In the End, Any Desperate Politician Will Run on Resentment of the Rich

National Review Online ^ | January 10, 2012 | Jim Geraghty

[BfloGuy]

We Are All Occupiers Now.

If Romney’s opponents embrace the rhetoric and class warfare of the Occupy Wall Street crowd any closer, they’re going to start pooping on police cars. [emphasis mine]

So, here we are, at the day of the first primary, and the main objection to Mitt Romney from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry is that he fired a bunch of people? More than his liberal-softie sounding rhetoric in 1994 and 2002? More than his crusade to liberate us from the individual mandate of Obamacare in order to leave the states free to enact their own individual mandates? More than the fact that he’s won exactly one general election in his life, in a year that the left-of-center vote was divided?

Objections to private-sector layoffs from the party that wants to shrink government? How do we think all of those employees of the federal bureaucracy will get off the payroll? Mass alien abductions?

[BfloGuy]

That's some funny stuff. I don't care what you say.

[Utmost Certainty]

Listen to Newt's explanation.

Newt's case is simple:

1) Romney's "private sector experience" is of a particular kind that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election. Nobody's asserting that Bain Capital's actions were illegitimate nor unlawful, but it's obvious that Romney was no white knight of heroic, entrepreneurial capitalism. 2) Questions on business ethics are legitimate inquiries that one should have to answer for, especially if they're running for public office—these are not attacks on capitalism, and it's completely goofy that some would construe it that way.

[Utmost Certainty]

Nah. Listen to Newt's explanation.

Newt's case is simple:

1) Romney's "private sector experience" is of a particular kind that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election. Nobody's asserting that Bain Capital's actions were illegitimate nor unlawful, but it's obvious that Romney was no white knight of heroic, entrepreneurial capitalism.

2) Questions on business ethics are legitimate inquiries that one should have to answer for, especially if they're running for public office—these are not attacks on capitalism, and it's completely goofy that some would construe it that way. Those advocating a "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" attitude towards private enterprise activity, aren't doing capitalism any favors.

[BfloGuy]

Romney's "private sector experience" is of a particular kind that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election

I think you're right. But I still do not like the spectacle of supposed right-wingers adopting the rhetoric of the left. I remember the Dems mocking Tom Delay for being a "bugcatcher." That was beneath contempt to them.

I think this is very similar.

[CainConservative]

First of all, the National Review has already admitted they are in the tank for Willard the Lib. So screw ‘em!

Second..

Why should American taxpayers be forced to pay for Willard’s business incompetence and greed?

—

Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they’d been promised, and their pension benefits were cut..

What’s more, a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT insurance agency had to PONY UP $44 MILLION TO BAIL OUT the company’s underfunded pension plan.

Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/01/bain-drip-drip-drip/

[La Enchiladita]

Copying and pasting from the comments:

Southern Repub: 01/10/12 08:51

I am confident that we will look back at this as the turning point in the Republican nomination process. Not as Gingrich, Perry, and Huntsman would hope, however. Romney was looking for a way to consolidate conservative support, and he just found it. It has become clear that Romney is the only candidate who understands how the economy works, and the only one who supports free market capitalism -- which is exactly what we must support to turn this economy around and create jobs. Romney may not tie up the nomination today, but this very moment is the turning point that makes his nomination inevitable.

[fightinJAG]

Are these dudes ever going to start talking about, like, you know, the economy and taxes and stuff?

[DB]

Blame the law for structuring dying companies/pensions that way. These vultures simply took advantage of the law.

Its the fools in congress writing the laws that create these situations. Government shouldn’t be in the healthcare or pension business period.

[fightinJAG]

Exhibit A against Newt. Everything he says requires a 200-page dissertation to explain away.

He would be so much better off if he made his point the first time.

[fightinJAG]

I do think that commenter is not exactly wrong.

[BfloGuy]

First of all, the National Review has already admitted they are in the tank for Willard the Lib. So screw ‘em!

Did you bother to read the 2nd or even the 3rd sentences I cited? Yes, I know that NRO is in the tank for Romney -- Geraghty is not. And it doesn't matter if they're in the tank for him or not.

I am not defending Romney the candidate for president, I'm defending the way a man made his living. A legal and, as far as I know honest career.

[mamelukesabre]

I think santorum and huntsman have a pretty good understanding of how the economy works.

[CainConservative]

You are defending Willard the Lib Vulture making millions while we bail him out???? Wow!

See #5

[CainConservative]

“These vultures simply took advantage of the law.”

I agree that’s what Willard did. Tax payers be damned was Willard’s philosophy at Bain.

[TheOldLady]

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[wideawake]

Geraghty is correct. Romney can easily be attacked from the right due to his liberal record. Why are people who are allegedly conservatives attacking him from the left?

[Utmost Certainty]

Eh, admittedly I share this concern. We’ve an electorate whose intellectual capacities are limited to simple sentence soundbites, which makes articulate politicians easy targets.

Don’t kid yourselves. This is just as much a problem on the Right as it is the Left.

[fightinJAG]

But Newt is actually one of the people who is smart enough to fix this. I think he just doesn’t have the discipline to do so.

I heard him on Kudlow on the radio one day and Newt’s every answer seemed to be something along the lines of “it’s all on my website.” No matter how Larry pressed him to give a synopsis of his economic plans, etc. Newt blathered on at echelons above reality and said people who wanted to know the mundane, so to speak, details should go to his website.

That is not going to cut it in politics today.