Mitt Romney v10.0

Search Google Images for "completely wrong" and what do you get? This:

Or to put it another way:

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Some have the same taxes; some have less. I’ll even put Romney’s pledge of revenue neutrality in equation form, for those mathematically inclined:

0 + (-X) = 0, where X > 0

That simply can’t work. Romney can’t do what he says and yet keep revenues the same. At least, not unless he’s using one of those spells that Hermione bothered learning while everyone else was hanging out on the Quidditch pitch.

Even Newt noticed. I'm assuming it's magic. Like Mitt's underwear.

But how hilarious is it, that despite all the bluster over Obama being "the Messiah", Republicans are the ones voting entirely on faith?

Formidable Opponent - Mitt Romney
Stephen argues the centrist Mitt Romney seen at the debate is the real Mitt Romney, but Stephen thinks Stephen got sucked in.

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Stephen: "He's promising a 20% tax cut for the top 1%."
Stephen: "He's also promising to close their tax loopholes so they'll still pay the same amount."
Stephen: "Then why cut their taxes?"
Stephen: " . . . "

Nothing about his plan makes any sense.

Romney in Central Ohio | Health care called ‘choice’

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“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’  ” he said as he offered more hints as to what he would put in place of “Obamacare,” which he has pledged to repeal.

“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

He pointed out that federal law requires hospitals to treat those without health insurance — although hospital officials frequently say that drives up health-care costs.

Oh, to be rich.... Romney either doesn't know anyone with cancer, or doesn't know anyone who doesn't make enough to have to worry about paying for it. It's a remarkable disregard for the tens of thousands of people who do die each year as a result of adequate access to insurance. Republicans should be embarrassed that their would-be leader was able to say such nonsense in public without interference.

And there's also the hypocriscy of railing against govenrment healthcare while telling people who can't afford it to go to the hospital for government healthcare.

But Mark at Denialism blog cuts through the bullshit in the usual fashion:

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It seems every day brings a new, glaring falsehood about medical care from Romney, who has bizarrely decided to run against his own healthcare plan in order to appease right wing voters. Now he’s claiming Americans don’t die from lack of healthcare coverage. His reasoning? The unfunded mandate and healthcare-of-last resort stopgap that is EMTALA. For those of you who don’t know the function of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, it’s law passed in the Reagan era to stop hospitals from dumping patients who were acutely ill and needed emergency care. It prevents hospitals from refusing or delaying treatment of an emergency condition if the patient is uninsured or their ability to pay is unknown. It only obligates hospitals to provide enough care to stabilize the patient, and then the patient is discharged or transferred to another center if a higher level of care is needed. Despite the mandate that such patients be cared for, the federal government did not prescribe a method of reimbursement for such patients, making it an unfunded mandate, and as a result, some 55% of emergency room care goes uncompensated. EMTALA also doesn’t protect you from hospitals attempts to recoup their losses, and those that can pay often receive a surprisingly large bill that can easily bankrupt those living on the edge of solvency. But besides being a cruel and stupid thing to say for someone who proposes to lead our country, it’s also wildly false. Not only does the Institute of Medicine estimate these deaths at about 20,000 a year, but we also see it in admissions that aren’t due to prolonged illness or chronic medical conditions, for example we see a 40% higher trauma mortality among uninsured patients even after accounting for age, race, sex, and severity or mechanism of injury. If you are injured in a car accident, you are 40% more likely to die just by virtue of being uninsured, because the fact is, many hospitals will treat you differently if you can’t pay for your care.

. . .

In the end, it’s all one big stupid cost-shifting game that ignores the central problem. No matter what, we end up paying for people’s medical care! There is no avoiding it. You can either pay for it prospectively, thoughtfully, and humanely by giving people care in primary care offices, or you can wait for them to get really sick, not to mention really expensive to care for, and pay for it then. But there’s no avoiding the bill. The type of care advocated by Romney here is also just plain stupid. For example, what is the point of stabilizing a patient with COPD and asthma as they come in the hospital in crisis every month, rather than just paying for their medications as an outpatient? ICU admissions, intubation, medications, doctors fees and nursing are all far more expensive (not to mention hard on the patient) than a couple of inhalers a month. Or how about the uninsured patient with a mental illness that requires constant stabilization with inpatient admissions because no one will pay for their anti-psychotic medications? You see it happen like clockwork, a patient is discharged “plugged in” with a month of medications, plans for follow up etc., and then as they can’t pay for medications after that time is up they start missing appointments, losing their job or their housing arrangement, then they’re back in the ER in crisis. Or think about the risk involved in all those transfers, which the current system encourages referring hospitals to engage in even if the patient might not benefit, because it allows them to unload a patient that will just create uncompensated costs for the hospital?

This is leadership on healthcare? I don’t think so.

Wrong on healthcare. Wrong on national security. Wrong on the economy.

GOP 2012! 'Cause we just don't give a shit anymore.

Heretic wrote:

Romney in Central Ohio | Health care called ‘choice’

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“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’  ” he said as he offered more hints as to what he would put in place of “Obamacare,” which he has pledged to repeal.

“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

He pointed out that federal law requires hospitals to treat those without health insurance — although hospital officials frequently say that drives up health-care costs.

Oh, to be rich.... Romney either doesn't know anyone with cancer, or doesn't know anyone who doesn't make enough to have to worry about paying for it. It's a remarkable disregard for the tens of thousands of people who do die each year as a result of adequate access to insurance. Republicans should be embarrassed that their would-be leader was able to say such nonsense in public without interference.

You know how out of touch he is? Notice how he uses the term "apartment" as if only a poor person living in an apartment,or as he likes to call the 47% "those people",wouldn't have health insurance. A normal person would use the term "home".

Jake Tapper Calls Out Romney’s Conflict of Interest in China

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On “This Week”, Jake Tapper called out Mitt Romney’s claim that he would get tough on China. Tapper said, “Is there not a disconnect between what Governor Romney says he wants to do with China and how he’s continuing to profit off of those very problems he criticizes?”

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TAPPER: In Ohio especially, Governor Romney has been making a big issue about cracking down on China and China’s cheating. There is this other issue though, Governor Romney gets a cut of the profits from Bain Capital’s investments in Chinese companies and in companies that are currently offshoring U.S. jobs to China. Is there not a disconnect between what Governor Romney says he wants to do with China and how he’s continuing to profit off of those very problems he criticizes?

In December of 2011, the Romney campaign attempted to deal with this conflict by claiming that the candidate shed all of his interests in China at the same time as Romney made “confronting China” a central part of his message, but the truth is that he still holds interests in Bain Capital that make a profit off of investments in Chinese companies, one of which is being sued by Microsoft for piracy of American products.

In September of 2012, the Romney campaign admitted to PolitiFact that Romney was still invested in China. The campaign claims the money is invested through Romney’s blind trust, but even Mitt Romney once warned that blind trusts were a ruse.

The Final Word on Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan

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Mitt Romney's campaign says I'm full of it. I said Romney's tax plan is mathematically impossible: he can't simultaneously keep his pledges to cut tax rates 20 percent and repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax; broaden the tax base enough to avoid growing the deficit; and not raise taxes on the middle class. They say they have six independent studies -- six! -- that "have confirmed the soundness of the Governor’s tax plan," and so I should stop whining. Let's take a tour of those studies and see how they measure up.

The Romney campaign sent over a list of the studies, but they are perhaps more accurately described as "analyses," since four of them are blog posts or op-eds. I'm not hating -- I blog for a living -- but I don't generally describe my posts as "studies."

None of the analyses do what Romney's campaign says: show that his tax plan is sound.

. . .

I would note one item that the Romney campaign does not cite in support of its tax plan: Any analysis actually prepared for the campaign in preparation for announcing the plan in February. You would expect that, in advance of announcing a tax plan, the campaign would commission an analysis to make sure that all of its planks can coexist. Releasing that analysis now would be to the campaign's advantage, helping them put down claims like mine that their math doesn't add up.

Why don't they release that analysis? My guess is because the analysis doesn't exist, and the 20 percent rate cut figure was plucked out of thin air for political reasons without regard to whether it was feasible.

Well worth reading in full, as he goes through all six "studies".

Medicare Vouchers Would Raise Costs For Most Seniors, Nonpartisan Study Finds

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Converting Medicare into a voucher program modeled on the plan Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have proposed would increase premiums for the majority of seniors, even ones who choose to remain in traditional Medicare, according to a comprehensive nonpartisan study (PDF) released Monday.

The Kaiser Family Foundation delved into the likely impact of transforming Medicare into a “premium support” system. Under that approach, the federal government would provide seniors a subsidy to shop for insurance plans from a menu of competing private plans and traditional Medicare. That subsidy would be capped at the value of the second least costly premium in the marketplace.

Using 2010 data as a model, Kaiser’s study found that among seniors who chose to remain in traditional Medicare, more than half would have paid higher premiums. Just under half would have paid the same. That would’ve yielded an average premium hike of $720 annually for seniors who chose to remain in traditional Medicare.

Among seniors with private Medicare Advantage plans, 88 percent would have paid higher premiums unless they switched to a cheaper plan with less generous benefits. On average, seniors already in private plans would have paid $1,044 more annually, according to the study.

Taken together, 59 percent of Medicare beneficiaries would have ended up paying higher premiums than they do in the current system if they remained in their current plan.

The caveats: the report makes clear that it’s not a perfect analysis of the Romney-Ryan plan. That’s in part because the Romney-Ryan would take effect in 2023, whereas Kaiser’s report studies the impact of such a plan taking effect in 2010. It’s also because Romney and Ryan haven’t provided enough details to conduct a truly thoroughgoing analysis.

For a detailed explanation of how the Romney-Ryan tax plan is able to cut taxes by $5 trillion without raising taxes on the middle class or exploding the deficit
http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

New Revelation At ’47%’ Dinner – Romney Was Hoping For Something Like Iran Hostage (VIDEO)

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Mitt Romney’s now-infamous fundraising dinner has yielded another gem. This is the event during which he was caught saying that,

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”There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Of course, those people consist of senior citizens, disabled people, veterans, students and the poor. The elitism of Romney’s statement resonated with many people, enough so that it seemed to sway the election for a few weeks, at least until the first debate.

It seems that for Romney, the “truths” told during that particular fundraiser are like any ghost worth his reputation, the haunting is relentless and this latest portion could be the most damaging of all. In the video, Romney is caught hoping for an Iran hostage type situation to help propel him into the White House. Is it any surprise that he has tried to make political hay out of the Benghazi terror attacks?

As you watch the video, notice the man (is that a British accent?) asking Romney how he can “duplicate” an Iran hostage type scenario. Instead of dismissing the question as going against American interests, Romney agrees that the strategy would be beneficial. The entire video is worth a listen but at the end, Romney says, “if something of that nature presents itself, I will work to take advantage of the opportunity.”

Here’s the video:

Wow

Wonder why Mittens and Mini Mitt never want to discuss what tax deductions they would cut when asked about their tax plan?....
Romney Cites Study Based On Repealing Almost All Middle Class Tax Breaks To Bolster His Tax Plan

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Mitt Romney has been desperately trying to refute a study by the Tax Policy Center showing that he can’t mathematically achieve his goals of reducing income tax rates while shielding the middle class from a tax increase and not adding to the deficit. If Romney is committed to his rate reduction and deficit neutrality, he would have to raise middle class taxes by $2,000, even under the most generous assumptions.

Romney has been pointing to “six studies” that he claims show that his tax plan work. However, those “studies” (which are mostly blog posts and op-eds) show no such thing.

So now the Romney campaign is touting a 2006 study from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation that he claims vindicates his approach, telling Roll Call the study shows “how a ‘Romney-style tax plan’ could bolster growth.” According to the study, tax reform that eliminates deductions and loopholes and reduces income tax rates will slightly increase economic growth over a decade. But the study assumes that nearly all middle class tax breaks — including those for children, mortgages, and employer contributions for health care — are repealed in their entirety:

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Under the proposal, all personal exemptions, itemized deductions, personal credits except for the earned income credit, and all above-the-line adjustments to income except for retirement savings deductions and the deduction for self employment taxes would be repealed. The largest categories of deductions repealed are present-law deductions for home mortgage interest expenses, State and local taxes, and charitable contributions. In addition, the exclusions for certain employee fringe benefits, such as employer contributions for health and life insurance, would be repealed. The standard deduction would remain.

The study also found that such a plan would result in the “redistribution” of income tax liability from high-income earners to the middle class. And the promised job growth is only between 1 and 2 percent over ten years (one to two million jobs), while Romney promises that his tax plan will create seven million jobs over four years.

Romney’s claims about job creation under his tax plan are almost entirely fabricated. An economic adviser for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations said this week that Romney’s tax plan won’t create jobs.

Ouch
Salt Lake Tribune throws support behind Obama

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(CNN) – The Salt Lake Tribune announced in an editorial published Friday its endorsement of President Barack Obama for the 2012 race, questioning the "pragmatic, inclusive" former Massachusetts governor's change into Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

"The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first," the Utah newspaper said in the editorial.

"The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem-solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago," said the Tribune.

"Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney's domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust."

Of more importance, the paper said, was Romney's lack of clarity and specifics on his proposal to reduce the deficit, asserting that GOP nominee's plan doesn't add up. The paper also pointed to Romney's now-infamous "47%" comments caught on a secretly-recorded video at a private fund-raiser in Florida suggesting that nearly half of Americans will vote for Obama because they are reliant on government services.

So does everyone.

Romney’s economy hypocrisy

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The GOP candidate slams Obama for 2 percent GDP growth, but he never saw anything that fast as governor

Today, new government data showed that the economy grew by 2 percent last quarter, faster than the previous quarter, but still slower than desirable. It’s “reasonably good news” for the country and Obama, as Andrew Leonard wrote, though certainly not a home run.

But how did Mitt Romney respond? Predictably, by slamming the news.

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“Today, we received the latest round of discouraging economic news … This is what four years of President Obama’s policies have produced,” he said in a statement.

By the way, how fast did the economy grow when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts? According to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, average real GDP growth was 1.5 percent per year in Massachusetts from 2002 to 2006. For each of the years Romney was in office, the economy grew 1.49 percent, 1.86 percent, 1.14 percent and 1.43 percent, respectively.

And how did Romney assess the economic growth of the state under his leadership? “When we took office, the state economy was in a tailspin. Today, jobs are being created by the thousands and our economy is stronger,” he said in early 2006, his last year in office. So less than 2 percent was good then, but 2 percent is bad now.

And one could argue that Romney had an easier task than Obama. During Romney’s tenure in the governor’s mansion, the national economy grew at a much fast clip than Massachusetts’, staying comfortably above 2 percent every year. National GDP even broke 3 percent one year and doubled the state’s growth another year. On the campaign trail in 2002, Romney promised jobs creation “second to none in the history of the state.” After four years, the state had added 31,000 jobs — a growth rate of less than 1 percent while the country as a whole added 5 percent more jobs.

Mitt Romney: Federal relief spending is "immoral." Filed under things you don't want on the record as a hurricane threatens 50 million voters right before an election.

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Yes it certainly is immoral to spend money on disaster relief when you could save all of that money and provide tax breaks to the rich. Don't you agree?

By the way Sandy is currently gaining strength and could impact up to 50 million Americans. Right now President Obama is getting relief efforts underway and has promised to cut through the red tape and get help to those afflicted as quickly as possible.

This is not official but I do believe that Romney's response to the storm was something along the lines of "Well can't those people just leave the area and weather the storm in one of their other houses?

The media has finally woken up and this just may spell the end for the Romney campaign.
Misleading Romney Auto Ad Backfires With Media

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Mitt Romney’s final attempt to swing Ohio polls in his direction is a bit too much for a number of political reporters, and is now facing an aggressive response from the Obama campaign.

In news articles, tweets, and other media, members of the national press, usually reluctant to criticize campaigns directly, have taken Romney to task for running a misleading TV ad creating the false impression that Jeep will ship jobs to China because of President Obama’s auto rescue.

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“Mitt Romney’s campaign has released an ad in Ohio that says he — and not President Barack Obama — will do more to help the auto industry, even though Obama’s administration is widely credited with helping to turn around General Motors and Chrysler when they faced collapse,” writes the Detroit Free Press in an article titled ‘Romney takes heat for new ad on jobs, auto rescue’. “In the ad, the Romney campaign also says that Jeep, now owned by Italian automaker Fiat after going through a structured bankruptcy in 2009, is going to make cars in China. While true, that production would represent an expansion or return of jobs to China for Chrysler, not a transfer of North American jobs. It also is a move that analysts say could improve the brand’s global standing.”

“Romney Ad Wrongly Implies Chrysler Is Sending U.S. Jobs To China,” reads a National Journal headline.

The sense that the Romney ad breached already lax standards for honesty in campaign ads was particularly evident on Twitter Sunday afternoon and evening, when many reporters first took note of it, after it began airing in Ohio without public notice.

National Journal’s Ron Fournier said there was no sound defense for the Romney ad.

Politico’s Ben White tweeted “Wait, not only did Romney camp not back off the erroneous Jeep to China canard, they made an ad out of it? My god”

Chrysler, the company that manufactures Jeep, felt the need to respond publicly that, no, Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its models out of North America to China.

“There are times when the reading of a newswire report generates storms originated by a biased or predisposed approach,” Jeep wrote on its official blog.

The Obama campaign has dispatched former auto adviser Steve Rattner to debunk the ad, both in Ohio and nationally. A campaign official tells TPM that Rattner will host a conference call to address the Romney ad with reporters on Monday.

Mitten's keynote speaker,Chris Christie,basically tells the Rombot to take a hike...
Christie praises Obama, doesn’t ‘give a damn’ about Romney photo op

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The presidential candidates have canceled all campaign events on Tuesday, but Republican New Jersey Chris Christie seemed to be stumping for President Barack Obama by appearing several networks to praise the federal response to Hurricane Sandy.

In an interview on NBC, Christie called Obama “outstanding” for expediting relief efforts. He also told MSNBC that Obama “deserves great credit.”

“He gave me his number at the White House and told me to call him if I needed anything,” Christie said.

The New Jersey governor even took his message to Fox News, saying that Obama had helped “tremendously.”

“I spoke to the president three times yesterday,” he explained. “He called me for the last time at midnight last night asking what he could do. I said, if you can expedite designating New Jersey as a major disaster area that that would help us to get federal money and resources in here as quickly as possible to help clean up the damage here.”

“The president was great last night,” Christie continued. “He said he would get it done. At 2 a.m., I got a call from FEMA to answer a couple of final questions and then he signed the declaration this morning. So I have to give the president great credit. He’s been on the phone with me three times in the last 24 hours. He’s been very attentive, and anything that I’ve asked for, he’s gotten to me. So, I thank the president publicly for that. He’s done — as far as I’m concerned — a great job for New Jersey.”

Fox News co-host Steve Doocy wondered when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was going to get some of the same benefits from the hurricane with a photo op in disaster-stricken New Jersey towns.

“Over the last couple of months, you have appeared throughout the country, Governor, on behalf of Mitt Romney,” Doocy remarked to Christie. “[W]e hear that perhaps Mr. Romney may do some storm-related events. Is there any possibility that Gov. Romney may go to New Jersey to tour some of the damage with you?”

“I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested,” Christie replied, immediately shutting down the idea. “I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics and I could [sic] care less about any of that stuff.”

“I have a job to do,” he added. “I’ve got 2.4 million people out of power, I’ve got devastation on the shore, I’ve got floods in the northern part of my state. If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don’t know me.”

Watch this video from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast Oct. 30, 2012.

I gotta give credit where credit is due. Christie put the needs and concerns of the people of his state first rather than participate in a phony photo-op with Romney. Well done Governor!

Reporters blast Romney’s “Hurricane relief” stunt

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I wrote last night about how it seemed that Mitt Romney was planning on using Hurricane Sandy to camouflage a political event today in Ohio (and similar ones in WI for Paul Ryan). It turns out I was right. Reporters on the scene of the “charity” event are horrified by the politickig they’re seeing. They’re even apparently giving out anti-Obama t-shirts at the “non-partisan” charity relief rally.

Here are a few of their tweets this morning from the event.

CNN’s Jonathan Karl.

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And note the tshirt the woman has – it’s clear she didn’t wear it to the rally. They appear to be giving our anti-Obama t-shirts at the non-partisan disaster relief rally. Incredible:

Lots more at the link. Holding a BS relief stunt and collecting canned food that the Red Cross won't even accept. IMO,This is going to backfire big-time.

Exactly what you'd expect from a phony like Mittens...
Romney Campaign Staged Donations In Storm Relief Event
As the East Coast and parts of Ohio struggled to regroup in the devastating wake of “Superstorm” Sandy, the Romney campaign hastily transformed a scheduled victory rally in Dayton, Ohio into a non-political “storm relief event” on Tuesday. According to BuzzFeed, the campaign encouraged supporters to bring hurricane relief supplies and “deliver the bags of canned goods, packages of diapers, and cases of water bottles to the candidate, who would be perched behind a table along with a slew of volunteers and his Ohio right-hand man, Senator Rob Portman.”

Just to be safe, campaign aides reportedly spent $5,000 at a local Wal-Mart on supplies that could be put on display. When supporters arrived at the rally-turned-relief event, they were treated to the 10-minute video about Romney’s life, which was first unveiled at the RNC. The event ended with supporters lined up to hand over supplies and meet Romney. But according to BuzzFeed, this donation process was also staged:

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Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”

The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.

Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”

The Red Cross, meanwhile, said they were grateful for the supplies but encouraged people to donate money or blood as a more efficient way to help the relief effort.

Scene from outside Romney headquarters as President Obama joined Chris Christie in NJ and spoke on TV.

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11:40 AM
Mitt Romney
Hosting arrival event at Cleveland Hopkins Airport
6200 Riverside Drive, Cleveland, Ohio
2012-11-06 at 11:40

2:55 PM
Mitt Romney
Hosting event at Pittsburgh International Airport
300 Horizon Drive, Pittsburgh, Penn.
2012-11-06 at 2:55

Clear signal,IMO,that Mittens knows he's in deep trouble.
Candidates that are confident they are leading in the polls don't campaign on Election day.

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9:00 PM
Mitt Romney
Paul Ryan
Hosting event at Boston Convention Center
415 Summer St., Boston, Mass.

Perfect time for his concession speech