At the top of his Tuesday MSNBC morning show The Daily Rundown,
NBC chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd
cited the Romney campaign's refusal to release a list of top fundraising
bundlers as evidence that "if he wins in November, Romney could very well be the least transparent president in a generation." [Listen to the audio [1]]
Todd continued to rant: "Less transparent than the two previous
Republican presidential nominees, George W. Bush and John McCain, who
did release their bundlers. But the Romney camp – campaign believes
there is no penalty with voters and they don't care if the media criticizes them, because the conservative media outlets won't criticize them for this."
Perhaps part of the reason is that Mitt Romney does not want to publicize a list of names for the Obama campaign to go after as part of its "name and shame" effort, as Kim Strassel detailed in the Wall Street Journal [2] in April:
This past week, one of his [Obama's] campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."
Like Todd, The Washington Post [3]editorial board on Saturday hit Romney for having "secret bundlers," ominously declaring:
The difference between President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when it comes to fundraising is not only that Mr. Romney managed to outraise the president last month. A more troubling difference is that Mr. Romney provided almost no information about the key "bundlers" who helped his campaign vacuum up such huge sums....Why would he hide his roster of key supporters?
Here is a full transcript of Todd's June 12 comments:
9:06AM ET
CHUCK
TODD: One more thing, a Republican operative close to the Romney
campaign confirmed to reporters yesterday that Romney will not release
the names of his bundlers, saying enough transparency already exists,
the FEC reports. Folks, everyone gets criticized for not being
transparent enough, but if he wins in November, Romney could very well
be the least transparent president in a generation. Less transparent
than the two previous Republican presidential nominees, George W. Bush
and John McCain, who did release their bundlers. But the Romney camp –
campaign believes there is no penalty with voters and they don't care if
the media criticizes them, because the conservative media outlets won't
criticize them for this.
-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here [4] to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.