UPDATE: Momentum…

An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office & told me that @barackobama applied to Occidental as a foreign student–think about it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

 

ORIGINAL: In a column posted at The Blaze, Columbia graduate, author, Las Vegas oddsmaker and former Libertarian vice presidential nominee Wayne Allyn Root offers some advice to the Romney campaign they should immediately seize upon in the wake of the idiotic Harry Reid “Mitt Romney didn’t pay his taxes” allegations.

Root says something we’ve mentioned a time or two; namely, that Romney ought to offer a quid pro quo to Obama – my tax returns for your college records.

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

Obama and his infamous strategist David Axelrod understand how to play political hardball, the best its ever been played. Team Obama has decided to distract America’s voters by condemning Mitt Romney for not releasing enough years of his tax returns. It’s the perfect cover. Obama knows the best defense is a bold offense. Just keep attacking Mitt and blaming him for secrecy and evasion, while accusing him of having a scandal that doesn’t exist. Then ask followers like Senator Harry Reid to chase the lead. The U.S. Senate Majority Leader appears to now be making up stories out of thin air, about tax returns he knows nothing about. It’s a cynical, brilliant and vicious strategy. Make Romney defend, so he can’t attack the real Obama scandal.

This is classic Axelrod. Obama has won several elections in his career by slandering his opponents and leaking sealed documents. Not only do these insinuations and leaks ruin the credibility and reputation of Obama’s opponents, they keep them on the defensive and off Obama’s trail of sealed documents.

By attacking Romney’s tax records, Obama’s socialist cabal creates a problem that doesn’t exist. Is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader making up stories out of thin air? You decide. But the reason for this baseless attack is clear- make Romney defend, so not only is he “off message” but it helps the media ignore the real Obama scandal.

My answer for Romney? Call Obama’s bluff.

Romney should call a press conference and issue a challenge in front of the nation. He should agree to release more of his tax returns, only if Obama unseals his college records. Simple and straight-forward. Mitt should ask “What could possibly be so embarrassing in your college records from 29 years ago, that you are afraid to let America’s voters see it? If it’s THAT bad, maybe it’s something the voters ought to see.” Suddenly the tables are turned. Now Obama is on the defensive.

Root explains why he doesn’t think Obama will ever release those records – releasing him would make him un-electable.

Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A)   He rarely ever attended class.

B)   His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C)   He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D)   He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

The citizenship issue isn’t one Romney should push, though as a factual and legal matter it’s not insignificant. It’s sufficient for Romney’s purposes – or more specifically whichever surrogates of Romney who expand upon a quick statement of his announcing the proposed quid pro quo – to suggest that Obama applied to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign student and thus advanced in his college education as a product of set-asides and affirmative action. That suggestion makes for a logical line all the way to his “You Didn’t Build That” speech in Roanoke last month; for Obama, the concept of the self-made individual conflicts with his experience as an affirmative-action baby all through his life. Offering such a coherent explanation for the president’s worldview which informs a number of his various statements and conforms to much of the inside stories coming out of the White House would paint a picture to uncommitted voters which is very damning for the president; it also counteracts the blue-blood-rich-guy narrative Obama has attempted to build around Romney.

Because Romney can then argue that while his rich father put him through the best schools he didn’t inherent any more money than Obama did, and the fortune Romney made he earned through business acumen – nobody gave him a leg up to that success. Obama, who may have sold himself as coming from nothing based on his skin color, had a similarly advantageous educational background to Romney but actually advanced far less on individual merit and much more through the graces of the Chicago good-ole-boy machine politicos on his way up.

In fact, the reason Root believes the release of Obama’s college transcripts would produce such a picture is that he supposedly graduated with Obama from Columbia in 1983 as a pre-law and political science major, and he never even heard of him.

If anyone should have questions about Obama’s record at Columbia University, it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him. And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia has ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.

But don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that Fox News randomly called 400 of our Columbia classmates and never found one who had ever met Obama.

It’s a bit creepy to think you could eventually become president of the United States and nobody remembers you from college. Has that ever happened before? Adding the fact that Obama’s college records are sealed, one certainly gets a Manchurian Candidate vibe out of this picture. Root is right on that Romney should turn the “full-disclosure” tables on the president and demand he release those college records.

To do so would produce some interesting, if predictable, reactions.

First, Romney would immediately be branded as a “birther” for making the suggestion that Obama release his college records. So what? He and his campaign can state they’re not asking for the president’s birth certificate; that issue is beyond the scope of their demands. Romney’s camp can say the justification Obama and Reid have offered in asking for his tax returns is transparency and qualification for the White House; why would they disparage a request for their candidate to provide information fundamentally related to those concepts?

Romney can also say that Obama’s college records might well show the exact same thing his tax returns will show; a record of achievement beyond the reach of mere mortals. Romney can say “I’m proud of the fact I was successful in my business endeavors and made a lot of money, and my returns will show a record of sizable donations to charity as well as prudent financial management. If Obama’s college records show that he made outstanding grades, then he should be proud of that as well and not try to hide it. I look forward to the American people seeing the full measure of our candidacies.”

Second, Obama’s people would concoct even more scurrillous stories about Romney in response. We knew this would come anyway, and given the laughable nature of Reid’s charges last week it’s hard to see how anything more incendiary the Obamites might cook up would be taken any more seriously than what they’ve already got.

And third, we’ll see the media begin tut-tutting about how nasty the political discourse in the country has become. You won’t hear that now, even though most of the media has conceded Reid is horribly out of line in making completely unsubstantiated charges about Romney’s taxes – and you didn’t hear it when Stephanie Cutter, one of Obama’s campaign stooges, suggested Romney was a felon. But you’ll certainly hear it if Romney asks to see Obama’s college records. Mark those words if Romney follows Root’s advice.

But it’s better to deal with those changes than to have the current insane media narrative, which essentially amounts to “Reid’s charges are unsupported and likely untrue, but why won’t Romney put them to bed by doing exactly what Reid demands he do?”