ROMNEY'S F-YOU CAMPAIGN STRATEGY IS HIS TAX STRATEGY AND HIS BUSINESS STRATEGY

Michael Tomasky writes about the"f-you dishonesty" of Mitt Romney on Jeep:

... Romney's new ad about Jeeps and Italy is f-you dishonest. You probably know the background. Bloomberg News moved a confusingly worded article last week suggesting, if you didn't read it closely, that Jeep (under Chrysler, owned by Fiat) was sending all its production to China. Romney said this on the trail.

... then Chrysler ripped Romney and said no way, this is not true. Chrysler is thinking about putting plants in China down the road to try to increase market share there. But as for the here and now and the U.S. market, Chrysler is not only not cutting back domestic Jeep production but expanding it, investing $500 million in the Toledo, Ohio Jeep plant.

... So what did Romney's campaign do? It cut a TV ad doubling down on the claim, cleverly worded so as to suggest that the Obama administration sold out America (and Ohio) by selling Chrysler to the Italians who are moving production to China....

But this is simply what you do if most of your adult life was spent being the kind of businessman Mitt Romney was: you're "data-driven" in the sense that you examine the situation from every possible angle to figure out precisely the maximum of what you can get away with. As a private-equity guy, you scrutinize the spreadsheets and the tax laws and so on to make sure that if the company you buy loses, you win, and if the company you buy wins, you win. You do this by playing every angle, violating the spirit of any law while complying with the letter -- or not necessarily complying fully with the letter of the law, but complying enough that you'll be allowed to slide.

Working the angles is also, as we see today, Mitt and Ann Romney's tax strategy:

Romney Avoids Taxes via Loophole Cutting Mormon Donations

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney....

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill....

"The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation," [tax and estates lawyer Jonathan] Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction "is just a throwaway," he said. "I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero."...

Taking advantage of this makes a mockery of what charitable deductions are supposed to be about -- but Romney can get away with it, so it's cool. Similarly, Romney's weasel words in the Jeep ad make it technically true but staggeringly deceitful -- but if he can get away with it, no biggie.

Work the angles. It's Romney's primary governing principle.