One of the oldest tactics in a political campaign is to try and turn an opponent’s biggest asset into a big liability. One of Mitt Romney’s supposed big pluses is that he’s a “conservative businessman” who knows how to fix the U.S. economy. But now Newt Gingrich (or at least his SuperPac) is launching an expensive attack to rebrand Romney as a Gordon Gekko whose “business success comes from raiding and destroying businesses.”
Well, the Wall Street Journal has just published its investigation into Romney’s record at Bain Capital. The paper “examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain’s involvement and shortly afterward.” And here is what it found:
– 22 percent either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses.
– An additional 8 percent ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost.
– Ten deals produced more than 70 percent of the dollar gains.
– Bain produced about $2.5 billion in gains for its investors in the 77 deals, on about $1.1 billion invested.
– Overall, Bain recorded roughly 50 percent to 80 percent annual gains in this period, which experts said was among the best track records for buyout firms in that era.
– Academic research has shown that buyout firms during this era exited their deals on average after 5½ years, but in a large percentage of cases were still involved beyond seven years. … If the Journal analysis were limited to bankruptcies and closures occurring by the end of the fifth year after Bain first invested, the rate would move down to 12 percent. That measure would exclude several cases that have brought Mr. Romney political criticism, where businesses filed for bankruptcy seven or eight years after Bain’s investment.
So what does it all mean? Well, Romney was really good at what he did. And what he did, initially, was venture capital, providing dough to promising young firms. Then he shifted to private equity, which is a) using investor money and debt to take over a business, b) attempting to improve its profitability (which may mean cutting the workforce), and c) selling the business and, as the WSJ, puts it, “extracting fees and sometimes dividends.”
That a small percentage of the Bain deals supplied most of the firm’s gains should not be surprising. Whether you are a private equity investor or a do-it-yourself stock picker, the key is letting your winners run and limiting the damage from your losers. Recall how famed Fidelity manager Peter Lynch always said he was on the hunt for “ten-baggers”—stocks where he could make ten times his original investment. A good investor is like a good baseball hitter. A .300 average gets you on the all-star team.
See, there is something called the Pareto Principle, which states that “for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes.” So 20 percent of customers, taxpayers, and investments often produce 80 percent of sales, revenue, and profits. Bain certainly seems to be another example of the Pareto Principle at play. A few big winners such as Staples, The Sports Authority, and Domino’s may well have provided a good chunk of the firm’s profits and the “over 100,000″ jobs created (which Team Romney needs to do better at substantiating).
Of course, Romney and Bain weren’t in the game to create jobs. They were in it to make money for their investors and themselves. Then again, the same would go for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Warren Buffett, and just about every other successful entrepreneur and investor you could name. But that is the miracle of free-market capitalism. The pursuit of profits by creating value benefits the rest of society through higher incomes, more jobs, and better products and services. This isn’t “destructive creation”—like, say, crippling U.S. fossil fuel production before “clean energy” sources are viable—but “creative destruction” where innovation and efficiency sweep away the old and replace it with a more productive and wealthier society. This is one my favorite examples:
Through this constant roiling of the status quo, creative destruction provides a powerful force for making societies wealthier. It does so by making scarce resources more productive. The telephone industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators in 1970, when Americans made 9.8 billion long-distance calls. With advances in switching technology over the next three decades, the telecommunications sector could reduce the number of operators to 156,000 but still ring up 106 billion calls. An average operator handled only 64 calls a day in 1970. By 2000, that figure had increased to 1,861, a staggering gain in productivity. If they had to handle today’s volume of calls with 1970s technology, the telephone companies would need more than 4.5 million operators, or 3 percent of the labor force. Without the productivity gains, a long-distance call would cost six times as much.
Romney’s career as a free-market capitalist? No apologies necessary.
Companies like Woolworth’s, A & P, Zayre, Drexel, Burnham & Lambert, Gulf & Western, Morrison Knudsen, Digital Equipment Corporation, MCI and now Kodak were all household names. They got eaten up by the competition and lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Heck, even Apple Computer Corporation was near bankruptcy just a few years ago, and would have were it not for the invention of the iPod. Who would have thunk it? That is capitalism and the benefits that we derive from it.
Denying the benefits of capitalism envinsions govt as the arbiter and allocator of capital and resources. We only need to look at the basket-case examples of Venezuala, Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, Zimbabwe, the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries, and the old Communist China to see how inefficient, awful and destructive that command economies by govt fiat did to stifle innovation and the human spirit. We need to be more forceful to all the income-redistribution fools that populate govt bureaucracies to see how inefficient govt was.
Ah! The leftists trot cleverly out NASA as an example of innovations of a govt enterprise. However, the leftists fail to mention that while NASA had many highly trained engineers and scientists, most of the real innovation was done by private firms that bid and received contracts competitively for this enterprise. Firms like National Semiconductor, Harris Electronics, IBM, Intel and Fairchild and BBN worked for the govt using private enterprise and private engineers and hewing to the principles of business efficiency.
The leftists are rather disingenuous when they mention NASA, but then again, when will the leftists admit that the war on poverty has really become a war, enabled by the left, to become a war on poor minority families. The leftists in academia are especially corrupt and dishonest about the crippling effect of big govt on innovation and on increasing standards of living, but again, when was the left about to admit their mistakes. Their arrogance, craving for power, self-importance, and hubris blind them to the truth and to facts that are axiomatic to others who don’t hold such lofty positions. This is the same hubris that led to the crony capitalism and picking on winners and losers. This is recently evidenced by the fiascos at Solyndra, Fisker, A123, and even the Chevy Volt.
Romney is right, and is too cautious to admit it, as the PC crowd is in full-throated war against capitalsim. It is somewhat expected from hard-core leftists, but it is really disconcerting coming from Santorum, Gingrich and Perry. Maybe the fact that these three have never really spent much time in the private sector–save as lobbyists–might explain who is a true Republican contender against Obama. These aforementioned, with their continuing attacks against Bain and Mitt, appear increasingly to be pretenders to mantle of conservatism and capitalism.
Your examples leave out used-car salesmen, Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeons, weeping televangelists, cut-rate undertakers, ambulance chasers, and the directors of teen slasher pics. All totally cromulent capitalists peddling perfectly legal wares and yet none of whom I would hire to snake my clogged toilet.
Romney himself touts his business skills, which are apparently those of a commissioned vulture. Fine, I see turkey buzzards getting fat on road kill all the time, and I neither want them shot nor fail to realize they clean the roads for free. That doesn’t mean I want them as president or would forgive them for creating the prototype for Obamacare.
Let Romney go back to Bain Capital. No capitalist will disapprove.
I take it your name is a copy of a corrupt communist? Quite apt. Used car salesmen, ambulance chasers (I think you voted for one for VP) and the like are an unavoidable consquence of one very American thing: FREEDOM.
Ponder freedom an whether or not you can endure it. If not, you can have some clarity in your thinking: you oppose freedom.
I don’t begrudge anyone working hard, working smart and making a decent living. But 26 million a year? Isn’t there such thing as enough? I make less than $50,000/yr and I have a house, a car, a family and a really happy (albeit simple) life. There’s making an honest buck, and then there’s clawing every dime you can from others with no regard for their humanity.
What would you do with your Talent if you were smart enough to figure out how to earn $26M a year? Would you pick up your family and move across the country to accept a position with alot of responsibility that has been scandal infested and dedicate three hard years to fixing it? Oh, and then doing it for absolutely no salary?
Or, would you agree to be in charge of a Geographical area where 85% of everybody around you does not agree with you ideologically, do it for four years, take all kinds of heat while you improve the Geographic Area’s finances to the tune of $5B (twice the success that you had in 15 years of work back when you were working for yourself) and then again take no salary for your efforts???
Romney’s record of giving and of service is impeccable…. Very few people would serve others as much as Romney has served his faith and his country….
He “agreed to be in charge” of a state? You mean he shamelessly sold his convictions and values down the river so those same 85% would elect him because they thought he was “one of them”, not the freedom-hating, rights-trampling conservative he purports to be now? Romney has never “served” his faith and country, only used them to go further in a powerplay that is looking increasingly like George W. Bush: “Gotta best Daddy!” Bush was focused on getting that second term, unlike his dad; Romney has been, since the early 1990s, singularly focused on going where his dad could not: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Drew,
This debate is getting a bit nasty, but kudos to you for making a modest living AND living within your means. That last part is crucial and what many Americans seem to be missing nowadays. But if your boss offered your $26 million/year (which would imply you were generating several times that in value) would you turn it down? I doubt it. Most likely you would take it and eventually disperse most of it to things you believe in like charities, universities, or even consumer goods which would create jobs for others. I bet there’s someone making $20k/year right now wondering, “Why does Drew need $50k/year? Doesn’t he know how to say “enough is enough?” Anyway, if the rest of America could live within modest means like you we’d be in much better shape, so despite the fact that I don’t agree with your perspective, I respect your style.
Of course Romney doesn’t need to apologize for pursuing a perfectly legal profession any more than the Cat Lady’s plastic surgeon, the directors of slasher flicks, or weeping televangelists have to apologize for their actions. All perfectly legal money making enterprises with nothing to criticize because support for free market capitalism necessarily means that every voluntary transaction is for the best. Or doesn’t it?
This supporter of laissez faire is not afraid to say that Romney is a creep with the morals of an ambulance chaser and the looks of a used-car salesman. Gingrich the budget balancer is right on to call Romney on his lack of creative accomplishment.
This comment is completely void of reason- Gingrich supports the type of capitalist gains and creativity Romney is a MASTER of, and then is the epitome of hypocrisy now as he’s attacking them. He wasn’t complaining so much when he was in league with Freddie Mac!
Is your issue with Romney’s performance at Bain Capital or with the concept of venture capital? Romney did what he was hired to do at Bain Capital and did it well so that leads me to believe you have a problem with the concept of venture capital. If that’s the case, it’s time to read up on its purpose is and how it positively contributes to a strong and robust free market economy. Quite frankly, your posts sound anti-capitalism.
I believe this is exactly what the american people are asking for, to shrink the federal government and reduce the federal debt. Exactly what he did at Bain. It sounds to me like Mitt Romney is qualified for the job as president. what’s the hangup Newt, except you are so jealous of Mitt!
“These aforementioned, with their continuing attacks against Bain and Mitt, appear increasingly to be pretenders to mantle of conservatism and capitalism.” — EruditeEarlobe
Well said. I think we need to make sure that we don’t confuse what it means to be a “conservative”: We have religious conservatism, social conservatism, economic conservatism (formerly liberalism) and neo-conservatism (formerly foreign policy progressivism), etc. Romney is the best man to lead the economic conservative revolution we need now. [While I applaud Ron Paul for raising many important issues, I don't think he has the experience or personality to govern.] Mitt Romney should not apologize for making capital go to work for the benefit of the economy. He was a successful business leader and he’ll be a successful president.
There is also a practice of taking a company that is doing alright, saddling with debt, taking a payday, and destroying the company.
We need to know how many examples of that type exist in Bain’s background before we nominate Romney.
That seems different than creative destruction.
Yiasou! James, for setting the record straight.
Somebody needs to tell Newt that everybody has their day, and his day was yesterday.
Romney’s got the business acumen to straighten out the mess that these bozos haven’t been able to fix, despite spending three years trying.
Besides, look at it.
How could he possibly do any worse?
What’s more, five members of this administrations “Senior Economic Advisors” group have jumped ship, including Christine Romer.
This WH would have us believe that the figures for the last couple of months mean it’s time to start singing “Happy Days Are Here Again”.
Fortunately, I believe the American people are beginning to realize this is a regime that can’t find its butt with both hands.
All this is smoke from a bunch of despite candidates that are getting their butts kicked! Romney has a unique experience of private business that these other POLITICIANS can’t compete with. This experience, regardless how people are talking about it…gives him the ability to know how the economy really works.
The reason government services are so expensive is that they are contracted out. The profit motive acts as a surcharge resulting in the government paying more for a product or service than it gets. Any accountant would know this. If government did the same work – it would result in greater efficiency, since they wouldn’t have to worry about profits and the burdens of shareholder demands. Of course, labor unions are another problem all together. If you want cheap products and services, you need to eliminate both labor & the shareholder based economy. They place cost accounting strains that drive prices up.
This is so stupid I don’t know where to start. Gov’t. services are inefficient because they are outsourced? Please give just one example of gov’t. being more efficient than a private business. Is the profit motive standing in the way of UPS and Fed-Ex? Is that why are they’re doing fine and the USPS is billions of dollars in debt?
Things would really be cheap if nobody made any money. Why don’t we all just work for free? Think how cheap things would be. True, since we had no money, we still couldn’t buy anything, but we could marvel at how cheap everything is. That would also be a quick way to your labor free economy. If everyone worked for free and couldn’t buy anything, people would quit making things and then we would have no labor to perform.
Money, or rather what it represents, is why people work, why they make products or perform services for other people. It doesn’t make them greedy, it makes them rational. Profit is what we call money that is being made by a company, which, in the end goes to individuals. A company won’t last if it doesn’t make a profit. Government agencies stay open well past their usefulness becasue there is no mechanism for determining whether the service being provided is being sought, or if the services are wanted, if they are being provided in an efficient manner. Profit is that mechanism.
Companies competing to make a profit is what increases efficiency and drives down prices. What gov’t. agency has ever reduced prices? Are stamps cheaper than they were 10 years ago? My computer is.
If those folks responding to this little vignette actually believe Mitt is fit to run the country, really? I’ve been right to hold republicans in contempt the past 30 years. It’s always amazed me that the right, especially the magical-thinking religionists of the right, hold capitalism in such high regard, especially the “unfettered, invisible hand of the market writ large!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” beliefs which more often than not holds a middle-finger out to those who actually work for a living, or a fist, regarding “free-market” capitalism as a natural force in the same league as plate tectonics or tides instead of the rigged craps game favoring the corrupt, and lucky, more than the peasants working the fields. I thought idolatry, suckling sleepily at the breast of Mammon, was frowned upon by the holier than thou herds?
If you don’t hold capitalism in high regard, what economic system do you prefer?
My guess is that Steve Hansmann is a Germany-related Communist. It fits his name and the ignorant, atheistic, anti-prosperity, class-warfare loving, hate-based diatribe he just spewed. Nothing personal intended by this observation; it just fits, IMO.
And while using the wealth of the US created by people contributing to an imperfect, but effective capitalistic system to feed himself while attempting to dismiss that system. And he probably expects thinking people to listen to him. Arrogance is an important driver in liberalism.
Obviously you have not read Reckless Endangerment.
Im glad Romney knows what to do with bad companies because alot of our government is bad and needs to downsize the gov’t
Starting where, Johnnie? Get specific?
So if Romney used his same business plan for the US that he used for his private company what would he do? It seems that someone has to lose in order for someone else to gain. Where would the money come from to balance our budget? You can bet it wouldn’t come from his rich buddies. That leaves the rest of us or other countries. Maybe he can invade Canada and get loans on their monuments and government buildings and public park land and use that money to pay down our debt. Then he will have to raise taxes on the Canadian citizens so high that they cant pay then so the government takes over their property. Then the American governemnt owns most of Canada’s land and he can sell that property to make more money to pay down our debt. Then he might as well disband the Canadian governemnt and the Us takes it over. So he has done great things for the US while he destroyed another government and bankrupted most of its citizens.
That sounds exactly like what he did as a private businessman so i guess thats what he would do as President. I also assume Republicans would say that thats the way the world works so it all OK and acceptable. Its funny that all these “religious” people think that the rich walk on water. What happened to ” The meek shall inherit the earth”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “Love thy neighbor?” Is there somewhere in the bible where it says these don’t apply to business?
Religious republicans are all total hypocrites. the bible has been used to justify wars, slavery, white supremacy, killing of billions of people over the last 2000 years. It can be used to justify anything any person wants to use it for as long as he can convince others that it benefits them too. i guess as long as you can find a passage in the bible to justify killing o rbankrupting others then its considered Ok to religious people. You are all hypocrites.
Another ignorant person who thinks markets are a zero sum game and that if someone is rich or makes a profit its because they exploited, stole from and cheated others. You probably agree with Obama that the internet has destroyed more jobs than it has created and you don’t understand this concept of ‘creative destruction’. Creative destruction is also known as the ‘silver lining of capitalism and it is the biggest differentiator between capitalist and communist/socialist economic models. If you understood this you would get the authors point that Romney/Bain invested in companies to improve their value, by making them more productive and therefore they produced more with fewer inputs which in turn makes the US wealthier. They weren’t buying perfectly healthy companies just to bankrupt them as you insinuate. Yes some companies they couldn’t save, sometimes they lost all the money they invested. You imply they did this just to bankrupt others and eliminate jobs. Sure they reduced some jobs and inefficiencies but these jobs would have been lost anyways if these companies continued to under perform and then go out of business. These people who lost jobs are then freed up to work in other more in demand areas of the economy. In the end the economy was better off because of Bain/Romney because they increased the overall economic capacity and output. Last your budget balancing analogy was stupid and incoherent, why is more money needed to balance the budget? Why is the idea of going after the bloated inefficient government programs to force efficiency improvements and reining in entitlements we will never find enough rich people to tax to pay for precluded? Your another disciple of class envy and warfare which if you got what you wanted we’d have a standard of living like Cuba has.
John: Re “… Romney/Bain invested in companies to improve their value, by making them more productive …” ??? NOT TO MAKE MONEY FOR Romney/Bain, sometimes even when the company/companies went belly up? Companies were never bought to “part out/sell off” to JUST MAKE MONEY for the buyers? What “product” did Bain produce? .
“It seems that someone has to lose in order for someone else to gain. ”
What?
Ken. Ken Ken: Think $1000 pie, about to be divided up. How do do it? Some get more than others? Got it? (PLEASE see Tax Breaks, who gets them and how/how and who they pay to get what they want. Example: Federal loans, loan guarantees, price supports for agribusiness, coal, Oil, gas … poor little companies, industries that need our help).
“Given the precedent set by past seven Presidents and Presidential candidates of releasing multi-year tax returns why is Romney making an exception?” Because he has a lot to hide, apparently.
He’s the only one that knows what’s in there, and apparently he’s made the judgement that he’s better off having us suspect the worst, rather than us knowing whats in there, which apparently in his mind is worse than anything we’re likely to imagine.
Possibilities include:
(1) He ended up with 120 million in his 401K by the trick of agreeing with Bain to grossly undervalue the market value of his stock, then a few years later have the stock get unvalued to the stratosphere.
(2) He participated in the tax avoidance amnesty program of a few years back, avoiding major tax penalties or prosecution.
(3) Any one or more of the other borderline legal but very bad smelling tax dodges– “in-kind” trades, “no-risk” trades, no-risk write-offs, the list is almost endless.
And BTW he HASNT even released all of his 2010 return, he very conveniently left off the foreign investments and deposits form. Very convenient.
And his argument that it would be “bothersome” to collect the tax data is a crock too– he supposedly collected 23 years of the stuff to show to McCain in 2008.
Ajay Jain===================================================================================
Republicans betrayed their own conscience when they went against established Republican principles like the MANDATE over healthcare which was a Heritage foundation issue popularized by Gingrich.
Obama did more than his share to UNITE but the Republicans were out to oppose for opposing sake and not following any policy or principles. In the famous words of Minority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell the Republicans were out to defeat the Obama agenda even if it went against established Republican policies set by past precedent.
Mitch McConnell was out to make sure that President Obama remains a one term President and see where it has brought the Congress and its public esteem.
Gingrich out of his own admission was out to defeat Obama from the day he was sworn in as President.
You can not justify the Republicans as the “loyal” opposition as is the case in most mature democracies. They have been out to get President Obama by hook or by crook. A leader can meet the opposition half way but can not fold completely to their whims and fantasies like that of the current Tea Party affiliates.
Republicans will loose in 2012 just like they did in 2008 but with a smaller margin because of the dark money of Billionaires due to Citizens United verdict of the right wing Supreme Court.
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” … Mitt Romney senior adviser Ed Gillespie said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” the GOP candidate “retroactively” retired from Bain Capital after the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics began. … ”
No body who has been drawing at LEAST $100,000.00 per year from 1999 to 2002 from Bain Capital “retroactively” retires from Bain Capital AFTER the 2002!!! Then why draw the salary of at LEAST $100,000.00 per year from 1999 to 2002 from Bain Capital if Romney retired from Bain “retroactively” !!!
” … Gillespie continued, “He took a leave of absence and, in fact, Candy, he ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February of 1999 as a result.” … ”
However SEC documents show Mitt Romney as sole owner of all shares of Bain Capital. Romney is also shown as CEO, President and Chairman of Board of Bain Capital in 2001 and 2002 then LEGALLY speaking Mitt Romney has been responsible to all that goes on under the banner of Bain Capital. Then to run for Governor of MA Romney sought residency of MA by lieu of his Bain positions. Now either Romney was at the Olympics OR he was at BAIN.
Only one can be true not BOTH at the same time simultaneously!!! Will the true Willard Mitt Romney stand up and accept ONE thing? Does Romney want to accept untrue SEC filings and be called a Felon or agree that he represented Bain from 1999 to 2002?
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On Friday the 13th (7/13/2012) the very illusive Mitt Romney gave very defensive interviews to all FIVE networks on a single day at once!! Just a few days ago Mitt Romney said to FOX News that explaining means that you are WEAK. So his five interviews “explaining” his time at Bain were signs of his weakness!!
Presidential Candidate Mr. Mitt Romney maybe feeling the heat on his role in BAIN Capital, his business experience which was supposed to be his sole criteria for creating jobs and his greatest qualification for running for the American Presidency in the current economy in 2012!
However SEC documents show Mitt Romney as sole owner of all shares of Bain Capital. Romney is shown as CEO, President and Chairman of Board of Bain Capital in 2001 and 2002 then LEGALLY speaking Mitt Romney has been responsible to all that goes on under the banner of Bain Capital.
Mitt Romney can not just share the good like job creation from 1999 to 2002 and leave the ugly like Bankruptcies and layoffs behind as if he had nothing to do about them from 1999 to 2002.
If he really wanted to disassociate himself from Bain Capital he could have resigned and sold all his shares in Bain Capital in February 1999 then it would have been a different matter but to share in the glory of Bain’s job creation accept a salary of $100,000 or MORE (where are the Tax Returns?) for three years and only to refuse to take the responsibility of Bankruptcies and layoffs on his WATCH (1999-2002) is trying to have it both ways and then complaining of playing politics having been caught with his hand in the proverbial Cookie Jar that is the very essence of an ACTIVE LEGAL ROLE in Bain Capital till 2002!! Was Romney getting $100,000.00 or more to do NOTHING for BAIN Capital???
Mitt Romney will have to face the consequences of this leaving Bain “lie” that Mitt Romney has brought on upon himself. If we keep reminding the Romney campaign of the Bain exit lie and Romney’s ill effects on workers robbing them of their hard earned salaries and life long benefits all the way to November then 7/13/2012 (FRIDAY the 13th) will go down as the turning point of the 2012 Presidential election!
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Two-Faced Willard
“I was not responsible for what happened at Bain Capital” – Mitt Romney
“I was the Sole shareholder, Sole director, Chief executive officer and President of Bain” – Mitt Romney
“The Arizona immigration policy is a good model” – Mitt Romney
“I didn’t really support the Arizona immigration policy” – Mitt Romney
“The Massachusetts healthcare plan should be a model for the nation” – Mitt Romney
“Healthcare reform should be left to the states” – Mitt Romney
“Let Detroit go bankrupt” -Mitt Romney
“I’ll take a lot of credit for saving the auto industry” -Mitt Romney
“I believe Roe v Wade has gone too far.” – Mitt Romney
“Roe v Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” – Mitt Romney
“I respect and will protect a woman’s right to choose.” – Mitt Romney
“I never really called myself pro-choice.” – Mitt Romney
“It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam.” – Mitt Romney
“I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and represent our country there.” – Mitt Romney
“I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” – Mitt Romney
“Ronald Reagan is… my hero.” – Mitt Romney
“I think the minimum wage ought to keep pace with inflation.” – Mitt Romney
“There’s no question raising the minimum wage excessively causes a loss of jobs.” – Mitt Romney
“I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.” – Mitt Romney
“I did not see it with my own eyes.” – Mitt Romney
“I would like to have campaign spending limits.” – Mitt Romney
“The American people should be free to advocate for their candidates without burdensome limitations.” – Mitt Romney
“I supported the assault weapon ban.” – Mitt Romney
“I don’t support any gun control legislation.” – Mitt Romney