“The president needs to take control of these people. He ought to disavow it and rein in these people who are running out of control. He sure as heck ought to say that he’s sorry for the kinds of attacks that are coming from his team.”

— Mitt Romney, in an interview with ABC News, after Obama campaign officials implied that Romney committed a felony by saying he left Bain Capital in 1999.

Just ahead of Mitt Romney’s round of network television interviews, President Obama told WJLA-TV that his rival needs to answer questions about his tenure at Bain Capital.

Said Obama: “Well, here’s what I know, we were just talking about responsibility and as president of the United States, it’s pretty clear to me that I’m responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you.”

“Now, my understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does.”

[Read more…]

Politicker: “Back in 2002 when he was running for Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney and his aides had no problem admitting he retained his position as CEO of Bain Capital after 1999. Press articles from the time describe how Mr. Romney was on a ‘leave of absence’ after 1999 and had not fully cut ties with the private equity firm.”

Dave Weigel quotes a Boston Herald article when Romney left the firm in February 1999: “Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions.”

Meanwhile, Daily Kos has a press release from mid-1999 that describes Romney as being “part-time.”

Glenn Kessler defends
Mitt Romney’s assertion that he left the helm of Bain Capital in 1999 by arguing the language
saying he was “sole stockholder,
chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president” was
boilerplate… there is no standard definition of a “chief executive”… no
requirement for anyone to have any responsibilities even if they have
that title.”

Brad DeLong: “It would be very unusual for somebody to have the titles… and to have no responsibilities whatsoever. In
fact, I defy Glenn Kessler to come up with any example of anybody
anywhere- — save for Mitt Romney — who has been characterized to the SEC as ‘sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and
president’ and also claimed to have no responsibilities whatsoever and
to have merely been a passive investor.”

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed has a SEC filing that might be the hardest for Romney to explain.

Mitt Romney will give interviews today with ABC News, NBC News and CBS News, Politico reports.

“The recorded interviews will take place later this afternoon, and are likely to air during the nightly news casts, though that could not be confirmed.”

Michael Crowley: “The current debate is really about setting battle lines for the
campaign. Above all, the Obama team is opportunistically — but also
cleverly — shaping the political debate around a subject that’s good for
them (heartless capitalism) instead of the one that’s good for Romney
(the terrible economy). Chicago is trying to define Romney — and Bain, a
company most Americans don’t really understand — on their own terms.”

“They’re also after something deeper. Attacking Bain, and Romney’s candor about his role there, is a way of
defining the Republican’s character. Modern Democrats often bemoan the
GOP’s alleged advantage in mounting character attacks. They haven’t
forgotten the way the Swift Boating of John Kerry (unfairly) undermined
Kerry’s credibility and patriotism, and the flip-flopping windsurfer
attacks that followed. This week’s Bain offensive has partly been aimed
at making Romney look slippery about a business record allegedly defined
by selfishness and greed.”

The strategy: “Keep the target on the defensive, define the political conversation, and
raise constant new ‘questions’ that can only be answered by the release
of documents — in 2004, Kerry’s military records; in this case, Romney’s
back tax returns — that promise to be complicated, hard to interpret and
sure to open the door to still more questions.”

The RNC will spend $5 million on television
advertisements promoting Mitt Romney’s campaign in seven states
beginning tomorrow, National Journal reports.

First Read: “This is the RNC’s first TV buy of the general election. Why is the RNC
getting into the act? Remember we told you earlier this week that the
Romney campaign is being outspent right now because it can’t use
general-election funds until after the GOP convention? Well, don’t be
surprised if the RNC is now hitting the airwaves to help make up the
difference — and more.”

A new Mason-Dixon poll in Florida finds Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) holds a 5-point lead over Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 42%.

Said pollster Brad Coker: “Anytime there’s an incumbent under 50 percent, that’s a warning sign that people are against you. The healthcare vote could be hurting Nelson.”

The NewsHour put together a video of the ads shown in a half hour of television in Virginia.

“Some, as you can see, were on more than once. Some were funded by the presidential campaigns, while others came from outside groups or super PACs. The Senate contest received nearly as much air time as the White House race. All but one of the ads were entirely negative in tone.”

[Read more…]

BuzzFeed has the audio of Condoleeza Rice’s “forceful, and surprisingly partisan, 13-minute address” that she gave to a gathering of big-money Republican donors that put her in the middle of veep speculation.

A new Gallup survey finds just 58% of registered voters between the ages of 18 and 29 say they are “definitely likely” to vote, down from 78% who said they were in October 2008.

Steve Kornacki notes that Mitt Romney’s explanation for leaving Bain Capital only makes sense in the context of when he made it: When Romney left to run the Olympics, there was no reason for him to think he would be running for public office any time soon. In fact, he fully expected to return to his old job.

“The point here isn’t that Romney was running Bain Capital and making all of its key decisions from 1999 to 2002. But the story he tells now absolves him of all responsibility for anything and everything Bain did in those years. This would be reasonable if Romney had forged a clear and total break with the company in 1999, but he didn’t. His statement to the ballot law commission 10 years ago was supported by just about all of his actions between 1999 and 2002: Until the final few months of his Olympic tenure, Romney’s break from Bain was supposed to temporary.”