America

The McLean House - the site of Lee's surrender
to General Grant, which ended the Civil War

I have been bothered recently by this whole idea of secessionists and secessionism. First of all, the issue was settled back in the Civil War. States may not leave the United States. Counties may not leave states. Cities and towns cannot create their own state or country. That's out. The issue was settled in 1865 with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

So, what's this stuff about secessionism?

In America, we have our differences but we have always pulled together as a country. Until recently. And the only difference is all about scoring political points—but in reality, it is causing a very real danger to the country.

Here's a recent discussion I had concerning Detroit's bankruptcy that I had on Bloomberg's website:

Detroit skyline

Detroit is one of the signature cities in the United States. As Americans, we all hold the responsibility for this failure. We are also able to assist in the regeneration of Detroit. And we should. Just as all Americans pitched in to buy War Bonds, we should all consider how we can each contribute to a new, modern, efficient and well-run Detroit.

Where are the Motown artists? I would love to attend a concert to raise money. Where are the people who will stand up for Detroit? We're great at describing this failure in detail. How about we put our heads together and create success?

I was stunned by the following reply:

You've got to be kidding. Do you really think someone in Hicksville, NC or Podunk, Wyoming cares or even should care about Detroit? Should anyone, even Detroit residents, contribute further to the corruption and graft that has bankrupt that city?

I do like your reference to war bonds. Detroit is, after all, a war zone.

Snide comment about Detroit being a war zone aside, the poster obviously didn't understand why anyone in Hicksville, North Carolina or some town in Wyoming ought to care. People in all 50 states should care and need to care. Because they're Americans.

I replied:

Searching for survivors in New Orleans after Katrina

Detroit's issues are a disaster that is man-made. And so was the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans. There were warnings in the case of New Orleans and there were warnings in the case of Detroit.

I recall that Republicans didn't want to rebuild New Orleans. "We can't afford it," was their reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth. New Orleans largely rebuilt itself, with a little help from the state and very little from Washington. As a result, New Orleans population is approximately 56% of the pre-Katrina population. That means less revenue to the state, less revenue to the city and less revenue to the federal government, as displaced people don't make what they made before. The case for rebuilding New Orleans was made and then ignored. And that was, perhaps, the most un-American thing anyone could have done. Rebuild after Katrina and you get 100% of your tax base back. Don't rebuild and you wind up with a deficit.

This is the same with Detroit. Detroit's population in 1950 was 1,849,568. In 1980, there were 1.2 million people. Today, the population of Detroit is 701,475. That's just a little over half the 1980 figure and one third of the city at it's height. Cities are geared to expand, not contract.

Gutted Apartment Buildings, NYC

I lived in New York in the 1980s and watched as Reganomics destroyed whole sections of the city, many of which looked like the result of the bombings in Germany during WW II. New York grew because its principal source of income, Wall Street, didn't move away to another country, like Detroit's. But NYC also received a great deal of rebuilding money from Washington and Albany. And New York diversified into high-tech, media and other areas besides Wall Street.

In Detroit's case, there has never been the kinds of sums to help rebuild the city and make it prosper or diversify its tax base. If you, personally, were hit by a similar disaster, man-made or otherwise, I'd instruct my Representative and my Senators to make you whole because we are both Americans. Because Americans stand with Americans and don't let one another sink. Because, if we don't, our children will be learning Mandarin in order to get a job in any kind of business. Now, I have nothing against China or the Chinese and I was very proud that we sent rescue workers to that country to help in the wake of their natural disasters (namely earthquakes), because that's what we do here in America. That's what makes us unique in the world.

I would prefer to see our country strong. And our strength comes from Americans helping Americans. If you look at the states in the center of this country, you'll see states that, per capita, send less money into our federal treasury than they get back. These are the truly red states. I grew up in one of them, Kansas. And we prospered because our system was one for all Americans, not just those living in the states that pay the most to the federal coffers. If that were the case, we'd be three or four very different countries—one or two of which would not be in the G-20 (the 20 nations with the largest economies). But that's not the case, because we're all Americans, in it together, pulling for each other.You can go into all the wrongs that Detroit's government has done and sit there on the sidelines and snipe at them. That will get you nothing and Detroit nothing. Me, I like America. I want to see the entire nation succeed and don't want to sacrifice one square inch of our soil.

Senators Coburn and Inhofe, who say
American ought not be for Americans and
Americans ought not support one another in crisis.

Of course, there is this real tide from the right talking about how "we can't afford disaster relief." Two senators, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn held up needed aid to three eastern states after a hurricane hit them. Inhofe and Coburn are both from Oklahoma, a state with very few—if any—hurricanes to its credit.

But then there was this tornado. And then another. And the first one really did a lot of damage in Moore, OK, which is a suburb of Oklahoma City. I was raised in Kansas and, for the most part, a tornado is all about a warning. When they do touch down, they're liable to knock down a barbed wire fence or two, kill cattle, take down a barn.

But we've been spreading out, recently, as a species and what used to be farmland is now suburb. And those areas may get hit by tornadoes.

I live in Connecticut, a state that rarely sees tornadoes and never sees the kind of F4 and F5 types that hit near Oklahoma City. I suppose I could have urged my senators to give tit for tat.

But that's not American.

There’s a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that is probably rightly attributed to  Richard Penn in “Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years” (published in 1811) that applies here:

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Of course this was written around the time of the Revolutionary War and "hanging separately" was something the British wanted to do to many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, served in the Continental Army and the states militias then and served as delegates to the Continental Congress. The last phrase in the Declaration of Independence is as follows:

…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Where is the mutuality in Coburn and Inhofe's rhetoric where they say "we need to offset any disaster aid in savings in the budget?" Where is the pledge to each other in saying "we cannot afford to rebuild New Orleans?" There is nothing mutual and there is no "sacred Honor" in letting Detroit rot.

We are not fifty states. We are America. And I say it's time to start acting like it.

Taking back the Revolution

I see a lot of TEA Partiers and conservatives claiming that our 1776 revolution was an anti-tax revolution, was a conservative revolution and that this is echoed today in current events.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Look, it's really easy and popular to oppose taxes because nobody likes paying them. But if we don't, we have to give up roads, bridges, the Internet, trash hauling, police, the military a navy, public storm shelters, interconnected trains that bring us goods, airports, air traffic control, harbors, international relations with trade partners, Indian casinos instead of Indian wars, schools, universities, a banking system, fair trade, and so on. Stuff we all take for granted.

There were conservatives active in our Revolution. They were called "Loyalists." They were relocated to Canada or left to England after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783 which ended hostilities. In fact, England ended hostilities because the liberals (known as Whigs) took over Parliament and decided peace was more important than trying to beat the American Colonists into submission in a war that had become very unpopular in England.

But that was England. The issue in America was not taxation, in and of itself. It was lack of any representative in Parliament that could argue the Colonists' side or represent the interests of colonial people. In fact, the Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin to travel to England to represent our interests to Members of Parliament (since we had no direct representation).

The whole idea of a Parliament is a liberal ideal. The conservatives believed in the Divine Right of Kings—if you were born a prince, you had a right to rule. Here in the American colonies we had, of necessity, been self-governing since being dropped off here in the colonial establishments. Communication with England could entail a three-month trip. The idea of a "right to rule" kind of got fuzzy here, as we didn't have any established monarch on these shores, and many of the wealthy landowners who had been given grants here by the King were absentee—they lived in England.

The Continental Congress Voting Independence

We chose to form a Confederation under Articles that were our "first Constitution." When that very liberal document that gave states rights over that of any central government and that turned out to make self-governance impossible, we chose to re-form our government. The 1787 Constitutional Convention was our SECOND attempt at trying to self-govern. (King George III was absolutely certain that this "generalissimo" George Washington character would be a dictator within a very few years, echoing Oliver Cromwell).

Much of our Constitution (and, if you consider the Articles of Confederation a constitution, this was our second) was a reaction to England. We didn't like how Parliament governed. We didn't like how non-representative it was, with some constituencies very small, others very large, some constituencies populous, others not. So we decided that representation would be apportioned in accordance with population, counted in a census every 10 years. That was very liberal, and it was almost unheard of. It flew in the face of the governance of the Princes of Europe, who set boundaries based on what the nobility had done for them and this patronage system was their system of representation. If you were "in favor," you were better represented. "Out-of favor" meant scant little.

And the forming of a Republic was considered impossible. This was a way radical liberal ideal to form a republic, where the masses would all have a say in governance. So some conservatives (who were very liberal as compared to Europe) thought that it would be better to have representation of the States interests. So the bicameral legislative bodies were set up, with the States choosing their Senators and the masses choosing their Representatives.

Lincoln knew that the princes of Europe
wished to destroy our Republic

All in all, for its time, our Constitution is a very, very liberal document.

You get confirmation of that with Lincoln, the first Republican President. He affirmed that there could be no breakup of the United States, as he knew that the princes of Europe would just as soon carve up this country and all of its resources in order to create their own little (actually big) fiefdoms here. At the time of Lincoln, "four score and seven years ago," the idea of a representative Republic was a totally liberal idea. The Conservatives went with princes, kings, kingdoms, empires and colonial systems.

The neo-conservatives of today have no claim on the American Revolution or on our Constitution—both extremely liberal, progressive ideals.

Now, I have been told that I'm trying to assign the tenets of today's Liberal and Conservative movements to those of the 1700s. This is not true, either. This is not apples and oranges.

The neo-conservative movement is all about "lowering the burdens of full participation in society for the 'job creators'" which are defined as the wealthy. By lowering the burdens, they mean reducing taxes, omitting regulation so that they may conduct business unhampered by any governmental paperwork, restriction or interference and by allowing businessmen to call the shots.

Sounds great. After all, we would never have had any revolution had it not been for the big corporations encouraging us to… Wait!

After the Seven-Years War, King George III ceded all land
west of the Eastern Mountains to the Indians

Back in 1776, the cry was "Taxation without Representation is tyranny!" But the Crown was taxing us to help pay for the Seven Years' War which we, in America, call the French and Indian War. We were direct beneficiaries of that war, in that it expanded our land and reduced attacks by the indigenous nations on our settlements. Of course we didn't like the restrictions put on us that the King signed in the treaties with the Indian Nations that kept us hemmed in by the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains.

The Colonials read the treaty and decided they didn't like it. And I think the treaty made across the Atlantic by people who didn't live here was an additional concern with respect to the lack of representation in Parliament for the Colonials. Certainly young George Washington had familiarized himself, as a surveyor, with the lands in the west over the mountains and one result of our Revolution was that he was able to use land acquired in those western territories, which King George III had, with his signature, given in perpetuity to the Indians and withheld from the Colonials. And all this without one representative in Parliament to make the point that the European colonists might, actually beg to differ.

Would having had a representative in Parliament have changed anything? Probably not, but there would have been at least one voice of concern raised in our favor.

Additionally, our Revolution freed us from the yoke of the English Royal Chartered Companies that were set up by the King to make money for the wealthiest—in England, not here in America. These were truly the first transnational companies. And they were empowered to do things that we assume only governments do, such as:

• Trade with the indigenous peoples
• Form banks
• Own, manage and grant or distribute land
• Raise its own police force

The Seal of the Virginia Company of London, known
as the London Company

There were restrictions on what a colonist could do. All trade had to go through these Royal Chartered Companies. For example, Thomas  Jefferson could not sell the grain and tobacco grown on his plantation directly to anyone. Everything had to pass through the hands of the London Company, which had been chartered by James I on 10 April 1606. They set the prices for what he sold and also set the prices for everything he purchased through them. 

These were Royal monopolies and served, in effect to enrich the "job creators" of their day through the restraint of trade and strict control over the Colonists. As I have mentioned, these chartered companies were truly transnational in scope, as colonists were not allowed to trade directly with anyone, save through these companies. To the extent Jefferson's tobacco found its way to France, it was only through the London Company.

Liberals wanted free trade, allowing American farmers the ability to trade directly with anyone, and this was another result of our Revolution: No longer were we held in the thrall of the oligarchs who were the beneficiaries of these transnationals.

Today's neo-conservative movement still adheres to this principle that large transnational companies

TEA Party rally. Their claims to adherence to the principles
of the American Revolution are utterly false.

ought to manage their own affairs without any interference from the common man in the form of a "leveling of the playing field" through regulation. An echo of these chartered companies lies in the use of Halliburton, an oilfield services company that was going through bankruptcy shortly after GW Bush and Dick Cheny were given the Executive by the US Supreme Court. Immediately, the Bush Administration started banging the drumbeat for war with Iraq because of Cheny's interest in the company as its former CEO. After the 9/11 attacks, Halliburton was given no-bid contracts to help with the Iraq war effort, making hundreds of millions for the executives of that company, just as the stockholders of the London Company profited from the plantations here in the American colonies.

As you can see, I am really bothered by this claim that the American Revolution was some kind of a conservative movement. In all levels of society, in all ways of doing business of limiting upward mobility and of controlling the people, the conservative movement wants to roll us right back to the "royal excesses" of the pre-Revolutionary era. The founders of this country did not set up a nation based on Christianity. They were not rebelling against taxes—indeed, they instituted their own but made sure that there was representation of all views.

And I'm not bothered by the rhetoric because I disagree with the political aims of the TEA Party. I am bothered because their claim is utterly false, devoid of fact and a pack of lies.

Just like the whopper about how if a woman is raped, her body shuts down the conception thing. But that's another article.

The Second Amendment

Assumption

One of the grand bargains that made up our country was this: The assumption of the National Debt by the Federal (or central) Government. This was a contentious issue, as the "United States" had borrowed money from several European countries during our Revolutionary War with England and the various states had borrowed from wealthy landowners in those states. Additionally, The Continental Army had not been paid what was due them, and many of the independently-wealthy officers of the army had spent their entire fortunes on equipment and supplies to outfit the troops under them.

The Articles of Confederation
so limited our government
that they were thrown out
and replaced by our current Constitution.

The taxing authority of our Continental Congress was minimal. It was hamstrung by the need for two things: A quorum, which was beginning to become hard to establish, and consensus. representation was haphazard, with each state's delegations consisting of whatever the state wanted to send. Some states, like Virginia, had retired their entire share of the national debt. Others had not paid one penny toward it.  Every time paper money was issued by either the national government or the state governments, it was very quickly devalued.

In 1787, when the Philadelphia Convention was assembled to rewrite our Constitution, the Articles of Confederation causing the nascent United States to be—essentially—ungovernable, one of the proposals had to do with the debt and a means to finance it. Article 6 of our Constitution states:

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

The US national debt in 1790 was $54 million, which would be comparable to a US national debt of $4.1 trillion in 2009 by relative share of GDP. Our actual US national debt in 2009 was about $11.4 trillion, but we were not a brand new, emerging country then.

Alexander Hamilton, our first
Secretary of the Treasury

Once our Constitution was ratified and, upon the initial meeting of the First Congress, secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton proposed a set of interlocking laws to be passed by Congress, the first of which was the assumption of the debts of the states, when they were acting as a national government would act during our Revolutionary War. So, soldiers' pay was to be handled by the new central government. Loans to individuals to raise armies and outfit them as well as loans to individuals who "bought in" to our Revolution and helped with finances.

Hamilton proposed a complete set of policies for handling the debt. All debts were to be paid at face value. The central government would assume all of the debts owed by the states, and it would be financed with new US government bonds paying about 4% interest. The government would not pay back the principal on the bonds, merely the interest, which would be paid by a new tariff and a stiff excise tax on liquor. Since unpaid foreign debt, generally brought with it ships of war from those countries owed, this reduced the risk that foreign governments would go after the new US government for reparations and increased our national security. Since individual states no longer owed this money, no foreign nation could "lop off" a slow-to-pay state and just take it over to retire its debts.  Additionally, Hamilton surmised, this would create credit-worthiness in the United States and, as we began handling this debt, and we would eventually be able to borrow more, both domestically and abroad. Lastly, with federal tax collectors established, these agents would be responsive to and loyal to the central government and not the governments of the states, reducing the temptation of the states to secede from the United States, binding us together more firmly.

Hamilton urged Congress to pass a tax on imports. He also urged an excise tax on liquor.

James Madison blocked Hamilton's
proposal for the federal government

Hamilton's proposals drew sharp criticism from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and House leader James Madison. They were suspicious of the kind of concentration to a central government that Madison's proposals represented. They also feared that speculators would make money from the securities at the expense of those who had actually fought in the Revolutionary War.

Finding Hamilton looking very sick, Jefferson invited him and Madison to dinner at his New York address (New York being the capitol, then) and they agreed to have the permanent seat of the US Capitol located in the South in exchange for Madison's debt assumption plan, on June 20, 1790.

As a result of this, several things happened. A National Bank was established. States were enjoined to balance their budgets. And only the federal government could run a deficit.

This principle worked. The fair faith and credit of the United States of America is worth a lot. we have a great credit rating, despite what Republicans did last year with the debt ceiling, and we always service our debt.

Now, Republicans want to trash this precedent—just as they trashed the precedent of extending the debt ceiling last year. I'm not sure why they thought this was a good idea. Nobody has ever been able to explain this to me. It has been a long-standing tradition that the party out of power complains about what the party in power is doing but, in the end votes to uphold the credit of the United States of America.

So I have to ask, is it a good idea for the federal government to, simply, not assume the debts of the states? If it didn't, we would face the same problems we had before Alexander Hamilton sat down to dinner with Jefferson and Madison. And, I would argue that Article 6 certainly points in the direction of debt assumption. And, by debt assumption I mean, specifically, that the states ought to return to the federal coffers what they cost the federal treasury.

The red states in this map take a larger share of federal
funds than they give back to the federal government.
These states tend to vote Republican.

And the funny thing is, the states that return the least to Washington tend to vote Republican. In fact, Mississippi ($2.47 for every $1) and Alabama ($2.03 for every $1) receive more than twice from the federal government than they send back. I'm quite familiar with living in a region that sends way more into federal and state coffers than they receive. I lived in New York City for 20 years.

So, if what Republicans want to do is have everyone row their own boat, live within their means and all that, they may find themselves on the "outs" when it comes to inbound federal funds, were our government to actually run things like that. I recently ran into a Libertarian-type (who obviously did not think his statement through) who told me that he thought the smallest possible unit of government ought to manage things. While that sounds great on paper, it's absolutely upside-down.

Governor Romney thinks that the states
should handle emergency response,
not FEMA.

As an example, Governor Romney stated that the states ought to handle emergency disaster relief. Perhaps, during his short one-term tenure as Governor of Massachusetts, there was no federal relief for anything in his state. Or, since he was known as Governor Rom-fee, he'd raise fees to provide disaster relief. But the states ought not to be responsible for disasters like that. Generally a hurricane or an earthquake doesn't concern itself with niceties like state borders and frequently crosses state lines, leaving a path of destruction on both sides of a state border.

Living in The State of Steady Habits—a nickname for Connecticut resulting from the strict morals of its inhabitants, who in the colony's earliest days were governed by rigid Blue Laws regulating public morality—I have seen the state perfectly happy to beggar its neighbor. After the Northeast blackout of 2003, a cable was laid under the Long Island Sound to carry electricity to Long Island. Connecticut prevented its use, saying it was built in violation of codes governing undersea cables. Of course, Connecticut didn't write those codes until after the cable was laid.

Additionally, states are notorious for not keeping their "rainy day" funds replenished. Why? Because, in the words of GW Bush, "It's the People's money!" Politicians, especially Republicans, are loath to tax to raise funds for a "rainy day." In fact, one year ago we had a mayoral candidate in my town who ran on the basis of reducing taxes on property by spending the "rainy day" fund the town had amassed. He was winning the election until we had a late October snow storm that gave townspeople a very clear indication of why a "rainy day" fund is important.

The apron of a state road being repaired
with state funds, not town funding.

Another town fact in opposition to my Libertarian friend is that the town is very happy to have lots of state roads running through it. The town is not responsible for their upkeep, for traffic signals, lane markings, sewers or curbs. Since one has to completely replace a road every 30 years, the town revels in the fact that there are a lot of roads for which they have zero fiscal responsibility. And the townspeople are happy to not need to pay for them. Placing the burden of these streets on the town would be a fiscal disaster.

Republicans want to have the federal government get out of the business of funding stuff. And it doesn't make sense. If you don't collect money from the entire country, you give up the large tax base that is nationwide—and helping to support those states who need the money more. I suppose Republicans can call that "Socialist," but they, themselves are the beneficiaries of this practice, just as Representative Paul Ryan was a direct beneficiary of federal largesse during the "stimulus," which he argued against (despite producing letters to the President asking for stimulus spending in his district).

I can see Republican-led Arkansas becoming a complete backwater without the amount of money it gets from federal sources. Just about everything in that state would suffer, from schools to roads and bridges to the overall economy in that state. This kind of "meta-socialism" works very well in the United States, as it has worked since the very beginning of our country, with Hamilton's assumption bill. And, by and large, it's the red states that are receiving most of it.

If Republicans want smaller and smaller units of government managing things, there will be no coordination between states (or towns and cities) and the vast majority of taxes you pay would be local taxes. Your tax burden wouldn't change—it would simply go to more local sources.

What's wrong with that, you ask. State representatives do not work full time for the state. In my state, they have "day jobs" and they're very interested in getting the state's business done so that they can get back to work. On the local level, town councilpersons are made up of volunteers. They tend to never develop the special expertise necessary to plan road building, repairs infrastructure improvements, bridge crossings, schools, public works and so on. Instead, they usually hire people to do that for them. These kinds of administrative tasks, while certainly no problem in their own businesses, are not the kinds of things small town councils should be tasked with. In my town, we have a professional Town Manager and full-time staff with actual expertise that handles these things. But if our town were made to manage all roads going through it, the budget would need to triple. There'd be a taxpayer insurrection.

I think the real reason why Republicans want smaller units of government to handle things is because corporate lobbyists find smaller units of government a pushover. And many states have few laws regarding lobbying. Within a matter of months, big corporations would, under this system, run everything.

I see Republicans wanting to dismantle the social safety net. And now they want to dismantle the connection between the federal government and the states. Of course, they didn't argue for this back when they held majorities in both houses and the Presidency.

Insert sports analogy here....

It is fairly clear that now everyone knows that Mitt Romney's campaign for President has melted down. And all of the Republicans say that Mitt's in charge.

If this is true, then Governor Romney has taken a campaign that he could have won and created a loss from victory. He very neatly avoided all of those prickly details about where he stands on the issues that affect America. He completely evaded those pesky facts, running a campaign was based about as loosely on facts as any campaign I have ever witnessed.

Voter Suppression enthusiast
John Hustead

His henchmen have been busy, too. They were successful, mostly, in 2000 in suppressing voter turnout so that it looked like Bush was winning. As it turns out, when the AP did a recount, Bush actually lost Florida and ought to not have been elected against Al Gore, but he got some help from partisans on the Supreme Court (yes, that's right, Justice Alito, I think you are partisan). Now, they have a multi-state program to suppress voting in Pennsylvania—where older people tend to vote Democratic—Florida—where Hispanic-named people vote Democratic—and Ohio—minorities like early voting and if you limit polling hours and keep the polls closed on weekends, you can run the minority vote out of time.

It looks like the Ohio gambit didn't work, as Secretary of the State John Hustead was embarrassed by the media when he tried to keep polls open for Republican voting counties, while closing the polls for the counties that vote the other way.

So now the blame game happens and it's like blaming a coach for the failure of his quarterback or his center who has fouled out. And Republicans are sniping from the sidelines, doing everything from "distancing themselves" despite similar statements (as in the case of wrestling plutocrat Linda McMahon in Connecticut) to outright disagreement (as in the case of Senator Scott Brown, who is in a very tight race in Massachusetts).

Now you'd expect that with moderate Republicans (scarce as hen's teeth these days). But Conservatives have been falling all over themselves to criticize Romney for statements he made in the Mother Jones tape from a fundraiser. People who "can be relied on," like Ron Paul, David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, David Brooks, Rod Dreher, Brink Lindsey, Kathleen Parker, Bruce Bartlett, Peggy Noonan and Bill Kristol have been falling all over themselves criticizing the Romney campaign.

Why is he melting down? They had their act together. Mitt Romney is a very well-disciplined candidate who has been running for President for the last six years. He ought to be a known commodity.

The problem is that Governor Romney has tried to re-define himself as the ultra-conservative candidate his party really wants. And that flies in the face of what he did as Governor in Massachusetts, it flies in the face of statements he made when he was running for Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat and it flies in the  face of everything we used to think Romney was all about.

And that bothers Conservatives. They just don't trust him.

Of course the big trust "whopper" Romney has been telling us has to do with his tax returns. "Just trust me" was a big problem when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts, because he told everyone to trust him that he had been filing as a Massachusetts resident. In fact, he didn't, and had to amend his returns in order to qualify to run for Governor.

When it comes to anything Governor Romney would like to be left private, there is a huge trust issue. He has been proven untrustworthy in the past.

So when does the team quit? I'm figuring it will be after the second debate. The Republican Party hung Bob Dole out to dry in October, 1996 when he was running against Clinton. They decided then that the best strategy would be to try to hang on to the House and Senate. So they withdrew money from the Dole campaign (leaving that in deficit) and went all-out to retain Congress. Senator Dole was not amused.

Romney cannot win debates against President Obama. He didn't do all that well in the debates against Republican opponents and he has a tendency to allow opposing candidates to define him. At the very most, all Romney can hope for is a draw in the debates. And the third debate, on foreign policy is a giveaway. I doubt if the Republican establishment will stick with him that long.

It's anyone's guess as to whether or not the Coach will bench him or let him come out for another run to try to win the next game. This is one team player who simply isn't going to "win one for the Gipper."

Romney Defined

Mitt Romney's job at the Republican National Convention was to define himself. When he started talking about his grandparents and referring to America as a nation of immigrants, he was reminding all of us that we claim is country with all nationalities. An expansive statement.

Then the camera cut to the RNC delegates. Over 90% white.

He had been introduced by a Cuban-American. Despite the fact that Republican policies actively harm them, Florida's Senator Marco Rubio had offered a wonderful speech that encouraged Cuban-Americans to vote Republican. To the extent they do, they find their state is presently purging voter lists of anyone with an Hispanic last name.

Romney spoke of his parents and his father, who obviously did those little things that would please his wife. If you're married and you are not regularly doing things for your spouse, your marriage won't last. For some reason, Romney's story about his father's death reminded me of my friend, John Scagliotti, who was the first Executive Producer of "In the Life," a nationally-airing television newsmagazine covering gay, lesbian and transgendered issues and culture.

When I started editing for the show back in the 1990s, John lost his longtime partner. Mr. Romney wants to forbid gay marriage. It is heartbreaking to lose someone that close, and it is even worse if a hospital won't let you visit your partner, since you are not next-of-kin or family.

Mitt Romney also praised his wife for the great job she did raising their five children. So did my mother. And my mother was not married to a multi-millionaire with bank accounts in Switzerland nd the Caymen Islands. Mrs. Romney has Multiple Sclerosis, which is very sad. My mother died from Leukemia. Both women needed health insurance, but my mother was on Medicare after she retired and her healthcare and insurance was affordable to her because of that. Mr. Romney's running mate would give my mother a coupon and allow insurance companies to deny coverage due to her pre-existing condition.

If you are a multimillionaire and you have MS, you don't live with the fear that you will lose your only home if your insurance company suddenly rescinds their coverage.

Then Romney decided he had defined himself enough, after having defined the people around him and the people who raised him. And he began to talk about President Obama, saying that it would be OK to vote against him if you voted for him four years ago.

He spoke about how we are not better off  than we were four years ago. I don't know about you, but my 401(k) is no longer in the toilet. The stock market hs recovered all of its losses. I am not drawing unemployment and I am a small businessman. While I do see businesses fail, the housing market is beginning to pick up.

A tax increase will not change anything about my small business. I shall continue to operate. I may have to make a couple of additional sales, but under Romney's plan to put the burden of tax increases on the middle class in order to give himself a bigger tax break, I'll need to make at least three more to pay for the Romney increase.

Anyone need a website?

So, the remainder of Mr. Romney's speech was all about trying to define President Obama, not Mitt Romney. I think, going forward, that is going to be a problem. Because President Obama and the Democrats will continue to define Romney. And that is a strategy that, in view of all of the fundamental changes Romney has appeared to make in his outlook, has not worked for Mr. Romney in the past.

This was a golden opportunity, and one that was utterly missed. What remains to be seen is if the Republican Party hangs Mitt out to dry like they did with Bob Dole in October, 1996. Perhaps the SuperPACs will stick with him.

Redefining Romney

Governor Romney hasn't really defined himself. Instead, he has pretty much left that to the experts—namely his opponents.

In his race against a very vulnerable Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, in their debate in October, Senator Kennedy, who looked like he had all but lost the race came out punching:

"I have supported the Roe v. Wade [decision]. I am pro-choice," Kennedy said. "My opponent is multiple choice."

Romney's reply has dogged him ever since:

"My mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that, or be a multiple choice, thank you very much."

In other words, he did then just what he's doing now: Not defining himself. Now I do understand that Mitt Romney is a believer in a minority religion, but heck, so was Kennedy. His brother was our first Catholic President. You can see Romney's first debate, on the C-SPAN website and marvel at how he completely failed to directly answer questions as well as define himself as a person.

As Governor of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, Romney was preceded by three Republican governors. He made a lot of promises when running and then became "Governor No," when he was in office, vetoing vetoed 844 pieces of legislation, with over 700 of those vetoes overridden. One might think it would be a good idea to work with a legislature than to stand against it. He came into office with a 66% approval rating on November 18, 2003 in Massachusetts and, by November 27th, that plummeted to 45% after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the Commonwealth to allow gay marriage and Romney took a hard stand against it.

Remember the statement above, that he will not force his beliefs on others? I guess he decided to allow the Massachusetts Supreme Court to define him. By November, 2006, his approval rating sunk to 34% with a 65% disapproval rating. He did not run for re-election and his successor was a Democrat.

Then it was time to run for office again and I think he's running for President because he knows that is the only way he can match his father's record as a three-term governor. He doesn't really seem to like debating, running, talking to the press or anything about campaigning and he has refused to offer any specific plans for what he plans to do if he becomes President.

Oh, he sais memorable stuff, like "We're going to take this country back," and "Put America back to work," and "Free us from this big government," and "Repeal Obamacare."

I would ask, take the country back from whom, or what? We do have a ballot box and people do go to the polls. It's not as if we invited Russians or Australians in to run this country in our stead. (Please note, I have nothing against either Russians or Australians. These are two countries pretty much on the opposite side of the world from America.) And Republicans ran on "Jobs, jobs, jobs" in 2010 and I have yet to see a single jobs bill come out of the House of Representatives, which they took over then—save the reauthorization of a highway bill.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

And our government under Obama has actually shrunk from the size it grew to under Bush. In fact, one thing that Romney won't say is that Bush grew the government faster than any President in history since the 1960s. Actually Romney won't mention the Bush name. The only reference I have heard him make to him is "Obama's predecessor."

What worries me is that all of the people around Romney in his campaign are all former Bush (II) staffers. Those goons should stay out of the West Wing. They have all ready proven their lack of competence.

And, repealing the Affordable Care Act will bloat the US budget deficit, which is something Romney says he won't do. Those who have teased actual numbers out of Romney's really incomplete proposals suggest that middle income people will pay around $2,000 more annually in federal taxes, while people like Romney who park their money overseas will pay less.

And that last item is something that Democrats have been using to define him—that and his tax return issue, which simply will not go away.

You cannot choose to run for President of the United States and keep your privacy these days. Romney thinks that's possible and I don't think that anyone in the press agrees.

So, in this upcoming Republican National Convention, they're going to try to redefine Romney for the voters. In that Romney's opponents have been doing that since 1994, I wonder if they'll be able to do that.