Wednesday, December 05, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

The Betrayers of Mitt Romney

It's a good thing Romney has The Speech to dominate much of the campaign talk this week, because the rest of the news is pretty bad for him.

First there's word that the company that did his lawn continued to employ illegal immigrants, even after the brouhaha last year.

"After this same issue arose last year, I gave the company a second chance with very specific conditions," Romney said in the statement. "They were instructed to make sure people working for the company were of legal status. We personally met with the company in order to inform them about the importance of this matter. The owner of the company guaranteed us, in very certain terms, that the company would be in total compliance with the law going forward.

"The company's failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable, and I believe it is important I take this action," Romney said.

Team Romney has good reason to bang their heads against a wall and ask, "what are the odds?" Is the company, "Community Lawn Service With a Heart", hell-bent on ruining their client who's running for president? No interest in a contract to take care of the White House lawn?

Then we have another odd case of push-polling in Iowa. A group has claimed responsibility, a self-described "grassroots independent organization committed to educating voters to support Governor Mike Huckabee for the Republican Nomination for President of the United States" and notes that they aren't "authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee." Huckabee says he doesn't approve of their tactics.

The firm making the calls, ccAdvertising, has also done about $53,000 worth of work for the Romney campaign. Gabriel Joseph, the head of ccAdvertising, donated $1,000 to the Romney campaign on June 11.

I spoke to Mr. Joseph. He confirmed the donation to the Romney campaign; when asked about any work for this Huckabee group, or for the Romney campaign, he said that he could not disclose anything regarding his firm’s work.

When I said that the call number led back to his firm, he said, “Jim, our clients are confidential, and our work for our clients is confidential.” He said that if his firm’s clients choose to talk about them, that’s their decision, but that the confidentiality agreements do not permit him to confirm or deny anything regarding any work for anyone.

How do you feel if you're Mitt Romney, and a firm you hired  - a firm headed by one of your donors! - is running push polls against you?

By the way, below the fold is the trail leading back to ccAdvertising:

12/05 08:49 AMShare