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