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Posted on 01/16/2012 9:00:16 PM PST by TBBT
Newt Gingrich was as tough as nails, and deserved extra praise for not taking Juan Williams’s race-baiting. “No, I don’t see that.” Every person who believes in a color-blind society, especially tonight, ought to thank Newt for that. He then went on to show (again) he will be able to challenge President Barack Obama on nearly every fact and anecdote that could come up should they ever debate. The standing ovation he received was more than well deserved. To paraphrase a little: When he is right, he is great. The ongoing problem is when he is wrong. But tonight he was right — about a lot, and said it better than anyone.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Because primary voting rules are made by the states. California voters recently approved identical "crossover" voting through a ballot initiative. These rule changes have been a long-standing goal of the "bottom-up" strategy of Soros's Shadow Party. They give Democrats a huge advantage at the state level.
This was the post-debate Twitter analysis that showed TERRIBLE results for Romney and very high ratings for Newt. Paul had the highest ratings but of course we know his generally young, naive supporters know how to spam online polls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX8uYWFrbwE
Wow! Thanks for the detailed analysis!
Romney is used to “turning companies around,” but if he is planning to do the same to the US Federal Government, then what has he said or written that he will cut baseline, year to year, Federal spending?
GOP brass do this on purpose
to ensure the establishment guy with the cash has the edge
used to be primaries were a real run
how long since one went past South Carolina?
1980 I think...
” - - - but of course we know - - - “ differs from “let us assume” in what way?
Newt has gravitas and lots of zingers in his quiver. For the past week I’ve been calling Romney the spaced out Mormon. The comfort seeker who figured out the road to riches was stripping companies by taking them over. Forcing them to borrow excessively. Then to transfer those millions to Bain via huge one time dividends and sky high management fees. Also by bleeding them until they went bankrupt and the taxpayers were forced to bail out the pension fund
Only in the mind of a naive child is this capitalism and record you are proud to run on, to be elected on. I would not have said this last month but now I know Bain’s modus operandi.
**** Bian is not doing many deals these days because the borrowing spigot has been shut off
Newt did a good job tonight.
For me, the big story was how disappointing Rick Santorum came off. “Means testing” social security? That’s a loser. And his answers about some of his votes, especially “right to work”, were lame.
Because Democrats, being the pests they are, love voting in our primaries. While we have little interest in voting in theirs. 20-30 years ago everyone voted in their own primaries and respected that.
Willard “Chainsaw Mitt” Romney is a lot of things, but “dog lover” ain’t one of them.
Thank you for making this point so strongly. Most of the discussion on this Bain issue puts the focus on the loss of jobs and, unfortunately, in many conservative circles there is a hostility to workers, especially if they are unionized or well compensated. Romney was thus the sympathetic character. There likely would have been a different public reaction if the focus had been placed, as you did, on the bond holders, creditors, and other investors who lost while Bain and Romney profited greatly on their loss.
I’ll give Romney credit for being a smart guy. He came up with a pretty clever high finance scheme that worked within the law. But I won’t give him credit for being ethical, honest, trustworthy, likable, socially responsible, charitable, having a moral center, putting the needs of others above or even on par with his own, etc.
Most of the companies Romney talks about as creating jobs were ones Bain worked on as startups in the venture capital business model. No one out there criticizes the venture capital model. This seems to be an honest one that rewards great performance in the marketplace. On the other hand, Romney takes credit for investing in them, not for running them. From what I’ve seen, he was one among many investors in these companies, different people actually managed and ran the companies, and he may have sold off his investment before they created a lot of those jobs. So it’s dubious how much credit he deserves for even those.
He doesn’t take much credit for companies in the private equity business model, because this is the one that thrives on loading up companies with debt. This only helped contribute to many of them going into bankruptcy and for many of the ones that survived to struggle to grow their business, due to being saddled with so much debt and interest payments. And, yes, the original owners of these companies bear some blame for bringing Bain in to take control of them. But when those people remained on as partners, Bain of course cut them in on the deal to make off with the dividends and fees, so they likewise were motivated to act against the best interest of the company, the customers and the employees.
The mofo is going to kill us. Never fathomed he could get this much support. He’s as smart as his followers. Two dimensional, despite their protestations. He can’t affect change so he just causes chaos.
I agree, etcb. I do understand why they focused on job losses though, because you have to imagine that’s a lot easier for the average voter to grasp while their eyes might glaze over once people start talking about financial and accounting details. I know Newt did specifically talk about Bain taking a lot of money out of a company before it went bankrupt, with of course the emphasis being on the jobs subsequently lost.
My feeling is the best way to argue the case is to compare how Bain fared financially after its borrowing and subsequent bankruptcies vs. how the average voter would fare if the borrowed money and had to go bankrupt. The way the conservative media just piled on Newt though seems to have rattled him to some degree. I’m also not sure he’s had time to fully absorb all the details and implications of Bain’s business practices enough to feel comfortable talking extemporaneously about them without making factual errors.
Some of the smart Romney-backers like Brit Hume and Krauthammer do seem to be realizing the Bain issue is a big liability for him. Krauthammer has been calling on him to provide a good answer and I think even echoed Newt’s call for Romney to do a press conference fully defending his record at Bain. Hume said on O’Reilly tonight that if Romney didn’t come up with a good answer that explained that his activities at Bain had a “net benefit” on the economy, it would be a serious liability that could cause him to lose the election in the fall. Dick Morris said Romney’s answer about Bain tonight was “just okay.”
These are some links on the site of a guy who wrote a heavily critical book on private equity with many examples specific to Bain in it. He says the Huffington Post reported that “Axelrod is using [his book] the Buyout of America as the basis for his Romney attacks.”
http://www.buyoutofamerica.com/
The best way other than sitting in chat forums and applauding via keyboard is to open our wallets and sent Newt a $20 bill as our thanks so he can live to fight on after S.C. and Florida.
Gingrich has mentioned the janitor example several times in the last few weeks.
Although he barely got it inserted into the conversation Newt did say that Government Spending should be cut to meet income. So there is new hope for Newt.
By definition, when you cut taxes and achieve a balanced budget, expenses were cut to achieve success.
.
Gingrich: How We Balanced Four Consecutive Budgets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8M5DVkdUr8
.
The above video was recorded in May 2010. Where have you been?
lol..... Like the infamous “Chainsaw’ Al Dunlop who is alive and well and retired w his millions.
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