Massive opposition file on Romney hits
Internet, likely from 2008 McCain campaign
The Daily CallerThe Daily Caller
Wed, Jan 18, 2012
If you think you’ve already heard everything
there is to know about Mitt Romney, think
again. A
1. 200-page document that appears to be
Sen. John McCain’s entire 2008 election-
year opposition research file on the former
Massachusetts governor hit the Internet with
a vengeance Tuesday evening. And it’s an
eye-opener.
The file explores everything from the
assessed value of Romney’s house (“$3.162
million”) to his views on the Boy Scouts’
ban of homosexuals (“publicly opposed …
in 1994 and 2002 campaigns”). It was made
public Tuesday on the social media website
Buzzfeed, although it appears to have been
accessible online for two months.
The document, given the name “The Romney Book,” was viewed less than 100 times on the
page where it was originally uploaded by its anonymous leaker on November 11.
Neither McCain nor his former presidential campaign staffers have authenticated the untitled
document, and McCain’s recent endorsement of Romney makes that highly unlikely. Still, the
file is comprehensive enough — even by Washington, D.C. opposition-research standards — to
suggest that it was assembled as a tool to
counter a Romney candidacy on a national
scale. And the news articles it references
stop late in 2007.
After a four-page introduction and
timeline of Romney’s personal and
professional life, the file’s next six pages
cover what the authors called “top hits.”
The last six pages are an appendix
describing a “Boston Video Archive.”
The biggest portion consists of a detailed
and heavily sourced exploration of
Romney’s evolving positions on social
issues (22 pages), economic issues (21
pages) and domestic policy (48 pages).
A 33-page section details his business
record at Bain Capital, and 16 pages cover
political issues that the authors believed
can be exploited against Romney.
Another 11 pages are devoted to his
“flip-flops.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78804272/The-
Romney-Book
The extensive research on Romney’s business history includes many snippets and quotations
from news stories that are no longer available online or have disappeared behind newspaper
paywalls, making the file a likely gold mine for Romney’s political rivals this year.
For instance, a 1991 Boston Globe article explored how Bain “cultivated a mystique around the
secretive firm, which was once dubbed ‘the KGB of consulting.’ Partners didn’t carry business
cards and referred to clients by code names. … And it inculcated in the recruits such a sense of
mission that young consultants became known as Bainies, a reference to the Unification
Church’s Moonies.”
Citing a 1994 Globe article, the file concludes that “Romney used Drexel Burnham junk bonds
to finance [a] 1988 leveraged buyout, right around the time SEC officials were taking formal
action against the company.”
DON’T VOTE FOR THIS CLOWN