Mitt Romney says Mitt Romney is a complete fraud
You know how the centerpiece of Mitt Romney's attack on Rick Santorum is that Santorum is nothing more than a pork barrel politician?
Well:
In a long-forgotten tape from the 2002 Massachusetts governor’s race obtained by ABC News, Mitt Romney is seen touting his Washington connections and his ability to get millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government.
“I am big believer in getting money where the money is,” Romney says on the video, “The money is in Washington.”
And you know how Mitt Romney says the problem with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum is that they are Washington insiders? Well:
“I have learned from my Olympic experience that if you have people who really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there you can get money to help build economic development opportunities,” Romney says.
As a result:
“We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games. That is a huge increase over anything ever done before and we did that by going after every agency of government,” he says.
His favorite example was how an aide secured $1 million from the Department of Education:
“She said, ‘Why don’t I get the Department of Education to buy tickets to the Paralympics so that high school and grade school kids can go to the Paralympics?’ She literally got, I believe the number was over $1 million from the Department of Education, funding to buy tickets for kids,” Romney said. “This way we got kids there and we also got additional revenues that we wouldn’t have had. That kind of creativity I want to bring to everything we do.”
So back in 2002, Mitt Romney was bragging about being able to do everything that he now attacks Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich for. In other words, he's a fraud. No wonder the Republican establishment is so desperate to nominate him.
ABC will post Jonathan Karl's full report later today. We'll post a new update when it's available.
