Release the Romney Jokes!

Jay Carr/The Island Packet/MCT/ZUMAPRESS.com

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Forget—for the moment—Mitt Romney’s tax records, his calendars, his list of bundlers, and his gubernatorial emails. What the public really needs to see are the Romney jokes.

In his 2004 book about his stewardship of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Turnaround, Romney, describing his management style, wrote the following:

We instituted a rule at Bain Capital that every meeting had to begin with a joke. I love jokes and I love laughing. The humor spread through the entire meeting: people were always on the lookout for a laugh. When Ed [Eynon] began the process of having task forces [at the Salt Lake Organizing Committee] determine which should be our guiding principles, I directed that “fun” needed to be one of them. It was. And I always tried to begin meetings with a joke, just to keep things in their proper perspective.

This is information voters must have: Romney’s jokes. Did the gags make it into the minutes of the Olympics meetings? Did Romney keep a list? A set of index cards? Yes, many of the Olympics records were destroyed after the games, despite Romney’s public declarations of transparency. But is it possible that some of the gags survived?

In search of the missing Romney jokes, I did contact a former Bain Capital partner, and asked if he would reveal what riddles, gags, or jests Romney shared in the boardroom to lighten things up during his days as a chieftain of high finance. Did Romney favor the knock-knock variety? Chickens crossing roads? Saucy limericks? Clergy-walking-into-bars scenarios? His official response: no comment. So you know they must be good.

Ann Romney has hailed her husband as a prankster. But a funny guy? That has yet to be seen. Reporters covering the GOP presidential candidate should demand immediate access to the Romney gags. And if Romney refuses to release his jokes, the obvious question will linger until Election Day: what’s he hiding?

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate