Written by Winston P. Nagan   

When the American people think about making a choice for the Office of President, usually they have a concern about the character of the candidate. Precisely what this means is not always clear. Certainly, in the give and take of the campaign there will be direct or indirect challenges to the character and therefore the fitness of one or other of the candidates. Usually, the electorate tends to draw conclusions about the character of a candidate from past behavior, professional experience, the claimed policies that the candidate seeks to promote and defend, as well as the coherence of those policy preferences. In this sense, Romney’s background is complex. A sizeable segment of the electorate is still uncomfortable about his religion and its implication for what kind of character he will be if he is President. Religion tends to tie in with what some religionists call “family values.” And it is in family values that they determine whether a particular candidate meets the proper litmus test of whether his character is truly conservative. For someone with Romney’s religious orientation, that perspective does come with a history that supports not monogamy, but polygamy. Officially, his religion has discarded polygamy, but many of those who profess his faith remain unrepentant about the religious family form. Romney himself is clearly a monogamist but with a religious orientation, that has what conservatives would regard, historically, as a serious moral flaw. Given this murky background, Romney has sought to avoid or downplay a family values theme in his campaign. However, his party made him its standard-bearer and it is on a relentless march to define family values in terms of its fundamentalist religion that many of its members subscribe to. Thus, the core of the party believes in an aggressive assault on women’s reproductive rights and choices. At the state level, they are aggressively working on legislation to significantly limit access to abortion, to enforce testing on women who wish an abortion, and to insist that women pay for these tests. In an earlier incarnation, Romney favored a women’s right to chose as expressed in the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. His campaign has assiduously tried to avoid the family values issue leaving the electorate with an implied idea that he supports the conservative agenda on women’s reproductive rights, which he had earlier repudiated. The family values issue also implicates the rights of gay people. This leaves us in the dark about Romney and family values.

Romney has also sought to promote himself as a pristine representative of pure capitalism. He has suggested that pure conservative fiscally restrictive capitalism is the only way to cure the nation’s job production deficit. Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, strongly supported that state’s health care package, which is no different in principle from that of the Obama administration. He has now insisted that such a program involves reckless public spending and is bad economics. His current campaign does not give us a clue as to what to do with the millions of American citizens who, under the current system, will have no access to health care. Here, we see a mutation from the pragmatic, somewhat social democratic Romney of Massachusetts to a new character identity as a card carrying fiscal conservative. Here again, we must confront an elusive character, difficult to pinpoint in terms of who the real Romney is, should he be elected to the White House.

The character that Romney seems to embrace is that of a smart highly successful capitalist businessman, who knows how capitalism works, and therefore, has the experience and character to run this nation and its economy in a way that will improve the economy for all. According to Romney, his is the only model that can restore jobs to the nation. However, this model, as a character type, was certainly challenged during the primaries. For example, Governor Perry called Romney a “Vulture Capitalist.” In capitalism, this is a dirty label, which seems to indicate a character type, which feeds on rotting carcasses, the rotting remains of corporate enterprises on the failing side of the system. I suspect that from what has been made public about Romney’s corporation, Bain Capital, that his corporation was actually involved in something that might be more accurately called “Vampire Capitalism.” The central point being that a Vampire Capitalist is not feeding on corporate carcasses but on healthy corporations, because the Vampire thrives on fresh blood. The rules of corporate reorganization allow for such hostile takeovers of otherwise viable corporations, and it also allows those who takeover to control the finances, which permits those who takeover to suck the entity dry and leave it in extinction. Hence, the charge that some of the practices of Bain produced unemployment as a matter of intentional financial vampire practices. The image then is whether Romney is more than a Vulture; he is a Vampire with a ruthless streak. This certainly may be seen, by many in the electorate, as a character deficit.

Additionally, Bain’s practices indicate opportunistic uses of outsourcing production from corporate takeovers. This is perfectly legal. On the other hand, it is a practice that diminishes American industrial productivity and enhances American unemployment. The question that then emerges, is whether the character of Romney, the successful businessman who made millions, engaged in practices as a result of his own character that have tended to diminish American capitalism and American labor. Romney’s scorecard here is tied to his Bain experience, and his denials that he is responsible for such corporate activity, appear to have little credibility in the light of facts as they now emerge in public. This seems to suggest that there is a cloudiness about the real Romney as the corporate entrepreneur, who made millions, and it appears verged on the edge of a dangerous amorality.

Finally, Mr. Romney has most of his wealth stashed in foreign offshore banks. This is perfectly legal, but the public still wants to know why he has put his wealth in offshore bank accounts. In those accounts, Romney’s wealth is not trickling down to create investment for job generation. Romney’s own use of these foreign banks to keep his money clearly repudiates his fundamental principle that we should not tax the wealthy because their wealth will trickle down and be an essential condition of job creation. Apparently, he does not believe in this. It is for this reason that the public wants to know whether there is a hidden reason for Romney using foreign banks, and if so, what that reason is. It is possible that Romney has absolutely no confidence in the American banking industry, and he thinks his money is safer outside of the US. Then we need to know why he feels so insecure about the integrity of American banks. Additionally, it is widely believed that the foreign bank accounts may provide Mr. Romney with access to tax loopholes. At least, we can be assured then, that if he is President, the tax loopholes for the rich may even become gigantic loopholes. In this regard, it is not unnoticed that he has so far refused to have the public review all his tax records. This refusal carries the implication that he has something to hide, which disclosure may reveal. From this brief overview, it seems to be clear that Mr. Romney’s character is much like the Scarlet Pimpernel. From his opponents’ point of view; they seek him here, they seek him there, those Demos seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell, that darned elusive Pimpernel.