Between the Orange County Commission and timeshare mogul David Siegel, it’s a wonder that any human being still believes in politics.
Yesterday, an e-mail penned by Mr. Siegel was released where he, in so many words, told his employees to vote for Mitt Romney or hit the bricks.
“It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back,” wrote Siegel.
In essence, he told his employees that if they choose to vote for Mr. Obama as president, he will cut their jobs.
It gets worse. He went on to vent about how he has no free time and how his employees should feel sorry for him because of it.
“When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have that freedom.”
Siegel owns the infamous Westgate Resorts, a timeshare company that does over $1 billion in revenue each year. His quest to build a 90,000 square foot home was recently documented in a movie titled “Queen of Versailles.” The home was to have 30 bedrooms and 10 kitchens.
It is truly sad that a billionaire intent on building a home with outsize opulence is saddled with a lack of time to spend on himself. His employees are the ones with the real problems.
They have too much time on their hands to figure out where to take their next vacation, while Siegel is locked in his mansion trying to find tax loopholes for his company.
How insensitive can they be?
Well, this is where the rubber has always met the road for Mr. Romney. He just cannot connect with regular people.
His wealth and attitude just will not allow for it. From the “couple of Cadillacs” comment to the “I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners” remark, Romney’s plush approach is a turn off.
Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that 47 percent of Americans do not matter comment, according to Mr. Romney. Guess they aren’t rich enough.
In the end, Mr. Siegel simply represents another miss for Romney. Siegel wants Romney to be president for one reason or another, and that is fine. But it is the way in which he’s going about trying to convince people, excuse me, his employees, to elect Romney and the language he used to coerce them.
If Mittens takes one step forward to the Oval Office, he immediately takes a giant leap back to California, or wherever he chooses to rest his graying locks of hair.
We get it, rich guys like to rule the world and they want to keep it that way. Having a president that wants to inject some type of fairness into our financial system just will not work for these old white men.
Having an e-mail leak from a billionaire timeshare, resort owner with a 30 bedroom home threatening to fire his employees if they fail to vote for his rich counterpart is not a good look, Mr. Romney.
Then again, I’m not sure if anything of late has looked good on him.
-JH
