Tag Archives: Romney

InCity Feature, InCity Letters, Uncategorized

Clues could come early in state-by-state battle

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The most expensive presidential race in American history now becomes the biggest show on television, a night with enough uncertainty that it could become a telethon lasting well into morning.

For the third time in the last four presidential campaigns, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees went into Election Day close in the national polls, with not one of the major opinion surveys giving President Obama or Mitt Romney a lead of statistical significance.

But presidential races are decided in the states, and the nation will get an answer to the opposing cases for victory that each candidate has made for so many months. It will finally know, as one of Mr. Obama’s top aides has put it, “which side is bluffing” and whether battleground-state polls, which have given Mr. Obama a slim but consistent edge where it matters most, accurately foretold the outcome. As the night unfolds, clues to the outcome will spill out well before the votes are counted.

If exit polling indicates that Mr. Romney is substantially exceeding the share of the white vote that went to Senator John McCain four years ago, that will be a sign that he is replicating the coalition that gave President George W. Bush a second term. If Mr. Obama can win Virginia, a battleground with an early poll-closing time, Mr. Romney’s options for getting an Electoral College majority will be substantially reduced. And in Ohio, the vote in Hamilton County, which Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush both won, could signal who takes the state. … .

To read more, please click on the link below. – R.T.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/us/politics/state-by-state-battle-for-presidency-goes-to-voters.html?hp

 

InCity Letters, InCity Voices

Bain Workers Speak out against Failed Romney-Bain Economic Vision

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Bain Workers Speak Out Against Failed Romney-Bain Economic Vision before Heading to RNC Convention

Local employees share personal struggles at Bain-owned companies, joined by city councilors, faith leaders and 150+ community members at Dorchester send-off

DORCHESTER   – More than 150 community members joined local elected officials and faith leaders last week at a send-off event for Boston-area workers headed to the Republican National Convention. The delegation, made up of current and former employees of Bain-owned companies, shared their personal struggles with slashed pay and benefits, reduced hours, off-the-clock work and outright wage theft. Like outsourcing and offshoring, the issues have become hallmarks of the firm founded by former CEO and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney – a message the workers intend to deliver to convention attendees in Tampa, Florida.

“My co-workers and I have first-hand experience with the Romney-Bain agenda. They do everything they can to keep us close to minimum wage with no benefits – and when that’s not enough, they just refuse to pay us for the hours we work,“ said Simara Martinez, a Boston resident and employee of Dunkin’ Donuts. “It’s like modern-day slavery, and if we don’t speak out now it could be too late.”

 In Tampa, the Boston delegation will join hundreds of other Bain workers from across the country that have traveled to the RNC Convention to draw attention to the harmful effects of the Romney-Bain economic agenda. Their scheudle includes a series of actions that highlight longstanding Romney policies that ship American jobs overseas, slash wages and reduce benefits for the few jobs that remain, and push harsh budget cuts that target the low and middle income families who can least afford it.

Employees of Bain-owned companies were among the first to experience the ‘worker-exploitation-for-profit’ model that could be forced on the vast majority of Americans under a Romney presidency.

 “We’re going down to Tampa to tell the truth about the Romney-Bain record on jobs – about the part-time, minimum wage jobs they want us all trapped in,” said Katrina Fitzpatrick, a Dorchester resident who worked for Dunkin’ Donuts for more than 15 years. “If they have their way, billionaires will make even more money while the rest of us suffer. Working people can’t afford a Romney-Bain economy.”

 Joined by Boston City Councilors Felix Arroyo and Charles Yancey, Pastor William Dickerson and other faith and community leaders, Bishop Filipé Teixeira of the Catholic Church of the Americas offered a blessing for workers traveling to Tampa. “We have to unite our voices and speak on behalf of the poor, the exploited, and others who cannot always speak for themselves,” said Teixeira, who has long been at the forefront of the fight for workers’ rights. “In the name of a God who loves us, who looks like us and who suffers with us, we bless these workers who are carrying the weight of so many on their shoulders.”

InCity Feature

PATRICK, MURRAY AND GROSSMAN RECEIVED BAIN DONATIONS

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First this:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-15/news/32257240_1_grand-jury-investigators-authority-employees

Now this:

By Steven R. Maher

Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray, and Treasurer Steven Grossman are among the Massachusetts Democratic leaders who received campaign donations from employees of Bain Capital, the investment company Republican nominee Mitt Romney presided over.

Patrick, a long time political ally of President Barack H. Obama, shocked many in the political world when he told CNN Bain was not a “bad company”. Patrick’s comments have reportedly appeared in Romney campaign advertisements in battleground states.
Obama and most of the Republican candidates had portrayed Romney’s Bain as a corporate predator, taking over and selling off other companies’ assets, or leveraging them to the hilt for profit. In the process, Bain was alleged to have devastated entire communities with massive layoffs.
State law requires campaign donations over a certain amount to include the name of the donor’s employer. So we went to the website of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) which allows a search of campaign donations by a donor’s employer, and then sub-search by candidate. We searched Contributor Employers containing the name “Bain,” sorted by candidate.

Like start up

Deval Patrick received 31 donations from Bain employees totaling $11,500. The fascinating thing about this support is that 65% of it came at the time Patrick needed it most: prior to his first election as Governor in 2006. Patrick received 14 donations totaling $4,900 prior to the September 26, 2006 Democratic primary and another 7 donations totaling $2,500 before the November 2006 general election. It may not sound like much, but for a struggling gubernatorial candidate without spectacular personal wealth of his own, such amounts go a long way in the early stages of a campaign.

Romney received only two Bain donations worth $700 in 2007, the same amount in 2008, one Bain donation of $200 in 2009, $1,200.00 in five donations in 2010, and none at all in 2011 and 2012.
Bain looked at Patrick the way an investment company looks at a start up company with an attractive new product: a good investment, providing seed money for a struggling political entrepreneur. For Mitt Romney, the payback he received from the Bain donations was enormous: staggering under the blows from Obama’s attacks on Bain, he got a rebuttal from an African American supporter of Obama. It was a return on investment, in political terms, that was priceless, a working man’s equivalent of having a winning Power Ball ticket.

Other notables

Patrick was not the only high level Massachusetts Democrat to benefit from Bain employees’ largesse:

• Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray received ten donations worth $4,350 from Bain employees, all but one of which were made in 2006.

• Treasurer Steven Grossman received six donations totaling $2,350.• Boston May Thomas Menino received $500 in 2005 from a Bain employee.

• In 2008 Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi, now in jail, received a $250 donation from a Bain employee.

• The Massachusetts Democratic State Committee received $35,000 in donations from Bain employees.

• Former Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly received $1,000 in contributions from Bain employees.

• Former State Senate President Robert E. Travaglini received $700 from Bain employees.