[Laughter] CROWD MEMBER: Now, the Obamacare praxis on dividends and capital gains, I mean ... in the markets, you are going to be speaking very lively in October on all of those issues.

MR. ROMNEY: They’ll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If it looks like I am going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president is going to win, the markets will not be terribly happy. It depends on, of course, which markets you are talking about and which types of commodities and so forth. But my own view is that if we win on Nov. 6, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back, and we’ll see, without actually doing anything, we’ll actually get a boost to the economy. Um, if the president gets re-elected, I don’t know what’ll happen. I can never predict what the markets will do. Sometimes it does the exact opposite of what I would have expected. But my own view is that if we get the “tax again,” as they call it, Jan. 1st with this president and with a Congress that can’t work together ... it really is frightening. It’s really frightening in my view.

CROWD MEMBER: Fifty-four percent of American voters think China’s economy is bigger than the U.S. When I first met you four or five years ago, you did a data call where you went very granular and you said, “Look guys,” this is a small group, he says, “This is it. This is what it is.” Tell us like it is. How are you going to win if 54 percent of the voters think China’s economy is bigger than ours? Or if it costs 4 cents to make a penny and we keep making pennies? Canada got it right a month ago. Why isn’t someone saying, “Stop making pennies, round it to the nearest nickel?” That’s an easy thing, you know, compared to Iran. I want to see you take the gloves off and talk to the people that read the paper and read the book and care about knowing the facts and knowledge is power, as opposed to people that are swayed by what sounds good at the moment. You know, if you turned it into, like, “Eat what you kill,” it’d be a landslide, in my humble opinion.

MR. ROMNEY: [Laughs] Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has to happen in the country. And people who are fascinated by policy will read the book. We have a Web site that lays out white papers and a whole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, I don’t think this will have a significant impact on my electability. I wish it did. I think our ads will have a much bigger impact. I think the debates will have a big impact. Um ...

CROWD MEMBER: [Most of comment unintelligible] ... Peterson ... in trouble 20 years ago.

MR. ROMNEY: But that’s my point. Which is, being right, my dad used to say, “Being right early is not good in politics.” And, in a setting like this, a highly intellectual subject or a discussion of a whole series of important topics typically doesn’t win elections. And there are, there are ... I mean, for instance, this president won because of hope and change. All right? He won because of hope and change.

CROWD MEMBER: Keep the change!

MR. ROMNEY: Yeah, well ...

[Laughter]

MR. ROMNEY: So, I can tell you that I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highly successful consultants, a couple of people in particular who’ve done races around the world. I didn’t realize these guys in the U.S., the Karl Rove equivalents, they do races all over the world — in Armenia and Africa and Israel. I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see which ads work and which processes work best. And we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I’d tell ’em to you, but I’d have to, you know, shoot you. Hopefully, we’ll be successful.

[Laughter]

CROWD MEMBER: I think one of the aspects about the changes that worked well for Obama four years ago was he promised to bring us more honest, transparent government to Washington. I’ve been around politics for this campaign. I worked even with Barry Goldwater in 1964, so I’ve got the oldest Republican [unintelligible] ... but from what I see, particularly in the last seven months in my own personal involvement in the issue, is the government in Washington right now is permeated by cronyism, outright corruption. ... Our regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect the public are protecting the people that they’re supposed to be regulating. And I think people are fed up with that. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street. People see that the government is working for the powerful interests and the people who are well connected politically and not for the common person, which threatens that whole idea that we have this great opportunity, which we should have and have had historically in the West for anybody from whatever background to become successful. One way in which that becomes compromised is when the government is no longer seen as an honest agent and when our tax dollars are not really being put to work for us but for the people who are plugged in politically. You know, you have cases like [unclear], which I talk about and am involved in. You have Eric Holder, who is probably the most corrupt attorney general we’ve had ever in American history. And I think it’s something, that if spun the right way and in simple terms, can actually resonate with the American people. Obama did not keep his promises. Nancy Pelosi, who was supposed to give us an honest Congress, has given us just the opposite as speaker. And I think that’s a campaign issue that can work well. I’m optimistic that you’ll be elected president, and my recommendation would be to clean house immediately ...