David Frum: “Romney’s core problem is this: He heads a party that must win two-thirds of the white working-class vote in presidential elections to compensate for its weakness in almost every demographic category. The white working class is the most pessimistic and alienated group in the electorate, and it especially fears and dislikes the kind of financial methods that gained Romney his fortune.”

“Romney has a strong potential defense: Bain was in the business of making companies more efficient and profitable. Downsizing and outsourcing were necessary — and often indispensable — means to that end… However, it’s not an argument that appeals much to the voters Romney most intensely needs to win. Hence his unleashing of the war room — but in the end, there’s only so much a war room can do. And this time, by trying to do too much, the Romney war room may have blasted its own side with lethal friendly fire.”

When Mitt Romney signed a federal financial disclosure form for his current presidential bid, he stated under the penalty of perjury that he had not been involved “in any way” with Bain Capital after he left for Utah in February 1999.

Mother Jones reports that during a 2002 hearing to determine if Mitt Romney met the residency requirement to run for governor Romney said that “after he departed Bain in February 1999 he went through a transition period regarding his work in Boston.”

“When a lawyer challenging his eligibility asked Romney, ‘Did you remain more or less continuously in Salt Lake City from February ’99 to the end of the year,’ Romney answered: ‘Actually, there was some transition away from my work in Boston for the first few months and then I pretty much stayed there after.’ Trying to clarify this, the lawyer, after referring to this ‘transition,’ asked, ‘So from February through the end of the year you were pretty much full-time out in Utah, right?’ Romney replied: ‘Well again, the beginning of the year was a good deal of time back and forth, but towards the last half of the year it was pretty much exclusively in Utah.'”

Andrew Sullivan: “If there was a good deal of time back and forth in the first few months and some business conducted all the way through to December (‘pretty much exclusively’), and if Romney’s own lawyer tells an inquiry that Romney’s work for Bain ‘continued unabated just as they had,’ then it is incontrovertibly true that Romney’s statement under oath that he was not involved ‘in any way’ in Bain business after February 1999 was a lie under oath.

David Gergen disagrees that Romney lied: “I may be wrong but based on what we know so far, I would conclude that we do not have persuasive evidence to show that he has.”

“He should have put it to rest  back in 2008 when he ran originally because he knew all these things were going to be problems. There’s clearly a problem with the tax returns otherwise he would release, you know, ten years of tax returns. He’s only released one year of tax returns. That’s a problem.”

— GOP strategist Rick Tyler, in an interview on MSNBC.

Paul Begala: “We can almost guarantee that 48 percent of each state’s voters will go for Obama, and another 48 percent will decide for Romney. And so the whole shootin’ match comes down to around 4 percent of the voters in six states.”

“I did the math so you won’t have to. Four percent of the presidential vote in Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado is 916,643 people. That’s it. The American president will be selected by fewer than half the number of people who paid to get into a Houston Astros home game last year — and my beloved Astros sucked last year; they were the worst team in baseball. Put another way, there are about as many people in San Jose as there are swing voters who will decide this election. That’s not even as many people as attended Puerto Rican cockfights in the past year — although there are obvious similarities.”

Fewer than 1% of Mitt Romney’s donors “have hit the limit they can donate to his election bid, suggesting cash is likely to keep pouring into his coffers,” Reuters reports.

“Only 40 donors have given $75,800 — the maximum individuals are allowed to give before the November 6 election — to the joint Victory fund that Romney shares with the Republican National Committees, according to a Reuters analysis of the fund’s first campaign finance filing submitted late on Sunday.”

William Cohan: “The most mysterious of the unexplained mysteries about Mitt Romney’s considerable wealth is how he was able to amass between $21 million and $102 million in his individual retirement account during the 15 years he was at Bain Capital LLC. How did he do it, given the relatively small amounts that the law permits to be contributed to such a plan on an annual basis?”

Mitt Romney says he’ll release just two years of tax returns, so John Cassidy notes it’s “only fair to assume that Mitt is doing what he always does: acting on the basis of a careful cost-benefit analysis.”

“But what information could the earlier tax returns contain that would be so damaging if it were brought out into the open? Obviously, we are entering the realm of speculation, but Romney has invited it.”

“Here are four possibilities: 1. Extremely high levels of income… 2. More offshore accounts…. 3. Politically explosive investments… 4. A very, very low tax rate.”

Mitt Romney has reached a decision on his running mate, his friends believe, and he may disclose it as soon as this week, the New York Times reports.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told The Hill that he’s been to Boston to meet Romney’s senior advisers and has met Beth Myers, who is leading the search for the vice presidential nominee.

Mitt Romney “will launch a fresh assault this week accusing President Obama of political cronyism at the expense of middle-class workers,” the Washington Post reports.

“In a coordinated offensive starting Monday, the Romney team and its allies will say that the president has been a ‘typical politician’ and has demonstrated ‘systematic favoritism’ toward top campaign fundraisers by lavishing them with federal appointments and their companies with taxpayer money and special government deals, according to campaign officials.”

The Romney campaign released an ad today — complete with President Obama singing to counter the brutal ad that smacked Romney over the weekend — to push this point.

[Read more…]

Zeke Miller: “Three months into this general election campaign, it’s become clear that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have made drastically different bets on what will motivate voters this November — choices that are playing out in two campaigns so different they might as well be running in different elections.”

“For Obama, it has been a summer of gritty engagement: Sweaty campaigning, dramatic and intensely tactical — not to say cynical — policy moves aimed at specific constituencies. For his part, Romney has kept it cool and vague, staying largely off the trail and out of the weeds while his campaign plays out in 30-second television spots.”

“It is also roughly the reverse of what a traditional re-election fight: The challenger is running a Rose Garden campaign, while the president stumps frantically, far from the South Lawn.”

“People are not worried about the details as to when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital to save the Olympics or the details about his assets, which are managed by a blind trust for Pete’s sake.”

— Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), in an interview on Face the Nation.

President Obama told WAVY-TV that his re-election campaign will not apologize to Mitt Romney for saying he outsorced jobs while CEO of Bain Capital.

Said Obama: “No. We will not apologize. Mr Romney claims he’s Mr. fix-it for the economy because of his business experience, so I think voters entirely legitimately want to know what is exactly his business experience.”

“And as the head of a private equity firm his job was to maximize profits and help investors. There is nothing wrong with that. On the other hand that company also was investing in companies that were called by the Washington Post ‘the pioneers of out sourcing.’ Mr. Romney is now claiming he wasn’t there at the time except his filings with the SEC listing says he was the CEO, Chairman, and President of the company. As President of the United States, I’ve learned and we just talked about it, anything that happens on my watch is my responsibility. Harry Truman said ‘the buck stops with me’ and I think understandably people are going to be interested in are you in fact responsible for this company you say is one of your primary calling cards for your wanting to be President.”