Forum Post: Will GOP Dump Romney? (Time's running out)- Pawlenty? Bring him on!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/prediction-romney-will-no_b_1684234.html

Prediction: Romney Will Not be the Republican Nominee Posted: 07/18/2012 4:42 pm

Darrell Issa , Mitt Romney , Tim Pawlenty , Cayman Islands Accounts , Retroactive Nominee , Amnesty , Michelle Bachmann , Swiss Bank Accounts , Politics News

No one who has received amnesty for a serious crime, such as tax evasion, can be president. One would think that someone for whom the clear implications are that he has received amnesty, but will not release exculpatory documents, also cannot be president.

As the press has been focused on what we now know as Romney's "retroactive retirement", that does not help him escape clear responsibility for his outsourcing strategy anyhow, I have tried to shine a light on the clearest, cleanest, unspinnable, problem with Romney's finances -- amnesty for his Swiss accounts -- suggesting that the Republican leaders, who dislike him anyhow, could not abide such a fatally-flawed nominee.

But, all I had on my side was logic. Why would he have closed only the Swiss Account when the Cayman/Bermuda accounts are also abusive tax havens, and he left those alone? Why would Romney have bothered to close the Swiss account at all? I deduced that what was special about his Swiss Account was the amnesty program allowed by the IRS. I also surmised that it was amnesty, more than anything else, that would keep him from releasing earlier tax returns.

Now, through investigative reporting, there is highly suggestive evidence that the logic was not wrong. Romney failed to disclose the documents he filed with the IRS in 2010, the year he has already released, that detail his Swiss Account holdings.

Hence, I am now prepared to go beyond my suggestions that the Republicans would not give him the nomination to a firm prediction: Romney will not be the 2012 Republican nominee for president. (He may be the "retroactive 2008 nominee" as Darrell Issa, who also cannot run for higher office due to his shady past, suggests).

Who will be? Before Romney is forced to withdraw, he will make a Vice Presidential selection, as an attempt to make it seem that his nomination is just rolling along, and is inevitable.

That person will have been fully vetted, (including his/her tax returns!).

I predict, therefore, that the Republican nominee for president will be the person Romney selects as his VP.

How ironic if that turned out to be T-Paw, who dropped out after losing to Michelle Bachmann in Iowa, (and whom Lawrence O'Donnell picked all along) becomes the 2012 Republican nominee for president!

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Pawlenty? Bring him on! http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/conservative-blogger-to-pawlenty-what-about-the-minn-bridge-collapse-on-your-watch/

Conservative Blogger to Pawlenty: What About The Minn. Bridge Collapse On Your Watch? Posted on May 26, 2011 by Larry Ehl Share on twitterShare on facebookShare on bloggerShare on googleMore Sharing Services Conservative blogger Nicole Gelinas of The National Review suggests that Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota must “explain to the American public what he learned from the collapse of the I-35W bridge into the Mississippi in 2007. The bridge fell down at the end of Pawlenty’s first four years as the ultimate person in charge of the state’s infrastructure.” (Link to story.)

Gelinas notes that Barry LePatner, a top construction lawyer, wrote the following about the bridge failure in his 2010 book, Too Big to Fall:

“Yet there should be no doubt that inadequate funding was a key factor in MN/DOT’s decisions not only to call off the planned retrofitting of the bridge but also to forgo nondestructive testing that would have revealed the full extent of fatigue cracking on the bridge. And it was inadequate resources for remediation that led to the decision to put off until 2022 the deck replacement that would have added redundancy to the bridge. Moreover, it was not until after the I-35W Bridge fell into the Mississippi and killed 13 people that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty gave up his previously unshakable opposition to raising the state’s gasoline tax, thus providing needed revenues for the financial starved MN/DOT.” Pawlenty should answer these questions, Gelina suggests:

Does he agree with LePatner’s assessment? (LePatner has previously helped write such potboilers as Structural and Foundational Failures: A Casebook for Architects, Engineers, and Lawyers.)

Does the former governor think that the bridge collapse was preventable, or should Americans expect such tragedies to occur without warning from time to time?

If the collapse was preventable, who or what should have prevented it?

Does Pawlenty wish that he had done something differently, as governor, in terms of prioritizing spending in the state budget to make money for infrastructure, and then making sure that the infrastructure money was spent well?

Was the I-35 tragedy a wake-up call for Pawlenty to pay more attention to aging infrastructure in his state? If so, how did he wring something positive out of the disaster?

What are Pawlenty’s suggestions to Congress on a new transportation-funding bill?

The National Review is widely read within Republican circles, and reporters are always looking for some possibly-controversial issues to raise. So it’s probably only a matter of time before Pawlenty gets some of these questions from an enterprising reporter.