# Mitt Romney's Transition Website **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 8, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365 "2012-11-08T16:13:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/1 "2012-11-08T16:13:12Z")
Huffpo is claiming that they’ve found remnants of the website Romney hoped to launch when he was elected and also that they’ve spoken to the web company that designed it. They have screenshots. > [@](#): > > The page on “Repealing the Affordable Care Act” declared: " On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Affordable Care Act waivers to all 50 states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible." > **[Romney Transition Website Draft Uncovered](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitt-romney-transition-website_n_2090531?utm_hp_ref=politics)** > > Romney Transition Website Draft Uncovered For your majesty’s viewing pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/2 "2012-11-08T16:35:48Z")
It was kind of incompetent for the development company to have it visible to the whole world. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/3 "2012-11-08T16:36:43Z")
Which is in itself a microcosm of Republicanism today. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/4 "2012-11-08T17:37:28Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > It was kind of incompetent for the development company to have it visible to the whole world. It might not have been up for the whole world to see. Chances are good this was a “demo” that was slapped together quickly to show the Romney people and let them have their input on what to add or change. Most website developers have their clients review the work in progress. Still, somebody who had access to this “secret” site must have eagerly passed it along to others to see, and that is how this became public enough for others to capture screen shots. If this had actually been posted longer, I am sure it would have gotten millions of hits in a matter of moments and there would be far more images and pages to scan and keep for posterity. Too bad - I would have loved to see the entire website! ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/5 "2012-11-08T17:40:01Z")
Yes, but it should have been password protected. ---
**Author:** ![Feyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Feyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feyrat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/6 "2012-11-08T17:42:03Z")
That really is a very, very simple site from the look of it. I’ve seen ratteries with more complex websites. Kinda gives me the shivers though. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/7 "2012-11-08T17:44:45Z")
My question is, can a president really do that? I.e. use an executive order to exempt a state from legislated regulations? ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/8 "2012-11-08T17:49:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > My question is, can a president really do that? I.e. use an executive order to exempt a state from legislated regulations? Why not? HHS has been issuing waivers for many companies so they don’t have to comply with the parts of the HCR act that have already taken effect. Is there any difference? ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/9 "2012-11-08T18:26:55Z")
The waivers are part of the healthcare bill. As I understand it, the point is to allow the states to experiment with different ways of implementing it, contingent on permission from the executive. But I don’t think he could force waivers on states that like the bill as is. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/10 "2012-11-08T18:33:08Z")
I read, somewhere I forget now, that Romney planned to issue a hundred executive orders on day 1 and then start pushing congress for big bipartisan bills. I remember thinking that sounded like the kind of thing a CEO would do but it would be a disaster if he actually tried to implement it all. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/11 "2012-11-08T18:46:39Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > But I don’t think he could force waivers on states that like the bill as is. If the state liked the bill as it is, they wouldn’t ask for a waiver. The point of the waiver idea is that he’d issue them to states who asked to be exempted from the ACA. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/12 "2012-11-08T19:21:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > If the state liked the bill as it is, they wouldn’t ask for a waiver. The point of the waiver idea is that he’d issue them to states who asked to be exempted from the ACA. From the Huffington Post article: > [@](#): > > The page on “Repealing the Affordable Care Act” declared: " On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Affordable Care Act waivers to all 50 states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible." _If this is accurate_ then Romney was planning to issue waivers to all 50 states, not just those who asked. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/13 "2012-11-08T19:33:39Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > From the Huffington Post article: > _If this is accurate_ then Romney was planning to issue waivers to all 50 states, not just those who asked. Alright, I phrased that badly. The point is that states that didn’t want a waiver wouldn’t have used it. It sounds like the idea was to let all the (Republican-lead) states who wants to quit the ACA immediately to do just that while the federal government got to work repealing the whole law. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/14 "2012-11-08T19:36:01Z")
“What would Romney have done?” Which Romney? Tea Party Romney? Moderate Romney? Which one? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/15 "2012-11-08T19:42:41Z")
When Bill Clinton warned voters that Romney was going to try to make good on his (conservative) campaign promises, I thought he was probably right. Romney didn’t un-make those promises so much as he denied making them. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/16 "2012-11-08T20:55:27Z")
How scary is it that the Romney campaign apparently _genuinely_ had absolutely NO CLUE that they were going to lose? Good Lord, Iran could have shoved a nuke up Romney’s butt before he figured it out that they had a delivery system. Wow… no wonder McCain went with Palin. ---
**Author:** ![Feyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Feyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feyrat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/17 "2012-11-08T21:42:04Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > How scary is it that the Romney campaign apparently _genuinely_ had absolutely NO CLUE that they were going to lose? Good Lord, Iran could have shoved a nuke up Romney’s butt before he figured it out that they had a delivery system. > > Wow… no wonder McCain went with Palin. Yeah, that too. I mean… how tight were those blinders? That goes along with the whole “only wrote a victory speech, not a concession speech” tidbit too. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/18 "2012-11-08T22:32:55Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > How scary is it that the Romney campaign apparently _genuinely_ had absolutely NO CLUE that they were going to lose? Good Lord, Iran could have shoved a nuke up Romney’s butt before he figured it out that they had a delivery system. > > Wow… no wonder McCain went with Palin. Eh, I don’t know that I’d use this as evidence that the Romney campaign was blindly assured of victory (the lack of a concession speech makes that case all on its own). Don’t forget that Obama’s “[Change.gov](http://Change.gov)” website went up the day after he was elected in 2008. Campaigns build these sorts of things in advance. It’s like how there are boxes of “WORLD SERIES CHAMPION” t-shirts prepped for both teams, except that the losers of the presidency presumably don’t end up with their shirts sent to the third world. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mitt-romneys-transition-website/640365/19 "2012-11-08T22:38:34Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > Campaigns build these sorts of things in advance. Right, they need to. You can’t do all that on election night. We also heard reports that Romney had assembled a transition team and was at least thinking about cabinet choices, and even though he apparently did not really know where he stood in the polls, it would have been stupid _not_ to make some preparations. And do we think other candidates wrote their concession speeches well ahead of time? If they do, they certainly aren’t going to admit it. You could tell Romney’s was prepared at the last minute and it certainly doesn’t compare favorably to McCain’s, but still.