There may be more to Romney's not-so-clever pander on the size of the Navy, which he comically claims is smaller now than it has been since the early 1900s, other than being a feeble attempt to make President Obama look weak on national defense.
via Wired
But for one of Romney’s most important advisers on Navy issues, a man who oversaw a massive naval expansion for Pres. Ronald Reagan, there’s more at stake than U.S. national security. John Lehman, an investment banker and former secretary of the Navy, has strong and complex personal financial ties to the naval shipbuilding industry. He has profited hugely from the Navy’s slow growth in recent years — raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet. [...]
Lehman invested in a government-backed “Superferry” in Hawaii — a business that ultimately failed, but not before boosting the standing of Austal USA, an Alabama shipbuilder that constructed the ferry service’s ships. Austal USA’s rising fortunes in turn benefited international defense giant BAE Systems, which then bought up shipyards owned by Lehman in order to work more closely with Austal USA.
When all was said and done, the roundtrip deal helped net Lehman’s firm a reported $180 million. And besides that, Lehman continues to own shipyards that do lucrative maintenance work for the Navy. Even leaving aside the intricate ferry-and-shipyard series of deals, Lehman still stands a decent chance of profiting from the naval buildup he is helping to plan.
Is Mitt Romney's attempt to make the president look weak on defense really just a shoutout to defense contractors?
It's possible, however implausible, that Romney really does care about the size of the Navy as it relates to national defense, but given his personal history I'm more inclined to believe that when he looks at the size of the Navy what he sees are business opportunities and dollar signs.
The "slow growth in recent years" the Wired article refers to is the fact that the Navy is actually larger now than it was in 2007 before President Obama even declared his candidacy for president.
Virtually every independent fact-checking organization threw shade on Romney's small Navy claim.