Romney's Dirty Little Fingers

There's something about Mitt Romney's campaign that doesn't sit well with me.  It's been bothering me since the Republican convention; like a bad song that's stuck in my head and I find myself humming it no matter how much I hate it. I just haven't been able to put my finger on it--until now.  

After taking the day off from politics for a family celebration, I awoke this morning to the internet buzzing about Tagg Romney's ties to Hart InterCivic--a company that provides electronic voting machines to a number of precincts in several states; including Ohio.  I don't think I need to point out the significance of Ohio at this late date.  On the surface, there isn't much of a scandal.  Tagg has invested indirectly in Hart InterCivic.  When you go a little deeper, as the old saying goes, the plot thickens.  

The trouble I've had with Mitt Romney is this:  He doesn't seem to give a damn what voters think.   I've been watching political campaigns for a significant part of my life.  I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that they all follow a pattern; Republican and Democrat alike.  Since Romney is a Republican, I'm going to explain this in Republican (right-wing) terms.  First, during the primary season, the candidate panders to his party's base.  In Romney's case- he had to out Republican the other Republicans.  Mitt benefited from having an extremely weak and un-electable field of contenders.  Santorum was too extreme and far too religious to appeal to even the most conservative Democrats.  Gingrich running on family values was laughable at best, and down-right insulting at worst. Bachmann?  Oh, please.  Be real.  Perry was semi-viable but destroyed his chances by having a "senior moment" in the middle of a debate.  So, despite being less than desirable, Romney got the nod.

From there, he went on to the Republican National convention where he introduced his running mate to the world, and formally accepted his party's nomination with a speech that, historically would have him do the electric slide to the center.  His running mate should have filled in his weak points and appealed to the electorate in ways that Romney does not. His speech should have reached out to independent voters and conservative Democrats who were unhappy with their party's direction.  Except that they didn't.  Romney's running mate is equally conservative if not more so. His acceptance speech was pointed directly at the Republican base--folks who were already solidly in the Romney camp, with tents pitched, fires built, weenies on the sticks and s'mores at the ready.

Romney has done none of those things.  He seems to have gone out of his way to alienate every block of voters that are not wealthy old white guys.  He's offended and insulted Latino voters with his hard line on immigration (despite his flip-floppery), and then he got into John Boehner's stash of spray tan and went before the cameras of Univsion looking like an Oompa Loompa.  He not only put Baby in a corner, he stuck every female in the country into a binder- and tossed out their votes.  He's expressed his contempt for Seniors by vowing to completely change Medicare (the top issue of the AARP set), not to mention Ryan's support for privatizing Social Security.  He's vowed to slash and burn every single domestic social program and we haven't even gotten to the infamous 47% of Americans whom it isn't his job to worry about.  Simply put--Mitt Romney doesn't care if you vote for him or not.  He acts like he's already won this election.  And now, I think I know why.

I'll try to keep this as simple as possible, so follow along.  

• In 2007, the Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, (R) tested five different electronic voting machines and found that they were all susceptible to several different types of fraud.  The locks on the machines could be easily picked, allowing access to the memory card where election data was stored.  Hand-held devices were able to place false vote counts into machines, and testers were able to introduce malignant software onto servers.  Despite its failures, Mr. Blackwell decided to use Hart InterCivic electronic voting machines.  
• A significant chunk of Hart InterCivic is owned by a large investment fund called H.I.G. Capital, which was founded by a dude named Tony Tamer.  
• H.I.G. employees hold two of the five board seats of Hart InterCivic.
• Tony Tamer and three other directors of H.I.G. are big money bundlers for the Romney campaign, two of which (Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz) attended the 47% fundraiser in Boca Raton, FL.
• Two members of Hart InterCivic's Board of Directors (Neil Tuch and Jeff Bohl) made direct contributions to Mitt Romney's campaign.
• H.I.G. is the 11th largest contributor to Mitt Romney's campaign coffers.
• H.I.G. is one of the largest partners of Solamere Capital, an investment firm run by none other than, Tagg Romney.  
• Tagg Romney, Scott Romney (Mitt's brother) Ann Romney and, of course, Mitt Romney himself all have investments in Solamere Capital.
• Solamere Capital has shared business dealings with H.I.G. both directly and via Solamere Advisors, which is owned, in part by Solamere Capital.

So, of course, in the legal sense, there's been no wrong-doing that we know of, but I ask you, what does common sense tell you?  These are BILLION DOLLAR ventures, and they're not staying neutral, although that would be the ethical move.  Hence, they are not above reproach.  The Romney family has their sticky, greedy, money loving fingers all over the company that sells voting machines that have already been proven to be easily hacked.  
I can tell you why Mitt Romney doesn't give a damn about alienating huge blocks of voters.  He's holding the voting machines in the palm of his filthy hands, there's a lot at stake, and Republicans have already proven that they will stop at nothing to further their agenda.  Common sense tells us that with this much at stake, there's a whole lotta back-scratching going on.   

The integrity of our national (and local) elections are at stake.  We must have a paper trail to validate our election results and the electronic counts should be backed up by a manual count.  Candidates (and their family members) must not be allowed to invest in election related ventures, such as voting machines and the companies involved with any aspect of them.  There are plenty of other worth-while investments to be made. (This blog, for example).
In order to prevent another electoral crisis like the one that happened in 2000, please sign the petition asking Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate Tagg Romney's ties to Hart InterCivic before the election.

You can read the full article on Tagg Romney's dirty dealings in (not so liberal) Forbes Magazine by Rick Ungar here.

**A year ago today, I married my partner in crime and biggest fan.  Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Ethan Mann, whose love, endless support, and thought-provoking opinions make my daily rants possible.