick) been reliant on a strong Catholic tradition.  Even today, the church is the most obvious landmark in most Quebec towns.  For more information on the development of Canada go here. 

But two referendums on independence, and talk of a potential third, have left Quebec the needy child of Confederation.  Political uncertainty in Quebec caused many job losses in the 1970`s as businesses moved to Ontario.  On visiting Quebec City or Montreal today, one will be struck by the huge gap in growth between there and in the rest of the country.  While there are now pockets of growth, it is almost as if building stopped for a long time between the mid 1970`s and 2000.

Check out this interactive map of Canada and click on each province or territory to see how much money it receives from Ottawa.  Two numbers are important: Transfer Payments, and Equalization Payments.  Equalization payments are meant to mitigate budget shortfalls a regional government might experience, to ensure that a reasonably comparable level of government health and social services are available across the country.

Quebec receives almost 40% of the money available for equalization payments, despite comprising 25% of the population, and there is no sign that this is ever going to change.

Many in English Canada feel that it is nothing more than extortion, to keep Quebec happy and in Canada.  But it will never be enough.  While Quebecers get subsidized child care, the rest of Canada gets higher pension and employment insurance premiums.  The 80% of English Canada that lives in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario have been net contributors to national wealth for a long time.

Tonight the Parti Quebecois will form a government in Quebec,  and the battlecry `Quebec Libre` may rear its head again.

I say let them go this time, but remind them that there was a feeling amongst the Cree of Northern Quebec, that should the province separate, they would remain part of Canada, and would force the province to return to its pre-1912 boundaries, and re-establish the Ungava district of the Northwest Territories, or a new territory or province created in its place.

If Canada in not indivsible, then neither is Quebec.

Labor Day 1956: Young Republicans Salute Labor - Cornell University Political Americana Collection

It's almost like living in bizarro world, seeing this.

Labor Day 1956: Young Republicans Salute Labor - Cornell University Political Americana Collection

Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder

And she is the picture of a virtuous life?

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/a-bit-rich-ginas-call-a-hard-act-to-swallow-20120831-256cb.html

A person with inherited wealth who, according to the article above, has done little to contribute to her national wealth, who is so far removed from any sense of fair play that she forgets that the resources her mining company extracts are owned by the state as a representative of all the people in her country.

It's sickening and sad.

She looks like a lonely person, friendless, to whom only kind words flow because of the favours she is able to dispense in the form of jobs, or (which seems more likely because of her attitude) because of the fear she instills in those close enough to actually communicate with her directly.

She also looks extremely unhealthy, and I think she could do with a little hard work herself.  She looks like an abomination, gout-ridden, her granular, fatty exterior mirroring what must assuredly be a disease-ridden interior.

I have to admit I'm not a big fan of double-chins, even though I know some people come by them honestly.  The filth that she spews from her slimy, corpulent, wasted mouth merely fits the exterior too well.  She is a woman of no class, no learning, understanding, or empathy.

We can't all be rich, but she seems to think those who aren't are hardly worth her contempt.

I've decided on sadness.  I feel very sorry for her, bitter, ugly old hag that she is.