The Romney File: Look at his Record

by David Martosko
The Daily Caller
January 18, 2012

If you think you’ve already heard everything there is to know about Mitt  Romney, think again. A 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.”

Read the Romney file: 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 [Securities and Exchange Commission] officials were taking formal  action against the company.”

In a followup article cited in the file, the Globe reported that Romney and  another Bain Capital partner “defended their decision to  hire Drexel before the SEC suit — at a time when rumors of the investigation  were rife on Wall Street — as well as after the suit was filed.”

The dossier also explores the history of Bain’s business transactions related  to Ampad, Maytag, Haier Group, and seven other companies that were subjects of  Bain takeovers.