Romney's Credit Card Scandal

The plus has been abuzz today over the "Romney Credit Card Scandal." Everyone seems to be on the Romney-bashing bandwagon.

But while everyone is running around talking about how big of a jerk Romney is being because some staffers had to pay their own cab fair, people clearly aren't looking at this though objective eyes.

One, this is a very small sampling of credit/debit card holders in the campaign.

Two, it is very reasonably to assume that the staff credit cards were applied for with a termination date and it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that date to be election day, Nov. 6 this year. This means, after the Romney concession speech on Nov. 7. (in the wee hours, for sure) those cards would be automatically turned off. 

Three, Romney himself probably didn't micro-manage campaign finances. That's why campaigns hire CFOs and campaign managers. These decisions aren't made from the prop-head, they're made by staff and managers. Does the candidate take a beating in the press when these scandalous leaks happen? Absolutely, but we have to remember, people are candidates, campaigns are people. A campaign, like any organization, is comprised of many people working together for one common goal.

Is it normal policy to terminate campaign credit cards like this? Maybe, maybe not. I've never been the CFO of a national campaign. I've never had to be concerned with fraud and waste of this magnitude. Chances are, neither have you. Would we even know about this if not for social media? Probably not, because no one would care enough to report on it, if any reporter cared about the state of the loser's finances anyway. Heck, right now we don't even know anything about these anonymous "staffers." Are they first timers or veteran campaign workers? Were they drunk and disgruntles when they went home "hours after the concession speech?" Were they told in advance the cards would expire at DATE/TIME? The fact is, not a single article I've seen so far has said anything more than "Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked."

But, if you run a campaign message of being fiscally conservative, without wasteful spending, it's perfectly reasonable to conclude safeguards would be put in place to protect the campaign from fraud by their staffers.

Having a termination date of staff credit cards is a fair and sensible, if unpopular, procedure to have in place if you're responsible for campaign spending and FEC oversight. If there had been a per-card spending limit would people still be having a fit? 

Let's also not bash Romney as though he was calling Visa and AmEx at 12:01am on the 7th to have each card number cancelled. Like I said before, this was probably set up in advance by either his campaign manager or campaign CFO. Chances are it was someone with authority over campaign finances who controlled this, not the candidate himself. If the candidate ultimately responsible? Perhaps in the public eye, but campaigns are generally created as a not-for-profit organization. Legally, this makes a campaign an organization, not an individual. This is why you see news stories with lines and headlines like "So-And-Such Campaign..." or "The Campaign of So-And-Such..."

But people like  or everyone at this Google+ thread seem to be more intent of bashing Romney than looking at this situation critically.

That kind of annoys me. More than likely Romney is not personally compliant in this decision, like a CEO does not micromanage a mid-level manager. Romney is a tool. but he doesn't deserve this blame, even though as the face of the campaign he will get it.