Based on all the sensational headlines last weekend, you might think there was actually a new break in the Bain Capital timeline story. The Huffington Post has: “Ed Gillespie: Mitt Romney Retired Retroactively From Bain.” MSNBC has: “Former Bain Capital partner says Romney was ‘legally’ CEO of Bain Capital Until 2002.”
Retired retroactively? Legally CEO? Sounds scandalous, but there’s nothing new when you get past the headlines. The New York Times report today concludes the exact same thing media fact checkers and the Romney campaign have been saying since January — Romney de facto left Bain in 1999, when he went to run the Olympics. His name remained on the SEC forms until the company a.) established that he wouldn’t return to a management role after the Olympics ended, b.) transitioned to a new ownership structure:
Indeed, no evidence has yet emerged that Mr. Romney exercised his powers at Bain after February 1999 or directed the funds’ investments after he left, although his campaign has declined to say if he attended any meetings or had any other contact with Bain during the period. And financial disclosures filed with the Massachusetts ethics commission show that he drew at least $100,000 in 2001 from Bain Capital Inc. — effectively his own till — as a “former executive” and from other Bain entities as a passive general partner.
An offering memorandum to investors in Bain’s seventh private equity fund that was circulated in June 2000 also suggests that Mr. Romney was no longer actively involved in managing firm investments at the time. The memorandum, first published by Fortune, provides background on the “senior private equity investment professionals of Bain Capital.” Eighteen managers are listed; Mr. Romney is not among them.
On another filing with Massachusetts officials, Bain Capital listed all of Bain’s directors and officers for 2001. The form lists Michael F. Goss as “president, managing director and chief financial officer,” along with seventeen other managing directors. Mr. Romney is not among them, suggesting that while he still owned Bain’s management company, he was not an officer of the company.
Let’s remember why this story matters. Not because Romney may have been engaged in criminal behavior by listing himself on the SEC forms, as the Obama campaign has wildly and absurdly alleged. But because the Democratic Party wants to tie Bain’s business errors between 1999 and 2002 around Romney’s neck. The response from Bain insiders — several of whom are Democrats and Obama donors — has unanimously been that Romney was not involved with management after he left to run the Olympics. In other words, there’s no standing to hold him accountable for flawed investments and management blunders after that date.
That brings us to the second reason why the Obama campaign has been hammering this issue: they’re desperate for Romney to release his tax returns from the past five or ten years. According to Democrats, that’s the only way he can actually put this issue to rest.
I’m personally with the Obama campaign on one point — Romney should release more tax returns. Politician transparency is important, and releasing multiple years of tax returns, as presidential candidates traditionally have, would be in the public interest.
But you can believe that without buying into the Democratic Party’s conspiracy theories about the Bain timeline. From the evidence already out there, there is zero reason to believe that Romney was actively managing Bain after 1999.
Well, for Romney to run as a "turn-around specialist" for the American economy as a whole and then seek to disassociate himself from the "flawed investments and management blunders" of a company with which he was still an associated executive of record while getting $100,000 isn't a clear and bright message. The message then is "my experience is my credentials and the firm I led my calling card until my leave of absence when it got sucky." Which leads back to the initial decision to deep-six the calling card of Mr. Governor for Mr. Turn Around which leads back to the central ambiguities of his political identity. And, to tell the truth, most of us don't naturally imagine a situation in which our leaving a company would require two years of mulling and sorting out. Unless the leave of absence was considered, hmmm, temporary. In that temporary sucky period.
Is working for Bain Capital somehow illegal? Ed Shultz' soapbox notwithstanding, is it or was it in some way illegal?
"Indeed, no evidence has yet emerged that Mr. Romney exercised his powers at Bain after February 1999 or directed the funds’ investments after he left, although his campaign has declined to say if he attended any meetings or had any other contact with Bain during the period." n nBecause Romney's campaign "has declined to say if he attended any meetings or had any other contact with Bain during the period", The New York Times and its fellow travelers will pull out all the stops to reveal what Romney now seems desperate to conceal. n nAnd when it's all said and done, Romney will not emerge from the Republican Convention as the party's standard bearer.
It's a strange thing, one the one hand he seems to be directing a pretty paint-by-numbers political strategy–on the other hand he's hobbled by these internal contradictions or reservations or something. Obama, whose biography is, well, a "composite" saves himself a lot of time by knowing what key plumage to flourish on his peacock's tail and when, actual accomplishments or lack thereof to one side. This helps him be, however, a cheerfully accomplished liar in the crunch. Romney, who is running on an actual biography brings all these nuances and hesitations to it.
Regardless, the guy's political message becomes hopelessly muddled if he is all for Bain Capital up to 1999 and then tries to walk away from its performance or ethos or methods 1999-2002. What's there to be ashamed of? And this follows his walking away from the resume point of being, gosh, governor of a state. As a relative lefty here I don't understand how he got drawn into parsing his career at Bain into this good part and that part which wasn't really his. Praise it all brother, yesterday, 1999, 2002, today, tomorrow, next year, into the future. Never explain, never apologize.
Remember Mitt Romney, the Etch a Sketch man? That's what we're seeing.
Romney did nothing that any shrewd pregnant businesswoman hasn't done — he took the equivalent of maternity leave in 2009 — leaving all his options open to return to Bain when the Olympics were over (i.e. after the child was old enough to be left with a sitter) and then he did the equivalent of deciding to have a second child and stay home with them — he decided to run against "Chopper" Jane Swift in the Mass Governor's Primary. n nSo he did what the shrewd woman would do — change his leave of absence to a retroactive resignation so as to clean up his resume. And this is a problem because?