Interview: President Obama on Romney's 'extreme' views (via The Christian Science Monitor)
President Barack Obama said Mitt Romney has locked himself into "extreme positions" on economic and social issues and would surely impose them if elected, trying to discredit his Republican rival at the biggest political moment of his life. In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Romney…
Citing concerns over the oncoming Tropical Storm Isaac, the Republican party announced Saturday it would delay the start of its national convention, choosing to convene briefly Monday before reconvening for a full session Tuesday.
"After consulting with Governor Scott, NOAA and local emergency management officials, we are optimistic that we will begin an exciting, robust convention that will nominate the Romney-Ryan ticket," National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement Saturday.
NBC News reported that an updated schedule for the now-truncated convention has not yet been determined, though a spokesperson for the GOP's presumptive presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, said his formal nomination will take place on Tuesday.
Forecasts currently call for Isaac to become a Class 1 or 2 hurricane around Monday, as it passes thru the Gulf of Mexico just west of the convention's host city, Tampa, Florida. The state's governor, Rick Scott, had announced he would not be participating in the convention but would stay in town to coordinate response efforts. Scott also announced a state of emergency in an effort to secure coordination between state, local and federal agencies.
[image via Agence France-Presse]
Ron Paul may not be speaking at the Republican convention but several thousands supporters gathered in Tampa on Saturday as part of a festival celebrating the libertarian-leaning Texan politician's career.
With Paul stepping down from politics, and after repeated unsuccessful runs for the presidency, the event was part of a series of rallies aimed at galvanising his support base for a future without the retiring 12-term congressman.
The Paul Fest was held at the Florida State Fairgrounds, a half hour away from downtown Tampa where in a few days Mitt Romney will be nominated as his party's candidate to battle President Barack Obama for the White House.
But though Paul and Romney are – officially – in the same party, finding anyone with something positive to say about the former Massachusetts governor was difficult at Paul Fest.
Certainly Lou Anderson, 56, a government worker from Oklahoma was not going to vote for Romney come the November election. He replied with a firm "no" when asked if he would support Romney.
"I don't know what to think of him. I don't trust him," he added.
Mark Schmidter was the same. The fervent Ron Paul supporter from Orlando is a registered Republican and goes to his county GOP meeting every month. But he is not voting for Romney.
"No way. The party is bought and paid for by the corporations," said the 65-year-old roofer.
Instead the crowds gathered at Paul Fest (the Paul stands for People Awakening and Uniting for Liberty) indulged themselves in the usual wide variety of causes that Paul himself has long espoused and mix both the extreme left and right.
They range from wanting to legalise drugs and bring American troops home from abroad to scrapping the welfare state, slashing the government budget and getting rid of the Federal Reserve.
In a hall full of stands and stalls there was a hugely disparate group of people hawking different wares and causes. There was one stand of Oath Keepers – an organisation of police and soldiers who believe the government might one day turn on the American people – and two stalls devoted to ending America's foreign wars.
One company had set up shop to sell the idea of investing in gold and silver, reflecting Paul's belief in returning the dollar to the gold standard rather than setting its value against other currencies. Another stand flogged t-shirts bearing the phrase "Who is John Galt?" which is a reference to a novel by libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand. Yet another group sold Ron Paul chocolate bars under the slogan: "Liberty Just Got Sweeter."
The three-day event featured a lengthy roster of bands, singers and speakers.
Paul himself is not set to appear, though he will be giving a major speech at a different Tampa rally on Sunday afternoon. That moment will mark the likely end of Paul's career on the national stage in American politics.
He is stepping down and his campaign's efforts to crash Romney's Tampa coronation by amassing delegates using arcane party rules has largely been thwarted by Republican leaders and lawyers.
In lieu of an appearance by the man himself, the crowd at Paul Fest was treated to an appearance by Paul's brother, Wayne Paul.
The younger Paul sibling won cheers with a call to the classic Paul themes of cutting government spending and ending the taking on of debt.
"We have started a revolution and we are going to finish it. It is about freedom and loving liberty. That is why we are here today," he said underneath a banner that read: "Thank you, Dr Paul."
The Paul movement without Paul might face an uncertain future, but it can point to numerous triumphs.
Largely dismissed as a crank in 2008, Paul's 2012 run was a different affair, attracting larger support and media attention.
It was also bolstered by the emergence of the Tea Party, which embraced many of Paul's small government ideals. Now some of his beliefs, like auditing the Federal Reserve and going back to the gold standard, are becoming increasingly embraced by Republicans.
The movement also benefits from a large number of young and enthusiastic activists.
Though the ageing Paul often comes across as a gleefully cantankerous old man, the acts on the stage ranged from rock to rappers to country and the crowd was predominately young.
The gathering was also set to provide a venue for a bit of Hollywood glamor in the shape of a speech on Sunday by Harmon Kaslow, who is the producer of Atlas Shrugged: Part Two.
The movie is the second part of a dramatization of Rand's most famous work and will be coming out later this year.
Kaslow, who converted to Rand's beliefs after signing on to make the film, will show clips to the Paul Fest crowd. "It changed my life. It has been an incredible experience," he told The Guardian in an interview.
© Guardian News and Media 2012
[Image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore, creative commons licensed.]
Mitt Romney wants his party convention to attract moderates, but a show of strength by the Tea Party puts that hope at risk
Some of them believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Others want to force raped women who become pregnant to have their child. There are those who vilify Obama as a socialist and want to do away with most of the federal government. A fair few doubt the theory of evolution or hold that gays can be "cured".
As Mitt Romney arrives at the Republican national convention in Tampa, Florida, where he will be nominated to run for president, he faces the difficult task of dealing with a party base that has become one of the most radical in recent American history.
Convulsed by the rise of the anti-government Tea Party and dominated by socially conservative Christians, the Republican party has continued to move right in recent years. That means the carefully laid plans for a Tampa convention aimed at introducing a voter-friendly version of Romney could easily be upset by the party's more extreme elements.
"They don't want anyone to look behind the curtain," said Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside. "You want the party base to turn up, give money and keep quiet. But it is hard to keep them quiet." However, the curtain has already been lifted to some degree.
The week leading up to the convention was supposed to see a media rollout of Romney as a president-in-waiting. Instead it was dominated by an ugly row centred on a Republican Missouri Senate candidate, congressman Todd Akin, who used the phrase "legitimate rape" while talking about denying abortions to pregnant rape victims.
Romney called on him to leave the race and the Republican national committee chairman, Reince Priebus, asked him not to come to Tampa. But in a sign of how little control the party's elite has over its base, Akin refused to step down and last week was spotted in Tampa meeting social conservative groups. At the same time it was revealed that Akin supporters had coughed up $100,000 for his campaign funds in two days.
But party bigwigs should perhaps not be surprised. Though Akin's language was shocking, his views are not too different from the party's official policy platform – in defiance of Romney. Indeed that extreme position on abortion is one historically shared by Paul Ryan, the outspoken Wisconsin conservative picked by Romney as his running mate.
There is a real consequence to such disputes over contentious social issues. Romney's support among women, perhaps influenced by recent spats over abortion and reproductive rights, has plummeted. A survey last week showed Romney lagging by 13% with women voters in six key battleground states. Obama was beating Romney by 52% to 39% and about half of women voters said they were less likely to vote for Romney since he chose Ryan.
Nor is it just this issue that is likely to hamper Romney as he tries to pull off the complicated double act of using the Tampa convention to appeal to America's middle ground, while also appeasing a conservative base that doesn't trust him.
Gay marriage is guaranteed to fire up the base and Tampa will see some vocal opponents making a great deal of noise. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman and former Romney presidential rival, will be speaking at numerous events. They include a "Unity Rally 2012" that is going to be held at a church tomorrow night. Bachmann has spoken out vociferously on gay rights, once referring to homosexuality as "part of Satan".
Appearing alongside Bachmann will be former pizza magnate Herman Cain, another former rival to Romney, who caused eyebrows to be raised when he briefly became the frontrunner in the bitter party nomination race, only to drop out over sexual harassment allegations. But he remains popular with many in the Tea Party, who admire his impassioned support for slashing government spending and instituting a controversial flat tax plan.
Other Tea Party darlings will include Ted Cruz, a Senate candidate in Texas who is being touted as a future party leader and has been given a high-profile speaking slot at the convention. Yet Cruz holds beliefs far outside the mainstream. He has warned that Islamic sharia law is an "enormous problem" in America, says elected officials should not march in gay pride parades and believes the UN is secretly trying to undermine America's economy and sovereignty.
And then there is another Tea Party favourite who has been given a prominent role in Tampa: real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump.
Trump has told his fans to prepare for a surprise at Tampa, which is likely to be a video in which he sacks an Obama impersonator and deploys his famous "You're fired!" catchphrase. But having Trump so visible is a political risk. He is one of the leading proponents of the "Birther" movement, which questions whether Obama was born in America. His presence is hardly designed to show an air of moderation or seriousness.
A final thorn in Romney's side could be Texan congressman Ron Paul. Libertarian-leaning Paul is bowing out of national politics, but his followers are going to be vocal in Tampa, highlighting their beliefs in minimal government, an anti-war foreign policy and getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Though Paul won no individual states while he was running against Romney, his campaign later tried to exploit arcane party rules to send as many Paul-supporting delegates to the convention as possible. Fights over that "stealth strategy" have ended up in the courts and, in Louisiana, resulted in arrests and physical injuries.
Now thousands of Paul supporters are holding a three-day festival in Tampa in his honour. Paul himself will speak tomorrow night at a rally at the University of South Florida's Sun Dome. Coverage is hardly likely to leave the impression that Romney heads a united or a moderate party.
One thing that could dampen things is Hurricane Isaac, which is barrelling towards Florida and may yet force some of the convention to be delayed or cancelled. "For Romney, that is probably a blessing in disguise," said Bowler.
Joe Biden scraps plan to crash GOP party as Isaac storm takes aim (via The Christian Science Monitor)
Tropical Storm Isaac has been a thorn in the side of Republicans for a week as it’s threatened to disrupt the party’s nominating convention in Tampa, which begins on Monday. But as the storm now takes aim at the US mainland, Isaac has managed to, at least for now, chase off one uninvited guest…
A black former top diplomat, a Cuban-born senator, an Indian-American governor -- the speakers list for next week's Republican National Convention reads like a conservative Rainbow Coalition.
The convention, which will formally tap former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as the party's presidential candidate, headlines a multi-hued line-up meant to belie its image as the party of middle-aged white men.
Prominent minority political leaders have been tapped to deliver primetime speeches at the convention, a four-day long pep rally meant to whip up support for Romney as he tries to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama.
Sylvia Manzano, a political scientist at Texas A and M University, said the list of speakers is a clear attempt to woo voters of color, particularly Hispanic voters, seen as more likely recruits than black Americans.
"Having those people will probably draw a few more Latino viewers, and will also lower the propensity to change the channel," she told USA Today.
The intended message for Hispanic voters, she said, is, "'Here's the reason I am a Republican and here's what we have in common.'"
Marco Rubio, a Cuban-emigre and a senator for Florida who is among the Republicans' most prominent rising stars, has been given the high honor of formally introducing Romney to the crowd.
Top speaking slots also have been given to New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz, a rising star of the Tea Party movement, as well as several other Hispanics.
News reports have also said that the Republican convention, held this year in the city of Tampa, Florida, will feature no fewer than 10 Latino-themed events, more than ever before.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American, will have a speaking role at the event, which runs from August 27 to 30.
Meanwhile African Americans, who are famously reluctant to vote for Republican candidates -- perhaps especially when the incumbent Democrat president is himself black -- are also being wooed.
Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will address the crowd, as will fresh-faced up-and-comer Mia Love, an African American running as a Republican in the conservative state of Utah.
It is far from clear, however, whether the cavalcade of black and Hispanic speakers will improve Romney's appeal to minority voters.
A poll this week by NBC shows that, against Obama, Romney could expect to win precisely zero support among African Americans. The poll had a wide margin of error, but clearly the Republican is fighting a losing battle.
Hispanics meanwhile said they preferred Obama over Romney by 63 to 28 percent -- a more than two-to-one margin.
David Bositis, of the Joint Center on Economic Studies, a think tank studying issues of concern to the black community, denounced a "to make them look something unlike what they in fact are. They are a white party."
Bositis said the Republican policy platform -- both at the convention and in Congress -- is seen as anathema to the interests of many minority voters.
And he attacked Republican-led efforts in key election battleground states to tighten voter identification requirements -- moves that many analysts say would disproportionately affect minorities and the poor.
"Why would any black voter support the Republicans when the Republicans are trying to take their votes away? That's more basic than anything else. If you want to take my vote that means you really want me out of the way," he said.
Pundits point out that the party platform written this week and which will be endorsed by delegates at the convention calls for completing a fence across the US-Mexican border -- a position very unpopular with Hispanic voters.
The party also is viewed as hostile to other issues supported by Latinos, including DREAM Act legislation in the US Congress which would have normalized the legal status of thousands of Latino children and young adults.
Obama meanwhile, did an end-run around lawmakers by issuing a decree temporarily suspending the deportation of some young undocumented immigrants.
Against that backdrop, Bositis said he doubts that a parade of black and Latino speakers on the podium will increase in minority support for Republicans ahead of this year's vote.
"Will it have any effect on people's impressions of where Republicans stand? No," he said, adding: It's not going to make any difference except in terms of the optics."
When Rudolf Hegewald left East Germany to join fellow Mormons in the US state of Utah more than five decades ago, he could only dream that a member of his faith would one day run for president.
But with Mitt Romney all but certain to receive the Republican nomination next week, Hegewald might even see one of his brethren in the White House.
Serving as a volunteer at a church welfare center in Salt Lake City, the 82-year-old retiree follows Romney's campaign closely.
"The missionary work would be easier if you could say: 'The President of the United States is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'," Hegewald said, praising the "high moral principles" he says guide Mormons.
Mormons are rarely as outspoken about their views on Romney as Hegewald. Church officials insist that their mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not to elect politicians or promote their own community.
"We take that neutrality very seriously," said Michael Otterson, managing director of public affairs for the LDS Church. "We are not interested in discussing political campaigns or politics."
Facing persistent skepticism about his faith among mainstream Christian Evangelicals, some of whom have called Mormonism a "cult", Romney has tried to avoid any references to religion beyond a vague image of a churchgoing man.
When the New York Times and the Washington Post recently published stories on Romney's long-standing involvement as a lay church leader and his commitment to Mormon teachings, his campaign declined to comment.
But last Sunday, Romney suddenly opened up to the media, inviting journalists to accompany him to church services for the first time since he started running for president.
According to reports, Romney's advisers believe it is time for him to embrace his religious background, calculating that voters' appreciation for his charitable giving and active church role will outweigh doubts about Mormonism.
Andrew Watson and his wife Kelsey live in a suburb of Salt Lake City, the heartland of the faith, raising their four kids on a quiet street with spacious family homes and neatly manicured lawns.
"Mormons don't need a trophy," said 34-year-old Watson, stressing that Romney's faith does not determine his choice for President.
"We vote for who is more qualified."
But Watson hoped the attention drawn to Mormonism by Romney's run for the White House could "help clarify some misconceptions" about his faith.
There are six million Mormons in the United States, making up about two percent of the population.
The church is known for its smartly-dressed missionaries -- who fan out around the world in pairs looking for converts -- as well as its former practice of polygamy and strict rules against alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
According to a Bloomberg News poll from March, more than one in three Americans hold an unfavorable view of the Mormon church.
Some of the stigma stems from the faith's seemingly secret traditions -- non-Mormons are barred from entering temples, for example.
A recent survey of Mormon voters in Utah by the Brigham Young University, a Mormon centre of learning, showed that 79 percent of respondents believed Romney's candidacy is a good thing for their church.
In a Pew Research Center poll among US Mormons published earlier this year, 56 percent believe Americans are ready to elect a Mormon president, compared with 32 percent who do not believe the time is right.
Romney is not the first Mormon to seek the White House. The faith's founder Joseph Smith ran in 1844, in part to press for greater civil liberties for members of his nascent church.
And Romney's father George waged an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in 1968.
Jon Huntsman, a former Utah governor, was another Mormon candidate this year, but his campaign failed to gain traction and he dropped out in January.
So Mitt Romney is the first member of the LDS church to secure the nomination of a major political party, squaring off against President Barack Obama on November 6.
"I think even Mormons that will not vote for Mitt Romney, if he were elected would see that as an important symbolic moment in terms of the church's acceptance among the wider public", Chris Karpowitz, a BYU political science professor, told AFP. "There is a sense of shared identity."
But for most voters, including Mormons, religion will likely play only a minor role, Karpowitz said. "Overall, the economy will be the most important issue for the election."
At BYU, the university 40 minutes south of Salt Lake City where Romney earned a bachelor's degree in 1971 before continuing his studies at Harvard, students share the idea that religion is not the issue on the ballot.
"I think it's more important to get a President who can turn the economy around," 24-year-old business major Sean Hollingshead said.
"Religion doesn't really matter. But if we can get people more informed about our faith, that's a positive side note."
HBO's Real Time host Bill Maher ended this Friday night episode with a "New Rules" segment that argued that Republicans positioned issues so that they were easily understood by "children" instead of an epistemology understood by adult, critical thinkers.
The grown-up answer to our massive national problems is "Identify them scientifically and prioritize." The Republican answer is "There isn’t a problem, and anyone who tells you different is a liar who hates America. We don’t have to make hard choices. We just have to ignore science and math. That’s why God gave us values."
Watch the full segment below, originally uploaded by Mediaite on August 24, 2012:
Why conventions still matter (via The Christian Science Monitor)
Can it be? Yes! They're shouting at him! "Put the microphones down! We can't see you!" Harry Truman, wearing a white linen suit, peers out at the delegates. It's 1948. Two o'clock in the morning. He's trying to start his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. So far, it's been…
Mitt Romney can't seem to stop telling people in Michigan how much he feels at home there, but perhaps he should have stuck to praising the height of the trees. A comment he made on Friday morning -- that in Michigan "no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised" -- is now drawing fire from all sides.
Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki issued a scathing criticism, telling MSNBC, "This is the kind of gutterball [sic] politics that will and should turn the American people off. This is a pattern. Mitt Romney has questioned repeatedly over the last several months whether the president understands America, whether he understands freedom — he's wrapped his arms around Donald Trump, one of the originators of the birther movement, so we've seen a pattern here."
Rachel Maddow made a similar observation, pointing out on Twitter, "Today's remarks follow 5 straight Romney ads about Obama being the president of lazy welfare recipients taking your $. Not subtle."
However, the harshest words may have come from Andrew Rosenthal at the New York Times editorial page.
"Politicians sometimes think they can get away with saying something profoundly offensive or just plain stupid by acting like it was a joke," Rosenthal wrote. "It never works, just like it didn’t work today when Mr. Romney shamelessly played the birther card in what seems like an increasingly desperate campaign against President Obama."
"Today’s crack was way over the line," he continued. "His audience laughed and applauded, probably not because they thought Mr. Romney was doing hilarious stand-up comedy, but because they knew exactly what he was up to. ... It’s racism, pure and simple."
Later in the day, Romney attempted to do damage control, telling CBS News that his remarks were "not a swipe" at president Obama. "This was fun about us, and coming home," he insisted. "And humor, you know -- we've got to have a little humor in a campaign."
The harm had been done, however, and Romney's attempted explanation seemed to ring hollow. Even Cher got into the act, tweeting enthusiastically, "lip bitting over! Mitt Romney 'NO ONES EVER ASKED 2 SEE MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE' Ya No Why FOOL? U make 'WONDER BREAD LOOK DARK & MYSTERIOUS.'"
Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
In hopes of identifying untapped Republican donors, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has secretly employed a data-mining firm based in Fort Worth, Texas to crunch thousands of minute, many times private details about Americans living in more than 120 million households, The Associated Press revealed on Friday.
The AP noted that Romney's campaign hasn't yet reported paying the firm any money, and neither has the Republican National Committee. However, a source within Romney's campaign told AP reporter Jack Gillum that the candidate has hired Fort Worth-based Buxton Co. to provide what amounts to sales leads for the campaign's fundraising staff. CEO Tom Buxton confirmed the claim, but the Romney campaign had no comment.
Buxton brags that it has "one of the largest databases of consumer information anywhere," tracking more than 75,000 different characteristics about each person, including "brand loyalties, lifestyle choices, hobbies, purchasing behavior and media preferences."
Data collected by Buxton and other private intelligence shops in the data-mining business is often gathered quietly, behind the scenes by companies that buy and sell massive quantities of personal information. That information includes things like credit card purchases, health carde and Internet search histories, churchgoing habits, Facebook posts, music tastes, favorite activities and much, much more, all of which can be combed to reveal startling personal insights -- like knowing whether a woman is pregnant before she's even told anyone, as big box retailer Target did earlier this year in a case that set off alarms about how deep big data actually reaches.
The entrance of Buxton in the presidential race could give Romney an advantage of President Barack Obama's big data efforts, which so far have focused on the comparatively limited world of social media networks like Facebook to help target and influence voters and drum up donations. It's also the first major move the Romney campaign has made into the realm of big data, and if Buxton is as successful as they've been helping Fortune 500 companies maximize profits, it could help him continue to widen his financial lead on the president.
However, it could also prove alarming to Romney's core constituency among elderly, white, wealthy conservatives, 83 percent of whom told the Lares Institute last month that they are very concerned about how their private information is being used. Privacy management firm TRUSTe also said in February that 90 percent of adults worry about companies snooping on their private information, warning that too much snooping and customer personalized marketing can undermine trust.
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Photo: Shutterstock.com, all rights reserved.
A report by the public policy research group the Center for American Progress has concluded that seniors would pay, on average, $60,000 more for health care over the course of their retirement under the Medicare replacement plan proposed by presumptive Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The report also refutes the Republican candidates' claim that no one currently over 55 will be affected by the changes.
"Using data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other government agencies along with parameters from published academic research studies," reads the report, "this study analyzes the impact of the Romney-Ryan plan on current and future seniors and shows that the increase in health care costs under the Romney-Ryan plan would be financially debilitating for all seniors."
One of the primary talking points that Romney and Ryan have been using in their attempts to calm seniors' fears about reductions in their Medicare coverage is that no one who is currently 55 years of age or older will be affected by the program. The report says that this claim is false for two reasons.
By repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare," the Romney-Ryan plan will immediately raise the cost of medications and Medicare premiums for current seniors, imposing an estimated $11,000 in additional costs for retirement of people now 65 and older.
Also, by cutting Medicaid, the Romney-Ryan plan will increase costs for long-term care and nursing home stays for people on both Medicaid and Medicare. Unlike the "Premium Support" voucher system proposed by Romney and Ryan, which would begin in 2023, the cuts to Medicaid would come immediately.
Costs to seniors under the Romney-Ryan telescope wildly for each successive generation of senior citizens. People who will become seniors in 2023 will face an additional $59,000 in health expenses (in 2012 dollars) over the course of their retirement than they would under the current plan. People turning 65 in 2030 will pay $124,600 more. Those turning 65 in 2040 will pay $216,600 more, and 2050′s seniors will pay approximately $331,200 more in Medicare costs over the course of their retirements.
Also, by revoking the consumer protections enshrined in the ACA, the Republican plan allows insurance companies to cherry-pick customers, excluding people with pre-existing conditions and shrinking the risk pool, enabling companies to raise costs and premiums.
The Center for American Progress cautions that its numbers are conservative. It has based its research on the Ryan plan that he released (and that was endorsed by Romney) earlier this year. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Ryan's original 2011 budget plan "would result in increased costs that are several orders of magnitude greater than those modeled here."
You can download the full report here: .pdf
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney came the closest yet on Friday to personally embracing the so-called birther movement's theory that President Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.
"I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born," the former Massachusetts governor told a group of supporters in Michigan. "Ann was born at Henry Ford Hospital, I was born at Harper Hospital."
"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate," he added. "They know that this the place that we were born and raised."
Late last year, Romney's son, Matt, also promoted the theory that the president was not born in the United States.
Stumping for his dad in Concord, New Hampshire, Matt Romney told a group of senior citizens that the multimillionaire candidate might not release his tax returns until Obama releases his birth certificate, a document that was made public long ago.
“He has not said that he will not do it,” the younger Romney said of the tax returns, sounding like the son of a politician. “He has also not said that he will. I think it’s just a matter of time until that issue comes up. So, I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure he knows the answer to that.”
“I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things then maybe he’d do it,” he joked.
Matt Romney later told KITV that he was "satisfied" the president was born in Hawaii.
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