I remember reading about the president of some huge company Maybe GM in the 1950's. He wouldn't put a pool in his backyard because the neighbors didn't have one. He wasn't all that rich.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opini ... ef=opinion

Once upon a time a rich man named Romney ran for president. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his wealth was well-earned, that he had in fact done a lot to create good jobs for American workers. Nonetheless, the public understandably wanted to know both how he had grown so rich and what he had done with his wealth; he obliged by releasing extensive information about his financial history.

Has there ever before been a major presidential candidate who had a multimillion-dollar Swiss bank account, plus tens of millions invested in the Cayman Islands, famed as a tax haven?

paywall

Maybe not candidates but ex presidents tend to be wealthy beyond counting. There was a lot of hoopla over Nelson Rockefeller when he was VP, the big reason Ford dropped him for 76.

There have been a number of presidents (even candidates) who were wealthy. Some of the founders including Washington and Jefferson were fairly wealthy farmers and landowners. Modern presidents like the Roosevelt's, The Kennedy's, and the Bush's were also wealthy. There was some hullabalu about where Joe Kennedy got his money that was tarred onto John and Bobby.

The difference is that I think Romney is the first presidential candidate that embodies everything that was wrong about the Reagan Revolution. He has no compassion, no morals, no ethics, no sense of loyalty to country, and he is a liar that became wealthy while adding no real value to the world. The major thing with him is his hypocrisy. If he wasn't such a damn hypocrite about everything he might not be getting the type of scrutiny that he is currently getting.

I've had an unpleasant conversation or two about this. They tend to go like:

- So, Romney shipped jobs overseas and stores his money in other countries known as tax havens.
- But Obama [insert rambling]
- What does Obama have to do with it? We've been talked down to for 30 years about how wealth trickles down and the wealthy are Job Creators who can't be taxed because then they wouldn't be able to create jobs. Now we see this guy running for the office of president sitting on untold millions of dollars in offshore accounts? Can we have a look at his tax records?
- OBAMA OBAMA

And so on. Frankly, I think a nice, good audit, the kind of audit where the IRS needs a box of latex gloves and a dozen tubes of lube for, should be done for every public official and major candidate the day they file. Republicans would probably call that a waste of taxpayer money, though.

It's a witchhunt! A witchhunt, I say!

It was bad enough that, of all possible ironic tickets, a Bush/Cheney ticket was able to denounce Kerry as rich and out of touch (which is WTF enough right there), but then turns around 8 years later and is flabbergasted that anyone would dare challenge a great rich Job Creator.

Another issue with localized government is that people pay a lot of attention to the presidential race, but it usually has much less direct effect on their lives than state, county, and city elections, which most people know squat about.