Mitt Romney Campaign Bans Small Vendors From Republican National Convention

[Tx4obama]

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has banned small vendors from setting up shop at the 2012 Republican National Convention, CBS San Francisco (KCBS) reported on Thursday.

In order to maintain control over all official campaign souvenirs, the Romney-Ryan campaign has barred small vendors from selling campaign buttons and other political souvenirs at the RNC, KCBS found. As a result, small vendors are "are conspicuously absent" from the convention, the news outlet reported.

Robin Abrams of Irvine, Calif., has been forced to sell campaign buttons at a hotel 30 miles away from the RNC, KCBS reported. In contrast, the Democratic National Convention next week will allow small vendors to sell political souvenirs, according to KCBS.

The Republican Party has been touting its support of small businesses throughout the RNC. The official theme of the first night of the convention was "We Built It" in order to present a contrast to "You didn't build that," a quote by President Barack Obama that has been used out of context by Republicans to highlight the importance of small business development independent from government intervention.

-snip-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/mitt-romney-small-vendors_n_1844429.html

[Historic NY]

1. They really don't support really small business's...

In order to maintain control the Rolls/Royce campaign claims.

[Lucy Goosey]

2. Oh, wow-this needs to go viral!

Republicans are the party of big business to the detriment of small business, based on their actions, not on their empty rhetoric.

[The Wielding Truth]

3. Always look at what they do and not just what they say they do.

[Big Orange Jeff]

4. Why does the Romney campaign hate small business?

nt

[GallopingGhost]

5. The GOP truly is the Hypocrisy Party.

[EC]

6. Wasn't he touting entrepreneurship?

I'm sure I heard him telling people to start their own little business.

[mojo2012]

7. Maybe the qualifications were

Maybe vendors had to be owned by Bain? LOL

[Jankyn]

8. No doubt they were afraid ...

... that the "unauthorized" merchandise would be overtly racist and thus cause them more problems. In this case, and given the lack of natural editing/filtering we've seen among tea partiers, this seems like a pretty smart decision.

[abumbyanyothername]

10. Bravo

I really wish DU would allow us to rec/like individual posts in threads.

[Digit]

11. Naw, you give them way too much credit

More likely it has something to do with receiving kick-backs or only allowing "connected" vendors.

[Mnemosyne]

9. K&R