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June 02, 2010 07:28 PM UTC

Why is This So Important?

  • 75 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The story of the possible job offer from the White House for Democrat Andrew Romanoff continues to be news, but for reasons we fail to understand. As “The Fix” reports today:

Romanoff was not in elected office when the alleged offer came. The former state House speaker was actively seeking out career options last year, and for a time appeared to be close to becoming Gov. Bill Ritter’s (D) lieutenant governor. “Andrew’s situation is a little different in that he wasn’t a member of Congress,” said Colorado Democratic consultant Steve Welchert, who is neutral in the Senate primary. “Andrew was a term-limited member of the House. He was putting out a number of feelers.” With Romanoff looking at his options, a job offer from Democratic leaders wouldn’t have looked as overtly political. At the same time, the Denver Post reported that the conversations did take place after he entered the Senate race.

Whether any of this winds up becoming much of an issue is still up in the air but Romanoff’s campaign is doubling down on its no-comment policy at the moment.

Reached Tuesday, Teicher, the Romanoff spokesman, would neither budge nor elaborate on his reasons for not commenting.

“I’m not going to expound on that, and I’m not going to get into an analysis of why we’re not commenting,” Teicher said. “I would just ask you to please accept the no comment, because that is all we are offering.”

For now.

This is the key point that local news editorials and others are repeatedly, maybe even intentionally missing in order to gin up some news in a slow week–Romanoff didn’t have a job for most of 2009. Of course he would be looking around for jobs after being term-limited out of the state legislature. And as the former Speaker of the House in a moderate Western state, it’s very easy to imagine that the Obama administration would at least discuss some sort of role for Romanoff.

The only potential question in all of this is whether Romanoff was offered a significant position in the Obama administration, and only because the answer might show how concerned (or unconcerned) the White House was about a potential challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet. If the only thing Romanoff was offered was Assistant Under-Secretary to the Assistant’s Assistant to the Ambassador of Nowhereland, then we could see why Romanoff wouldn’t want to discuss it.

Otherwise…who cares? How is this even sort of a scandal?

We’ve said repeatedly that we thought it was a mistake for Romanoff to enter the Senate race last August, primarily because we thought he had waited way too long; had Romanoff entered the race last March, that would have made a lot more sense. But if Romanoff decided that he would rather run for Senate than take a job in the Obama administration, well, okay. That’s certainly his decision to make, and it’s not at all something that rises to any sort of scandal.

Do the voters (clutch pearls) need to know if Romanoff was offered a job? No. They don’t.  

UPDATE: NPR’s Jeff Brady reports:

Andrew Romanoff upset the Democratic establishment in Colorado last fall when he announced plans to challenge incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. Now, Romanoff says President Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina called him last September and said three positions might be available to him were he to drop out of the race.

Romanoff says Messina never made any guarantees, and no job offer was ever made.

In an e-mail, Romanoff said two of the jobs were executive positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the third was director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency…

“Mr. Romanoff was recommended to the White House from Democrats in Colorado for a position in the administration,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. “There were some initial conversations with him, but no job was ever offered.”

Messina, a tough-minded veteran of Senate politics and one of the president’s best fixers, spoke with Romanoff on Sept. 11, 2009, and suggested that Romanoff might better use his time at the USAID.

“He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions,” Romanoff said in the statement. [Pols emphasis]

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75 thoughts on “Why is This So Important?”

  1. The most credible rumor I’ve heard – and I obviously don’t have first hand personal knowledge of this, not having been a party to the conversation – is that Jim Messina offered Romanoff the position of Administrator of the Agency for International Development (USAID).

    1. If that’s true, then this isn’t a story. If Romanoff decided he’d rather run for Senate than take a job at USAID — that’s his choice to make. There shouldn’t be any pressure to tell people what job he did or didn’t turn down.

      1. smoke = fire, so to clean-up these questions all parties should go on the record.

        Bennet’s plan to disgorge the corporate chattle he’s raised on AR might work, but I think the Post is looking to cleanout Romanoff earlier and provide Bennet the opportunity to disgorge the corporate influence on Norton-Buck.

        So just maybe the Post is thinking it’s 11:59, it’s time for Cinderella to go home.

    2. It does development work all over the world.  Romanoff does not have any experience approaching the kind which other candidates considered for that position had.

      I think the position for which he was being considered was USIA….United States Information AGency….which has to do with publicizing America overseas….the old Voice of America, student exchanges; cultural centers, etc. was part of the USIA.

      That would make sense.

        1. The former head of USAID was Aaron Williams; background included Peace Corps Volunteer in the DR; International business experience and then worked with USAID for over twenty years. He left USAID to take over the Peace Corps and was one of those appointments which took forever to confirm.  

  3. Democrats wonder, why is corruption and bribery important? No, the voters don’t need to know about this. Nothing to see here folks; move along.

                  1. The only reason this is an issue is that both Dems (AR and Sestak) bragged about the White House offering them jobs to get them out of their primaries.

                    You would be freaking out if this were on the R side, and it would still probably be just as much of a dry-hump as this is going to end up being….

                    …unless the R’s take over Congress.  In which case, we’ll have hearings after hearings, trying to trap someone in something under oath.

                    1. in what was probably an effort to make his candidacy sound like more  of a threat to Specter (which it turned out to be!). But it’s inaccurate and misleading to say Romanoff “bragged” about it. He didn’t. He’s been tight-lipped about whatever happened since last fall.

                      But you’re exactly right, this is a pretext to get a special prosecutor with a license to fish.  

                    2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

                      WASHINGTON — Administration officials dangled the possibility of a job for former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff last year in hopes he would forgo a challenge to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, administration officials said Wednesday, just days after the White House admitted orchestrating a similar job offer in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

                    4. These officials declined to specify the job that was floated or the name of the administration official who approached Romanoff, and said no formal offer was ever made. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not cleared to discuss private conversations.

                    5. Why in the world is the White House leaking this unless they’re freaking out about Sestak?

                    6. But I’d be willing to bet that there are some new assholes being ripped and a directive to “find out who the hell else we talked to.”

                      It’s called getting ahead of the story.

                    8. This stuff happens ALL THE TIME, no matter the Party in power. It’s not a big deal.

      2. The Crime, if there is one, is about the person who makes the offer.  It is highly suggestive, to understate things, that the White House also offered Romanoff a position to clear the field in Colorado.  This is not going away and if Romanoff want to be know for anything other than being the other guy who they attempted to get out of the way, he should say what he knows and get past it.

        If he does not, it will linger.

          1. If he applied for a job and his acceptance was not conditioned on him dropping out,or not getting in, that seems ok to me.

            The way I see it whether he offically entered the race, set up a committee etc is all window dressing.  Was the offer conditional on him doing or not doing something as it relates to running for the senate?  That is, in my view, the question.

            1. Under your view, I take it that it would be ok (lawful) if he had turned down an unconditional job offer even if his sole reason was that he had decided to run for senate.  Right?

              1. The only motivation at issue is why it was offered.

                For example, if Sestak was offered the Sec of Navy position and he took it, no problem.  

                If he turned it down because then he would not be able to devote his full attention to running for office, no problem.

                If Sestak was offered the Sec of Navy position and the offer was conditioned on him not running for Senate, problem.

                    1. So long as the offeror attaches no strings to the job offer, there is no problem.  And this would be true even if the offeror knows that the offeree most likely wouldn’t run for office after just accepting a new job.

                2. it’s mind-boggling. Sestak was not offered the secretary of Navy job. That job had already been filled. That was the red herring of two week’s ago, H-man — you should catch up on your talking points.

                  And besides, when you say “If he turned it down because then he would not be able to devote his full attention to running for office, no problem,” that makes absolutely no sense. If he took a job offered by the administration, by definition he wouldn’t run for the Senate seat. The Hatch Act would forbid it. Your whole understanding of what’s conditional and what isn’t is mightily screwed up.

                  1. I never said that he was.  I used that as an example.  The distinction does make sense.  

                    If there was something about the job which he wanted and he was precluded by his decision to take the job from running for the Senate seat, that would be OK.  

                    It is the conduct of the offeror and the nature of the offer, not the effect on the offeree that is the issue.

  4. I also think it’s Romanoff’s choice to not answer.

    We ask the candidates a ton of questions. We all have different expectations about what should be answered. And each candidate balances out the trade-offs of answering each question. This is how it works.

    I do think this will remain an issue unless it is answered. For whatever reason, it is resonating. As does it help or hurt Romanoff – no idea.

  5. seems right.  This shouldn’t be a big deal.  AR should come right out and say ‘BO Admin offered position X to me in DATE.”  I’m sure they would tack on something about there never being a hint of quid pro quo.

    There seem to be a lot of good reasons why AR should just answer the question.  But he’s not.  So what are the reason’s he wouldn’t?

    I’m not smart enough to know what various questionable scenarios could have played out in this context.  I don’t assume he’s falling on his sword to protect Obama.

    But it does beg the question:  Why won’t AR give a straight answer?

    1. He did give one of those straight answers- he said there was no job offer.

      Do you need the citation again?

      Or do you prefer hman’s and bj’s inferences and MUS?

        1. According to today’s editorial

          in the Denver Post Romanoff specifically addressed this when he was asked last fall by the DP.

          Only days before it ran, after hearing whispers of a Romanoff job offer, we asked the former House speaker directly whether he had been offered a job by the White House to drop out of the race.He told us unequivocally that he had not been offered a position.

          http://coloradopols.com/showCo…

          Which I read to mean that all further “no comment”, no further comment etc mean the same thing.  He has nothing else to say because there is nothing else to say, no matter how much the R smear factory wants there to be.

          1. I’ve now read the editorial.  It is odd that the editorial both produces the info you quoted and demands that AR deny everything all over again, else AR is denying info to the public.  Could the distinction lie in who offered the job.  The original question, and AR’s original denial, concerned whether the White House offered him a job.  Is the Post suggesting that someone else in the Administration offered AR a job, and AR hasn’t denied that yet?  Who knows.  The editorial is a mess of contradiction, in my view.

            1. and despite the contrary spin posted elsewhere- it sets the stage for what the DP editorial board was always going to do- endorse the R nominee

      2. I take your word for it.  But I thought AR campaign was strictly saying ‘no comment.’

        Shouldn’t he be saying that they’ve already answered the question and they don’t have any more to add?  Or better yet, answer any additional questions, regardless of how tedious, because the optics are much better.  Ultimately, be more unequivocal about it.

        1. can “no comment” be? They’re refusing to say anything more than that, not even a comment on why they’re not commenting.

          The Post said in its editorial today that Romanoff flatly denied last September there was a job offer. The White House also flatly denied Romanoff had been offered a job. That’s about as unequivocal as it gets too.

          1. we might be arguing on the same side of this.  But ‘No Comment’ is usually very equivocal.  

            Like I said, the optics would be better if he answered the questions ad nauseam than to say “no comment.”

            1. As happened with Sestak, once he started talking about it, the story dragged on and dripped out. On the other hand, Romanoff has zero control over the story now. He’s not in a very comfortable position with this story no matter what he does.

  6. I’ll say the same thing I said in H-Man’s “Et Tu” thread:

    It’s not a violation of the law. As Norm Ornstein wrote:

    If what the Obama administration did was impeachable, then Rep. Issa might want to consider retroactive impeachment action against Ronald Reagan, whose White House directly suggested to S.I. Hayakawa that he would get an administration position if he would stay out of the Republican primary for Senate in California; or call for an investigation and special prosecutor of the Bush White House for discussing a Cabinet post with Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to clear the field for their preferred Republican candidate Mike Johanns in 2006. At the same time, Issa might want to call for expulsion of his Senate colleague Judd Gregg, who insisted before he accepted the post of Commerce Secretary in the Obama administration that there be a guarantee that his successor, appointed by a Democratic governor, be a Republican.

    Put simply: the two things are mutually exclusive. The quid is identical to the quo. Or, how about howJon Chait and Bush administration ethics counsel Richard Painter put it?

    I’ve been trying to make people understand that a White House job offer to Joe Sestak could not be a quid pro quo — let alone an illegal quid pro quo — because the quid (Sestak accepts an executive branch job) is identical to the quo (Sestak quits the Pennsylvania primary race.) Maybe you don’t believe me. Scott Galupo doesn’t, writing, “Splitting hairs Michael Kinsley-style, Chait has outhunk himself here.” I’ve never been called a “hunk” before, and I’m guessing Kinsley hasn’t, either. In any case, even if you choose to disregard my logic on account of my rakish good looks, at least listen to former Bush administration ethics counsel Richard Painter:

    The allegation that the job offer was somehow a “bribe” in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to support. Sestak, if he had taken a job in the Administration, would not have been permitted to run in the Pennsylvania primary. The Hatch Act prohibits a federal employee from being a candidate for nomination or election to a partisan political office. 5 U.S.C. В§ 7323(a)(3). He had to choose one or the other, but he could not choose both.

    The job offer may have been a way of getting Sestak out of Specter’s way, but this also is nothing new. Many candidates for top Administration appointments are politically active in the President’s political party. Many are candidates or are considering candidacy in primaries. White House political operatives don’t like contentious fights in their own party primaries and sometimes suggest jobs in the Administration for persons who otherwise would be contenders. For the White House, this is usually a “win-win” situation, giving the Administration politically savvy appointees in the Executive Branch and fewer contentious primaries for the Legislative Branch. This may not be best for voters who have less choice as a result, and Sestak thus should be commended for saying “no”. The job offer, however, is hardly a “bribe” when it is one of two alternatives that are mutually exclusive.

    In short – nothing to see here.

    1. Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,

         position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,

         provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of

         Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such

         benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any

         political activity or for the support of or opposition to any

         candidate or any political party in connection with any general or

         special election to any political office, or in connection with any

         primary election or political convention or caucus held to select

         candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this

         title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

        1. Here you can see Laughing Boy hardly believes this was a crime at all.

          10 ‘i’s = absolute certainty. I believe it’s a logarithmic scale.  

          2. (BTW, that’s not an insult aimed at you, but rather making fun of the goof that called you teh awesome first-grade adaptation of your handle).

            One i generally denotes the ‘dry-hump’ level of crime.

            However – the fish will feed on this and distract Obama through the election, and hopefully hurt Dem enthusiasm to get out and vote in November.

            1. Normal people have much more serious problems.

              And sexpee doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I think it’s cute. The name, I mean, not the practice.

  7. Who gives a damm why it is important….it is now a national story….once again beginning with Boyles…who has been nursing this story for weeks….now..TODAY

    1) Denver Post editorial

    2) Huffington Post….Silverman’s article

    3) Druge

    4) USA Today..

    5) White House comments…

    Caplis and silverman are drooling….three hours a day….drive time……caplis is saying that this is watergate…….Obama is caught in a mess……

    Kudos to the repubs for playing this radio talk show loop so well…..over and over and successfully….

    PEOPLE…..this esoteric discussions of why this shouldn’t be important doesn’t cut it.  

    When will whoever is in charge of the dems in Colorado and the name is not Waak….will allow a response from

    the  dems.  I am not at all sure, anymore, that whoever is calling the shots for the dems actually wants the party to succeed.

    boyles wants to hang romanoff;s scalp from his microphone to go along with Ritter, Villafuerte, and Foster……I am betting he will.

  8. Denver Post: “He (Romanoff) told us unequivocally that he had not been offered a position.  http://www.denverpost.com/opin…

    CBS4: Romanoff said in a statement Wednesday night that he was contacted by Messina last fall and told that the White House would support Bennet in the primary. When he said he would seek the nomination anyway, Messina “suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race,” Romanoff said.

    First, Romanoff is saying two different things there.  Second, he’s admitting to an offer that is more than likely illegal.

    http://cbs4denver.com/campaign…

    AR looked scared and befuddled when he admitted this on camera tonight.  

    1. Messina suggested Romanoff could still get one of the jobs he’d applied for earlier, but didn’t actually promise it. Romanoff decided that wasn’t good enough and that he’d take his chances with the Senate race instead. Perhaps if he’d gotten a solid promise about the job, or if he’d heard back about the job sooner, he would have been happy to take it.

      Error: controversy not found.

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