Ann Romney (C), wife of Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (2nd R), greets police and their horses after a campaign rally at Montgomery Inn Restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio March 3. (Brian Snyder/REUTERS)

Olympics vs. dancing horse: Which one defines Mitt Romney?

By Liz Marlantes, Correspondent / 04.19.12

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, found himself being mocked for, among other things, his love of windsurfing. The sport was used as a metaphor for Senator Kerry's "flip-flopping" in one of the campaign's most devastating ads, which showed Kerry on a board, flipping from one side to the other, as the voiceover listed his seemingly contradictory positions on issues.

Kerry's windsurfing also was portrayed as elitist – and somehow less than all-American – an implication that may have been even more deadly than the flip-flopping. (Of course, the all-American sport President Bush was most closely identified with – baseball – was in his capacity as a former team owner, not a player, which isn't exactly the experience of average Americans, either.)

Wednesday, ABC News took a look at a favorite sport of the Romneys that, in terms of its perceived elitism and foreignness to most Americans, makes windsurfing look like high school football: dressage (even the name is French!). As ABC's Matthew Mosk writes:

"The World Cup finals for the elite sport of dancing horses, known as dressage, opened today in the Netherlands without the presence of two of its most prominent wealthy devotees, Mitt and Ann Romney. The Romneys' horse, Rafalca, will compete, however, performing to music personally selected by the Republican presidential candidate."

The article goes on to explain that the Romneys are the owner and financial sponsor of a horse-and-rider team from California. It also notes that through the years the Romneys have owned or co-owned as many as eight dressage horses.

Granted, it's Ann Romney, not Mitt, who is the real dressage fan. But it seems her husband has supported her passion for the sport in ways beyond just funding it. (According to ABC, the music he chose for the horse's routine is from "The Mission" and "Rainman.") 

Last week, the website Gawker posted a video clip of Romney chatting with Fox News host Sean Hannity with a high degree of detail about the kinds of horses he and his wife own – though the comments themselves were overshadowed by the flurry over the "Fox News mole" who procured the video:

“She has Austrian Warmbloods, which are – yeah, it’s a dressage horse, it’s a kind of horse for the sport that she’s in," Romney said. "Me, I have a Missouri Fox Trotter. So mine is like a quarter horse, but just a much better gait. It moves very fast, and doesn’t tire, and it’s easy to ride, meaning it’s not boom-boom-boom, it’s just smooth, very smooth.”

Presidential candidates don't need to be athletic or even major sports fans. But most of them try to find a sport to latch on to – even if only recreationally or as fans. Everyone knows President Obama plays basketball. Other candidates have made a show of at least jogging on the campaign trail.

Romney has at times joked about his lack of athleticism in high school and college – and the irony of his being chosen to head the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City:

“My oldest son called and said, ‘Dad. I’ve talked to the brothers this morning. We want you to know there’s not a circumstance we could have conceived of that would put you on the front page of the sports section.’" he told a crowd in Palm Beach, Fla., back in 2010. "So my life hasn’t exactly gone as I might have expected.”

For now, the athletic competition Romney is most associated with is the Olympics. His campaign no doubt hopes it stays that way. 

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In this 2011 file photo, musician and gun rights activist Ted Nugent addresses a seminar at the National Rifle Association's convention in Pittsburgh. (Gene J. Puskar/AP/File)

How Ted Nugent might fend off the Secret Service

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.19.12

Shock rocker Ted Nugent says he is meeting with the Secret Service Thursday to discuss recent inflammatory political comments, such as his assertion over the weekend that if President Obama is reelected “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

The Secret Service will want to know what Mr. Nugent meant, as it is illegal to threaten the life of the president. Nugent says he is happy to talk with the feds, though he finds the whole thing silly.

“The conclusion will be obvious that I threatened no one,” Nugent said Wednesday on Glenn Beck’s radio show.

What can the he say in his defense? Nugent's speech has been pretty harsh, after all. (In addition to the aforementioned verbal riff, in recent days he’s said the Obama administration is “vile, evil, [and] America-hating.” He has called House minority leader Nancy Pelosi a “varmint” and a “sub-human scoundrel.” He has tried to rally GOP forces with "we are Braveheart, we need to ride onto that battlefield and chop their heads off in November!”)

Well, we think we have a good idea as to how his talk with the Secret Service will go. Here are points Nugent and his heavy metal legal team are likely to make:

He don't speak good. Nugent’s words aren’t rhetoric, in the sense of being an attempt to convey coherent thought. It’s better to think of them as derogatory words strung together at random. Given that, where’s the threat?

After all, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year” could be seen as Nugent threatening himself, not the president. “Varmint”? To a hunter like Nugent, that’s a term of endearment. “Chop their heads off in November”? Whose heads are we talking about? Maybe Nugent’s ranch has way too many ground hogs.

The Onion perhaps best summed up Nugent’s verbal approach to the world with its classic 2002 headline, “Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks.”

It's an act. Look, we’re not talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman here. Ted Nugent is the sort of person who’s been a guest star on "The Simpsons" – twice. Homer endorsed him for president, for goodness' sake. Nugent then promised to move the White House to Kalamazoo.

The point is that Nugent is a professional provocateur. As the Washington Post points out Thursday, he hasn’t actually been a rock star for more than 30 years. He makes money as a hunting enthusiast/reality show host/autograph seller.

In this context, the recent dust-up over politics is the best thing to happen to him since he cut himself with a chain saw while filming “Surviving Nugent: the Ted Commandments.”

How was Colombia? We know – you think Nugent won’t go that far. We say predicting how far Ted Nugent will go is a fool’s errand. The Secret Service has already ousted three agents in the expanding prostitution scandal linked to preparations for President Obama’s trip to Cartegena last  weekend for the Summit of the Americas. It is certainly possible Nugent will make some reference to this in his own defense.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to call for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to condemn Ted Nugent by name, possibly while signing a petition to keep Nugent out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame forever. At this point we’re pretty sure that Mr. Romney wishes Ted Nugent had endorsed somebody else.

Newt Gingrich and Ted Nugent on stage together – there’s a moon colony gun fest we’d love to see.

In a matchup with Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, latest polling data point to either a close race or an Obama blowout, depending on which numbers you look at. ((L.- r.) Jae C. Hong/AP, Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama: a squeaker or a landslide? (+video)

By Liz Marlantes, Correspondent / 04.18.12

Throughout the presidential campaign so far, prognosticators have generally split between two possible outcomes for the fall: that this election will be extremely close and could go either way, or that President Obama will win big.

There's plenty of data right now to support both hypotheses. Those going with the "squeaker" prediction see the election as largely a referendum on the president's economic stewardship, and point to multiple polls showing Mitt Romney beating Mr. Obama on the issue of who is best able to handle economic matters. Bolstering this argument further is the fact that Obama and Mr. Romney are in a dead heat in the latest national polls – with Romney actually leading in the inaugural Gallup tracking poll by two percentage points. Given that Romney has just emerged from a bruising primary fight, it's reasonable to assume he could boost his ratings further in weeks to come.

"Obama landslide" predictors, on the other hand, see the election as less likely to be a pure referendum on the economy than a contest between two candidates – one of whom is dramatically more personally popular than the other (Obama bested Romney on likability by nearly 40 points in a recent ABC News-Washington Post poll). They point to the fact that Romney's favorability ratings are at historic lows for a presumptive nominee. And Obama is beating Romney handily among women and among Hispanics, and easily wins on a wide range of categories such as leadership, honesty, and which candidate best understands the concerns of average Americans.

So which side is right? Well, for what it's worth, the current betting on Intrade has Obama's odds of being reelected at 61 percent. But we'd add a few more points to the mix. First, there's always an inherent bias among the press and political classes toward predicting close elections. Reporters want to cover an exciting race, and campaigns want their supporters energized to turn out. And of course, no one actually knows what will happen, so saying it will be close is always a safer bet.

Second, among those who are predicting a blowout victory, virtually no one – with the recent exception of conservative commentator Dick Morris – is anticipating that victor to be Romney. (As we've written before, even many Republicans are not particularly bullish on Romney's chances.) By contrast, back in 2004 – a campaign that strikes many as similar to this year's, only with the parties playing reverse roles – there were a number of prominent "Kerry landslide" predictions. 

One argument often cited by the "landslide" camp, then as now, is that history shows incumbents tend to win or lose reelection by large, not small, margins. In 1980, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan 49 to 489 in the Electoral College; in 1984, Reagan beat Walter Mondale 525 to 13; in 1992, George H.W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton 168 to 370; and in 1996, Clinton beat Bob Dole 379 to 159.

In all of those instances, the election could be interpreted as a referendum on the president's economic performance – which might actually suggest a Romney landslide. But you could just as easily make the case that each time, the public went with the candidate it considered more personally appealing –which would push the needle decisively toward Obama.

Of course, in 2004, George W. Bush broke with history and won by a relatively narrow margin (286 to 252) – though he did improve on his 2000 performance (where he won 271 to 266 and lost the popular vote), leading political scientist Joshua Spivak to recharacterize the historical pattern: Incumbents, he wrote a few months back, either win by a bigger margin than in their first election, or they lose. 

History may be made again this year, since it seems highly unlikely that Obama will improve on his 2008 results (in which he beat John McCain 365 to 173). But that doesn't mean it's going to be a squeaker. In fact, if the election were held now, using the most recent polling data available in individual states to determine which way they'd go, the results – as Daily Kos recently pointed out – would not be close. Obama would wind up with 341 to Romney's 197, in an election that would have to be characterized as pretty decisive. 

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Ted Nugent performs at a concert at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada in this 2007 file image. (Steve Marcus/REUTERS)

Ted Nugent: Worst political endorser ever? (+video)

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.18.12

Ted Nugent on Tuesday doubled down on his recent political provocation, telling the Dana Loesch radio show that the Obama administration is full of “corrupt monsters” and “communist czars” and that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is a “varmint” and “subhuman scoundrel.”

Mr. Nugent did not take back the assertion he made at last weekend’s National Rifle Association convention that if President Obama is reelected, “I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service has already confirmed that it will be visiting the aging shock rocker to determine if that phrase is an actual threat.

“See, I’m a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally ... because I have the audacity to speak the truth to identify the violations of our government,” Nugent told the Loesch show.

Wow. Ted Nugent identifies with Sammy Davis Jr. – who knew? Beyond that, we’ve got this question: Who’s happiest about Nugent’s visit to political crazy town – Democrats or journalists?

Democrats are certainly trying to take advantage of the moment, since Nugent publicly endorsed Mitt Romney last month, something the presumptive GOP nominee and his sons crowed about at the time. The Democratic National Committee has rushed out a rapid-response video that tries to hang Nugent around Mr. Romney’s neck, metaphorically speaking.

But Nugentgate has given some commentators the opportunity to set their umbrage machines to “stun." They’re calling on Romney to condemn Nugent by name, perhaps while shattering copies of the 1978 LP “Ted Nugent Double Live – Gonzo!” (The Romney campaign has issued a generic statement condemning divisive political speech.)

“Until the candidate condemns the rocker, we should all assume he’s fine with that kind of talk from a surrogate,” wrote The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart on Tuesday in an opinion column.

OK, we’ll agree that Nugent’s words are so far over the top that at this point, he’s approaching the outer rings of Saturn. (“We are Braveheart. We need to ride onto that battlefield and chop their heads off in November!” he said last week.) It’s illegal to threaten the president, as the Secret Service soon will be reminding him.

But Romney surrogate? As we wrote Tuesday, we’re not sure Ted Nugent is a Ted Nugent surrogate any longer. Many of his rants aren’t so much speech as derogatory words linked together at random. (See “black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally,” above.) He earned the nickname Motor City Madman in the 1970s. He’s had 40 years to perfect that act.

One thing is certain: The Romney campaign is marking him down as the worst celebrity endorsement they’ve yet received. On Tuesday, Nugent not only said that he stands by his previous words, but he also said that Romney agrees with him.

“Mitt Romney knows what I’m saying is true. He puts it in the words for him; I put in the words for me,” Nugent told the Loesch show.

Well, Ted, think of it this way: You’re making big problems for Romney at the moment. What if he wins? Will he be grateful for you? Nope, he won’t. We figure there’s a good chance you’ll be in trouble with the White House no matter who sits in the Oval Office next January.

Musician Ted Nugent, shown here with Republican Senate candidate John Raese and Sarah Palin in 2010, said that he'd either be 'dead or in jail' a year hence if Obama is reelected. (Jon C. Hancock/AP)

Ted Nugent: Threat to Obama, or harmless loudmouth?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.17.12

Rocker Ted Nugent is in trouble for remarks he made over the weekend about President Obama at the National Rifle Association’s convention in St. Louis. The Secret Service intends to contact him to ask what he meant when he said in an interview that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

It’s not legal to threaten the nation’s chief executive, which is why the Secret Service is getting involved. Although Nugent’s remarks could also be interpreted as a threat to kill himself, if you ask us.

In the same interview the aging Motor City Madman Nugent called the liberal block of the Supreme Court “evil, anti-American people” and said the administration in general is “vile, evil, [and] America-hating.”

Is this a problem for presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney? After all, Mr. Nugent endorsed Mr. Romney in early March, shortly after the Michigan primary. At the time this earned a thumbs-up from Romney’s son Tagg, who said on his Twitter account that “Ted Nugent endorsed my Dad today. Ted Nugent? How cool is that?! He joins Kid Rock as great Detroit musicians on team Mitt!”

Today Tagg may be wishing his Dad had landed the coveted Bob Seger nod instead. Democrats were all over this today, calling on Romney to disown the comments of a rocker the Democratic National Committee referred to as a “Romney surrogate.”

Romney did so, issuing a statement through a spokeswoman that “divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from.”

What will be the upshot of all this? Perhaps, just perhaps it will mark a moment when Washington’s umbrage-generation machine finally jumped the shark. If you get our drift.

Ted Nugent, political surrogate? We’re not even sure Ted Nugent is a Ted Nugent surrogate. Twitter is swarming with comments on this uproar at the moment. Generally, they can be broken down into three categories:

1. Ted Nugent is still alive?

2. Ted Nugent is more of a threat to music than politics.

3. This doesn’t even make the list of Top Ten Crazy Ted Nugent Moments.

In regards to point 3, Nugent in 2003 hosted a VH1 reality show titled “Surviving Nugent,” in which urban celebrities visited him at his Michigan ranch near Jackson, 70 miles west of Detroit, and competed in typical Great Lakes State outdoors activities such as skinning a Russian boar.

This was successful enough to lead to a 2004 miniseries titled “Surviving Nugent: The Ted Commandments,” during which Nugent injured himself with a chainsaw during filming in Texas.

Former GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck testifies on Capitol Hill Tuesday, as Congress continues its investigation of excessive spending by General Services Administration officials in 2010 at a conference at a Las Vegas resort. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

GSA scandal: Does agency have culture of waste, fraud, and abuse?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.17.12

Is there a culture of waste, fraud, and abuse at the General Services Administration? That’s what some lawmakers are charging in the wake of a second day of House hearings into lavish taxpayer-funded GSA junkets to Las Vegas and other resort spots.

The fact that western US GSA official Jeffrey Neeley opted for a clown show, a mind-reader, $6,000 in commemorative coins, a $75,000 bicycle-building team exercise, and 2,000 square-foot suites at the Las Vegas blow-out is but part of the story, according to members of a panel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

After all, Mr. Neeley won a $9,000 performance bonus from GSA higher-ups following the $823,000 Las Vegas conference.

Other GSA regions have shown problems, according to reports from the agency’s inspector general. In Kansas City, GSA officials hired an expensive public relations agency to handle complaints about possible exposure to toxic environmental substances at the GSA-managed Bannister Federal Building. In Los Angeles, the GSA is proceeding with a new federal courthouse despite vacant space in nearby federal buildings.

“This culture of fraud, waste, corruption, cover ups – while we can’t prove it yet, there certainly is the perception that there’s an inside deal on some of these things.... This certainly is not only a dark day for the FSA, but it is a dark day for the United States government,” said Rep. Jeff Denham (R) of California, chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee of the House Transportation Committee.

Neeley himself, the commissioner for the Public Buildings Service in the Pacific Rim region, did not appear at Tuesday's hearing. On Monday he appeared but cited his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent under lawmakers’ questioning.

On Tuesday no present or past GSA official defended Neeley’s actions. But some defended the agency itself, saying that rogue actions shouldn’t tar a vast bureaucracy that for the most part keeps the federal government running smoothly.

The Las Vegas spree, as detailed in an inspector general report, “dishonored the thousands of hard-working and dedicated federal employees I have worked with over the years,” said Robert Peck, the former GSA commissioner for the Public Buildings Service, who lost his job because of the Neeley revelations.

Unfortunately for the GSA’s defenders, critics now have a history of agency missteps to cite. Lawmakers reminded GSA witnesses of a 2010 hearing they’d held in a vacant DC federal building, next to the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, in an attempt to get the agency to turn the building into a productive property.

In 2011, 11 GSA employees and contractors pleaded guilty to a kick-back scheme following a five-year Justice Department investigation. In 2008, GSA chief Lurita Doan resigned after being accused of steering a contact to a friend. (Ms. Doan denied the charge.) In 2006, GSA chief of staff David Safavian was found guilty of lying to the inspector general and members of Congress about his efforts to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff gain control of GSA buildings, including the Old Post Office itself.

Thus the GSA now seems a tempting target for congressional Republicans, who hold it up as an example of big government’s inherent problems.

“We wonder why there’s so much mistrust of government,” said Congressman Denham at the close of Tuesday’s hearing.

In fact, the scandal has let some conservatives to wonder aloud why the US has a GSA at all. It’s core functions – the management of federal property, and the purchase of basic supplies for all non-Pentagon US agencies – could just as well be subcontracted to private firms, said conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin.

“It’s a fact of Beltway life that the public can get riled up over a boondoggle trip, but the existence of a bloated bureaucracy wasting goodness-knows how much money isn’t questioned. Until now,” writes Rubin.

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Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) of Utah (c.), seen here in a file photo, feels your pain on tax day. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File)

Enjoy tax day 2012, next year could be 'Taxageddon'

By David Grant, Staff writer / 04.17.12

Think tax day 2012 is bad? Just wait – tax day 2013 could be a real humdinger.

Not because of the taxes you’ll be doing late into the night of Sunday, April 14, 2013. But because the tax situation for the next year may be a serious, unbridled mess.

Decoder certainly isn’t minimizing this year’s tax pain – what, the government can hire clowns and mind readers and here I am picking up the tab?

“That’s what’s making writing that check for taxpayers today so difficult and so painful,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) of Utah on a call with reporters. “When they see the waste, fraud and abuse that happens at the GSA and other parts of government it’s just so frustrating to the American people. And it should be.”

But frustrating won’t begin to describe taxpayer pain if almost half a trillion in tax hikes come into being on Jan. 1, 2013. Looming on the horizon are a raft of tax proposals that could blow up in taxpayers faces so immensely that Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue wrote sardonically in a Tuesday op-ed that “Tax Day is upon us – and you should enjoy it. Why? As painful as it may be to write this year’s check to Uncle Sam, it could be the smallest check you’ll write for years to come.”

What’s coming due at year’s end? According to one analysis by a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, nearly $500 billion in tax increases including the following:

• $165 billion from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
• $124 billion from the expiration of the Social Security payroll tax cut.
• $118 billion from a failure to patch the Alternative Minimum Tax
• Roughly $60 billion from various tax cuts expiring – including stimulus cuts, estate tax cuts, and favorable treatment for businesses that make big purchases.
• $20 billion from tax increases from President Obama’s health-care reform law.

Holy smokes, right? No wonder members of Congress nearly always list heading off what Heritage calls “Taxageddon” as a principal concern. Add to that the fact that Congress has to deal with the budget-slashing sequester and the need to again raise the debt ceiling and December could be harrowing, indeed. 

But while America talks tax turkey today, the chances of fixing the tax code between now and December are slim, says long-time Washington watcher Stan Collender of Qorvis Communications.

Mr. Collender points out that many expect Washington’s best – and perhaps only – opportunity to legislate on tax issues will be the lame duck session between November and year’s end. Between tax day and November, the argument goes, members of Congress will be too distracted by the national political election to make much headway on such tough issues.

That leaves the lame duck. And that’s hardly an auspicious moment for many practical reasons.

While there are seven weeks on the calendar between Election Day and New Year’s Eve, Collender says, that’s really more like four weeks when you account for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a one-week exhale after the election.

Lame duck sessions are “notoriously difficult” for legislating, Collender points out, as ousted or retiring members and their staff are looking for their next jobs and, eventually, losing their offices to incoming members.

“Some [exiting] members just stop voting, they go home, the leadership can’t force them to do anything,” Collender says. “What are you going to do, take away their committee assignments? It’s difficult to count votes and difficult for leadership to maintain discipline.”

Given a cloudy electoral situation – it’s unlikely one party will sweep Congress and the White House – and the lame duck’s limitations, where will taxpayers be at year’s end? Collender thinks they’ll be left largely in the lurch with short-term extension of current tax law – Bush tax cuts and payroll tax cut, live on! –before Congress returns in January to battle anew.

“Instead of the mother of all lame duck sessions it could be the mother of all disappointments,” Collender says. Americans will be saying, “ ‘Curses! Foiled again!’ and we go on for another six months.”

See you next April.

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President Obama is pictured speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Tuesday. (Susan Walsh/AP)

Tax day at White House: Obama gets big refund. Is that normal?

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / 04.17.12

President Obama released his 2011 tax returns last week, and there’s been lots of scrutiny of his effective tax rate (20.5 percent), whether that’s higher or lower than Mitt Romney’s (higher), what that means for the presidential election, and so forth. But when reading Mr. Obama’s forms on Tuesday in honor of tax day, we noticed something else we found interesting: The US chief executive is getting a humongous refund, by our standards.

That’s right, the Internal Revenue Service owes Barack and Michelle Obama a whopping $24,515. And let’s be honest: Isn’t the state of the refund, or lack thereof, how most of us rate tax day?

When all you have is salary, you get used to your tax payments being withheld, so what really hurts is being forced to write a big check to the government in early April. Conversely, if you're getting cash back, the season suddenly gets all bright and sparkly. As it appears to be in the Obama household.

Yes, we know that it’s better to keep as much of your money as long as possible and that overpaying so as to get a refund isn’t economically optimal. Yes, Obama’s refund is actually a small slice of his family income – only about 3 percent. Spoilsport.

Still, it got us wondering. Is it usual for US presidents to get tax refunds? So we looked it up, via the Tax History Project, which groups the tax returns released by presidents and presidential candidates in one place.

The answer is that the vast majority of known presidential tax returns did indeed result in refunds, with the interesting exception that most recent presidents had to pay the IRS in the year just after or just prior to the start of their terms.

Obama got a $12,334 refund last year and an $8,287 refund the year before that. But in tax year 2007, he got hammered, as he owed the IRS $1,059,826. It was all that book income he earned prior to the election.

George W. Bush owed the IRS in his last year in office, but from 2002 to 2006 he got refunds. In 2003, he got more than $61,451.

In 2001, at the start of his term, Mr. Bush had to pay the man, though not to the extent Obama did. Bush’s April payment that year was only $4,030.

Bill Clinton? All refunds, except for 1992, the year of his election, when he owed $4,085. George H.W. Bush? All refunds, except for 1989, the year after his election, when he owed $3,228.

Same for Ronald Reagan. The only year he had to pay the IRS was 1982, in the middle of his first term, when he coughed up $124,582 for tax day.

There’s a pattern developing here, and if we were suspicious, we’d say that presidential advisers tell new chief executives that it’s better to receive than give, in terms of their taxes. They don’t want to look like they’re not willing to pay their fair share.

Given the size of his finances, Mr. Romney already has good tax advisers, in case you’re wondering. According to the preliminary data he released earlier this year, he’s going to get a refund of about $207,818 for tax year 2011. That would be more than three times larger than any refund check ever sent to an occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, since presidents began releasing their personal tax data.

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In this photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, accompanied by his wife Ann, prepares to speak at the National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis, Friday, April 13. (Michael Conroy/AP)

Mitt Romney's flip-flop on stay-at-home moms: Will it matter?

By Liz Marlantes, Correspondent / 04.16.12

Over the weekend, MSNBC aired a Mitt Romney sound bite that, on the face of it, seemed pretty stunning. Speaking in New Hampshire just four months ago, the candidate was explaining why he favored work requirements for poor women receiving public assistance – even if it ultimately cost the state more money in day-care expenses. The answer? Because they need to experience "the dignity of work."

Here's the full quote:

"While I was [Massachusetts] governor, 85 percent of the people on a form of welfare assistance in my state had no work requirement. And I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, well that’s heartless. And I said no, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It will cost the state more, providing that day care. But I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."

Why was this comment potentially problematic? Because it came, of course, after several days in which the Romney campaign gleefully scored points off Democrat Hilary Rosen's remark on CNN that stay-at-home mom Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." As the presidential campaign went into a "mommy wars" time warp, Ms. Romney tweeted that she was proud to have stayed home to raise her five boys, adding, "Believe me, it was hard work."

That set off a furious public discussion in which nearly everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, made the same basic points over and over again: (1) Raising kids is hard work. (2) Staying home is a personal decision that women make based on a variety of factors. (3) But the main factor involved is money – and most women can't afford to do it. 

Despite being a "debate" with no real points of disagreement, it made for a few good news cycles for Mr. Romney. It put his wife – a popular and sympathetic figure – squarely in the public eye for the first time, as a champion of stay-at-home moms. It was one of the campaign's longest stretches on offense yet. And it gave Romney an opening to appeal to women voters, among whom he trails President Obama (by 19 points in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll). Ms. Romney even called the whole flap "an early birthday present."

So now that it's come out that Romney himself actually thinks poor women need "the dignity of work" – and that work doesn't include raising their children – you'd think that would undercut whatever points his campaign may have scored last week.

Yet so far, it appears not. True, liberal blogs have been all over the hypocrisy argument. But the mainstream media have for the most part moved on – instead, focusing mostly Monday on Romney's comments at a weekend fundraiser about which federal departments he might cut, as well as the ever-popular speculation about the vice-presidential search.

It's a perfect example of the fireworks-like media environment that The New York Times's Brian Stelter evoked this weekend, in a piece that characterized political stories as going "from flash to fizzle": They "burn more brightly" but also are "extinguished faster," Mr. Stelter wrote, with "Google search rankings, video view records and Twitter trending topics tell[ing] users when the crowd has moved on."

When the controversy is largely superficial – and artificial – to begin with, it makes it even harder to generate much interest in subsequent revelations involving policy positions. The Rosen-Romney flap was never about policy; it was about stereotypes and a perceived insult. And by the time Romney's actual position on women and work was aired – and shown to run counter to the substance of the argument his campaign seemed to be making – it didn't seem to matter. 

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