FU - FairAndUNbalanced.com

How to explain the current strategy of the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States?

He is not a movement candidate, as was Ronald Reagan in 1980. He is not the progenitor of a detailed campaign platform, as was Bill Clinton in 1992. He is a biographical candidate: he was going to win, not because he had policy ideas, or because he led a movement of principle.

He was going to win because he was rich. He had accumulated a large, very large, incredibly large, bank account.

Because of that bank account, we could surmise some very attractive assumptions.

For one thing, he had accumulated his wealth through business.

Since he had accumulated his wealth through business, he was very good at business. We could surmise that he really, really knew what he was doing. In fact, he ran a management company. It was a company that ran companies, if only briefly.

Since he had been fabulously successful at running a company that was, in turn, successful at running companies, he must know a lot about running companies. I mean, it's one thing to be successful at management. To be successful at managing the management of success, well that is a quantum leap.

Companies employ people. Since companies employ people, he was certainly responsible for creating jobs.

It was as close to an ex nihilo candidacy as you can get this side of the abyss. Oh there are examples of everything. Mitt created 100,000 jobs. The list of companies launched or turned around has been impressive. He could assure a return on investment, even during times in which other financial houses struggled to assure a return of investment. Like Hymen Roth of Godfather fame, "he always made money for his friends." And, voter, he wants to be your friend.

And that wealth, oh man, that wealth. He really knew what he was doing, getting all that wealth. It bespoke a preternatural competence. You want someone to turn the country around? Go to the fellow with the Midas touch.

The message was simple. The country is in a crisis. Elect the Wizard of Finance, a proven Mr. Fix-it.

It all came back to the same basic foundation. The personal competence, the Midas touch, the job creation, the management expertise, all came down to a rock hard cement support that would hold up any house, any campaign. Vote for Mitt because he's rich. That proves it all.

But running for national office is a little different from running for Governor. The small slights of hand are examined way beyond mortal expectations. You can't get by with anything.

Every claim has been true. Kind of. If you look a little sideways and squint.

Mitt created 100,000 jobs. If you count jobs created decades after he had left management of companies, if you count companies in which he participated in a minor, passive, role, if you count only those hired and discounted those fired. If you don't look too closely.

He knew a lot about creating successful companies if you count companies that made money for Mitt regardless of their success or lack of it. Structured deals, little known tax advantages, an edge here, a sub-paragraph there. Heads I win, tails I win, coin lands on the edge, wow-how-about-that, I win. Ex-employees might yell. Creditors might scream. Pensions and debts might get lost in the contractual sub-weeds. But Mitt always came up a winner.

Human perception is a weird thing. Six million people become a statistic. A few people up close become real live human beings. The eggs broken to make an omelet look a little different if you happen to be one of the eggs. Or if you can see an individual on television, a real person. Or two. Or twenty.

As Mitt fights the holy fight, runs the good race, battles the Philistines, claims about jobs created in 2010, or 2011, or 2012 have vanished. Instead, he fights as David against Goliath's entire army. On one side is lonely Mitt with his slingshot. On the other is a demon's hoard of documents, 120 statements to various agencies including election boards and the SEC, all signed by Mitt Romney, all showing the opposite of what Mitt Romney now bravely asserts is the truth. "My name is legion," those satanic documents shout from the Romney past, "for we are many." At issue is whether Mitt left Bain Capital at the beginning of 1999 as he insists and the documentation denies. Job gains 11 or 13 years after the disputed timeline have gone from boast to punchline.

Legitimate business dealings look less like sunshine and more shady when strange explanations and shifty eyed legalisms become every day's soup du jour. "What's today's special?" "I didn't do it." The current Romney campaign has been reduced to this week's Josh Marshall Tweat: "Satan took over as CEO of Bain immediately after his departure; started doing awful stuff he’d never have done."

Personal dealings are a mathematical puzzle. A small, legally limited, IRA tax free account somehow balloons from excessive hundreds of thousands into a multimillion dollar riddle, with how many zeros? Cayman accounts and Swiss banks collide as Mitt explains a blind trust. His answer plays bumper cars with his previous derision, dated 1994. "The blind trust is an age old ruse," he assures the interviewer from a dreaded past. You can, he says, set whatever rules you want for a "blind trust."

How to explain the current strategy of the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States?

Is it an unprecedented political rope-a-dope?
Is it a devious plot to make every Democrat overconfident?
Is the Romney campaign being run by some Kenyan Socialist Anti-Colonial Secret Infiltrating Mole?

A CNN personality, Erin Burnett, comes up with her own list of three possible reasons Mitt Romney might continue withholding his tax returns.

1. he had a lot more money in tax shelters in prior years.

2. he did something shady.

3. he’s stupid.

Remarkably, the comment has not drawn outrage from the prickly-as-all-hell cheerleading section of the Republican base. In fact, that distant rattling sound we hear comes from a million GOP heads nodding in agreement. Conservative optimism is now defined as hoping the Romney candidacy may become merely horrible.

The campaign that began "Vote for me. I can fix anything" has become "Vote for me. I left before it happened."

Someone threw Holy Water on him.
He is melting in all his money tinted greenness in front of an amazed Dorothy.
The Magical Wizard of Finance is becoming the Out-Sorcerer.

Mitt. I am a partisan Democrat. I don't even like you. I can't stand the torture.
Fire your staff.
Hire Michele Bachmann.
Release the returns.
Mr. Romney, tear down this wall!