Romney begging Obama to stop talking

It appears Mitt Romney doesn’t understand how a presidential campaign works. Which is surprising since he’s been running for president for about ten years now. But how else to explain Mr. Romney begging Obama to stop talking about his business record?

“Our campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature,” Romney said, according to excerpts of an upcoming interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd released Friday.

This would be the same Mitt Romney who said this several months ago:

“Look, I would not be in this race had I spent my life in politics alone,” Romney said at an October primary debate. “Nothing wrong with that, of course, but right now, with the American people in the kind of financial crisis they are in, they need someone who knows how to create jobs, and I do.”

Mr. Romney is running for office specifically on his business experience. The conduct of the company he built and continues to profit from is material to the voters’ assessment of the value of that experience. Mr. Romney is running for office as a tax code reformer. Thus, his tax returns are material to public evaluation of his qualifications to run our country for the next four years. I’m not sure Mr. Romney understands he’s applying for a job from us people, the entire electorate. He’s treating it more like a negotiation for a maximum value, personal investment package with only the wealth holders.

Did no one tell him when you run for the highest office in our land, the implicit agreement is you have to live your life in a fishbowl? Our President is accountable to all the people, not just the ones that donate tens of thousands at fancy fundraisers in gated mansions. Or does Mitt Romney just think the rules of applying for public office shouldn’t apply to him?