Romney is a whiner. I've never seen Obama whine, but Mitt's whine is shrill and incessant.
CROWLEY: A quick question about the campaign, Governor. You said President Obama was running, I believe the phrase was a campaign of hate. Do you think President Obama hates you, personally? And how do you feel about him?
ROMNEY: (Laughter.) You know, I think that the President’s campaign has taken on a course of divisiveness and attack which is very different than the campaign of hope and change which he described in his first run for office. And in some cases it’s Super PACs that are working in his behalf, but he refuses to distance himself from what they’ve said and I’ve been accused by Super PACs or by his campaign of a whole series of things which I think are taking a campaign into a very low and unfortunate place.
(PHOTOS: The Rich History of Mitt Romney)
When I became the presumptive nominee of the party, the President called me and congratulated me and said that he thought the nation would benefit from an honest and open debate of the issues in the course forward. I agreed with him. But I have yet to see that from his campaign. Instead, it has been one attack after the other, one accusation, all of which or most of which have been distortions or misguided. And I think it’s beneath the office of the presidency to engage in a campaign of the nature that he has pursued.
My campaign is focused on his policies and on the failure of those policies, in my view. And I’ll continue to point out our differences in policy and things I think he’s doing wrong from a policy standpoint. But I will not waste a campaign attacking him as an individual. I’ve not tried to divide Americans between one class or another or one location or another or one occupation or another. I happen to feel that we are united as a nation and that’s a source of strength. And the divisiveness and the personal character assassination I think is an unfortunate course and I don’t think it will be a successful one.
Read more at Time
In this bit, Romney shows off his inability to communicate to the average person:
CROWLEY: Would it be fair to call that supply-side economics?
ROMNEY: I’m not sure that’s the term I would use. What I would point out that for decades people have spoken about dynamic scoring of tax policy. Let’s look at it in the reverse. Let’s say, for instance, that we were to increase the tax on capital to 90 percent of capital gains. Non-dynamic scoring would say there would be no change in the amount of capital gains achieved and therefore there would be a huge increase in revenues. Dynamic scoring would say, in fact, if you’re going to tax something at 90 percent, people aren’t going to do much of it and you’re not going to get much revenue.
As a matter of fact, with capital gains taxes, a lot of studies have shown that if you raise the rates you actually don’t get more tax revenues because of the dynamic effect of reducing the amount of capital gains people recognize. So my plan likewise takes into play, takes into account the growth impact of changes in tax policy and as we have modeled it, it’s been — this is an effort that’s been led by Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and now dean of the Columbia Business School. We look through our model, look at the growth effect, as well as the additional revenue impact of reducing or eliminating certain deductions for people at the high end and we’re able to achieve the revenue targets that we seek.
What the hell is he talking about?