Romney Takes Off the Gloves in Final Florida Debate     Permalink

Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney understood the stakes of last night's debate in Jacksonville, Florida. If Gingrich wins Florida, he gets to continue his quest for the nomination, at least until Super Tuesday (March 6). If Romney wins Florida, it is all over but the shoutin'. Most of the time last night, Romney played offense and Gingrich played defense, which worked to Romney's advantage. To do well, Gingrich has to get everyone's blood boiling, and he really didn't do that much.

The candidates fought on immigration, taxes, health care, and other topics, with Romney landing a few punches, but Gingrich not so many. At one point Romney said that if one of the people working for him had ever proposed colonizing the moon (as Gingrich has proposed), Romney would have fired him on the spot. Gingrich had more than enough opportunities to stick it to Romney and always let them pass. It is as if his debate performance depends on what kind of a mood he happens to be in at the moment. In contrast, Romney has shown that he is disciplined and when push comes to shove, he is able to focus and fight. That will come in handy during October, since Obama is a skilled debater.

All cub reporters are told that "man bites dog" is a better story than "dog bites man." Politico clearly understood that when it ran the headline "Newt bites Wolf, Wolf bites back" about Gingrich attacking moderator Wolf Blitzer and Blitzer hitting right back. The scuffle arose when Blitzer asked Gingrich if he was satisfied with Romney's financial disclosures. Instead of saying: "No, what is Romney hiding in all those tax havens?" he told Blitzer that was a nonsense question. Blitzer shot back: "Mr. Speaker, you made an issue of this, this week, when you said that Romney lives in a world of Swiss bank and Cayman Island bank accounts." But even after this, Gingrich continued to evade the question until Romney piped up: "Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to make here?" It was truly a Pawlenty moment (in Iowa, then-candidate Tim Pawlenty coined the word "Obamneycare" and got a lot of publicity about it, but when asked about it in one of the debates, he copped out, and that was the end of Pawlenty).

At one point, Romney said: "I have earned the money that I have. I didn't inherit it." He may later regret that he said that. His father, George Romney, was CEO of American Motors and extremely wealthy himself. When he died in 1995, probably his fortune went to his wife, Lenore. When she died in 1998, most likely it was split over their four children, so Mitt probably got a quarter of his father's fortune. No doubt there will now be calls for Romney to release the estate tax returns of both his father and mother. The amount Mitt got was probably small potatoes compared to what he has earned himself, but more calls for him to release more tax returns followed by more stonewalling will just reinforce the idea that he is hiding things.

Rick Santorum turned in a decent performance last night, which helps Romney in two ways. First, some conservatives will vote for him Tuesday and most of those votes would otherwise have gone to Gingrich. Second, this is the moment of truth for Santorum. The meeting of top evangelical leaders in Texas 2 weeks ago where they agreed to consolidate around him was too little too late. Santorum is not going to be the Republican nominee and he surely knows that. He has a choice to make within a day. He can stay in the race, get 10-15% of the vote Tuesday, then if Romney wins, congratulate him on his all-but-certain nomination. Or, like Rick Perry, he can drop out a few days before the vote, endorse Gingrich and help him win Tuesday, letting the battle continue for another month. If Santorum had really messed up in the debate, he might be inclined to throw in the towel, but with a good performance, he may be tempted to take time off from campaigning this weekend and devote it to praying for a miracle.

Ron Paul also showed up last night. He invited the other candidates to go bicycle riding with him in Texas. He may well be the last man standing after Santorum and Gingrich eventually give up, but he is irrelevant unless he decides to run as a Libertarian.

This race has had 100-years-worth of twists and turns and who knows what will happen this weekend, but if Santorum stays in and Romney wins on Tuesday, it is going to be tough for anyone to stop him.

Romney Failed to List Foreign Investments on Legal Form     Permalink

The Los Angeles Times has been studying Mitt Romney's 2010 tax return. By comparing the tax return to the financial disclosure form Romney filed last August, it has discovered 23 investments on the tax return that were not on the financial disclosure form, including 11 in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg, all notorious tax havens. Romney said these omissions were minor errors and he would correct them. But he won't be able to correct them fast enough to stop DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz from making commercials suggesting that he is a sleazy multimillionaire who hides his money in foreign tax havens and then fails to report this as required by law. It is already clear that the major line of attack the Democrats are going to use against Romney is his wealth and his ability to do things that ordinary Americans can't do. It is jujitsu like what the Republicans used against John Kerry in 2004, using his history as a military hero against him.

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