Yes, I know it’s November, but this is truly an October surprise. How do you recognize and October surprise? First of all, you look at the source. Second, you look to see if there is any way the issue can be clearly resolved before the actual election. Third, you look to see what impact the October surprise will have on the uninformed voter, because that is the target audience. To be an effective October surprise, there must be no traceable link to the candidate who will gain by the damaging (but not generally relevant) information contained in the surprise. Here we go.
Watchdog.net has posted the following information featuring the headline “BREAKING: Mitt Romney Charged With Violating Federal Ethics Law!”:
As of November 1, Mitt Romney is one of the first presidential candidates ever to be charged with violating federal ethics law.
United Automobile Workers (UAW) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have just charged Romney with hiding between 15.3 to 11.5 million dollars from the auto industry bailout in his wife Anne’s “blind” trust to conceal the gain and reduce taxes on it.
“The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue,” the groups said in a statement. “It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”
It’s time to expose just how unscrupulous Romney is about making his fortune off the misfortunes of others. Please, support UAW and CREW by calling on Romney to reveal exactly how much he made and continues to make off the auto bailout!
PETITION TO MITT ROMNEY: It’s time to come clean. We demand to know how much money you hid in your wife’s supposed blind trust, and how much you continue to make thanks to the gutting of the auto industry.
There are a few problems with this. The UAW was one of the beneficiaries of the auto bailout and is a strong supporter of President Obama. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is working hard to undo the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which Mitt Romney supports. Each group has a horse in this race. It makes sense that Mitt Romney would be invested in the auto industry–he is a ‘car guy’ from Michigan. This charge is bogus, and my hope is that it will go nowhere. I am posting this because I want people to be aware that there may be more attacks like this one in the remaining few days before the election. One of the goals here is to remind us that Mitt Romney is rich and that we should dislike him because he is rich. The other is simply to convince voters that there is something dishonest here. I rather doubt there is.
The thing to remember here is that watchdog.net is a site set up for people to start petitions and espouse causes. Any special interest group can go to watchdog.net and set up a petition. I have no idea how much traffic they get, so I don’t know how many people will be aware of this attack, but it is a true example of an October surprise.
