Reading the accounts of the romney campaign implosion ...
I was struck with a eerily similar experience.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mitt-romneys-campaign-completely-fell-195408549.html
Back in the '90s, I got roped into the Multi-Level Marketing industry. I bought into the hype and rejected all of the "this is a pyramid scheme" talk and went out a built a rather large down-line ... one that was generating about $3,000/month income for myself.
But with every step higher in the organization, I got access to more information that made me uncomfortable. For example, as I got higher in the organization, I was exposed to the organizational leadership's non-public face ... suffice it to say, they were NOT all about the product; but really all about the profit.
Then, the organization started facing legal challenges ... and like the romney campaign, the organizational leadership stopped returning telephone calls and e-mails. While the public message was "sell, sell sell", I watched as people I had trusted and looked up to started shifting personal assets from marketing the product to cashing out.
Against my up-line's counsel, I called a meeting of my entire down-line ... I explained my concerns and explained that I could not continue. I issued (out of my personal account) a check to anyone that wanted out, reimbursing them for their buy-in; for those not wanting to get out, I provided them with the names and numbers of other prominent people that were also getting out, and wished them luck.
I was lucky ... 4 months after my meeting, 5 of the organization's top people were indicted. And, on the day the indictments were unsealed, the organization's founder, a man that 5 months earlier had looked me in the eye and told me that he would "fight these legal challenges to the end ... 'I will not allow anyone to go it alone' ...", fled to Mexico.
The romney campaign, just like this MLM outfit, was a money-scheme from the start.
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