Mitt Romney, candidate of the 1%

Guardian ^ | January 9th 2012 | Jason Farago

[Cardhu]

Distracted by the antics of conservatives who can't win, liberals are missing that the GOP will select Big Money's staunchest ally

Mitt Romney goes into the New Hampshire primary Tuesday with a 19-point lead. But, of course, Romney has been the Republican nominee for president for nearly six months now. Since the flare-out of Rick Perry, the only other GOP nominee able to raise any serious cash, Romney has faced only a parade of reality-show contestants posing as presidential candidates.

Romney, the candidate of the 1%, has benefited from Citizens United in ways we thought wouldn't come to light until after the primary season was over. And he has done so with an implicit advantage: media coverage, even at the height of Occupy Wall Street last fall, has generally understated his plutocratic support and concentrated on his never-ending gyrations on social policy.

What is the traditional objection to Romney? That he is a "flip-flopper", the original sin of American politics. In Massachusetts in the 1990s, he used to do fundraisers with Planned Parenthood; now he stresses "the sanctity of life". He used to seem all right with gay people; now he's big on "traditional marriage". He made the right noises about climate change; now he makes the wrong ones. He supported the Brady Act, the landmark 1993 gun control bill; now, he tells the NRA that the second amendment is a kind of holy revelation.

It may have made for good television to pretend for a few days that Herman Cain, the erstwhile pizza magnate with a campaign staff of zero in Iowa, was on course for some Tea Party-driven insurrection, or that Newt Gingrich, one of the most loathed men in the GOP, could reconstitute himself as a man of the people.

[Cardhu]

"As the law requires, the candidate has no contact with Restore Our Future, the "super Pac" with the rather elegantly oxymoronic name funded most notably by John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who famously shorted the US subprime mortgage market. Romney doesn't need to contact them. He hits the stump, flashing his smile with frontrunner repose, while the super-PAC restores the future with nonstop attack ads that don't even bear his name."

[EGPWS]

Mitt Romney, when Barack 0bama just can't cut it any more.

[Diogenesis]

The ineligible RINO:
“I like firing people.”

[byteback]

Actually Newt is trying this as a pat Buchanan reinvention but Obama will want to make THIS his campaign. It can’t be about him so he’ll make it about Wall street and hope it works.

[DJ MacWoW]

Did You Know?

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Now That You Do, Donate And Keep FR Running

[John Valentine]

The truth is that NO ONE should pay the slightest attention to ANYTHING printed in the Guardian, regardless of what it is. If the Guardian printed that the sun was coming up tomorrow on schedule, it would be a lie.

[not2worry]

From what I can tell all of Congress is the 1% and I don’t see any candidate that doesn’t have a net worth that far exceeds what they had when they arrived in DC.

[detective]

This is going to be the Democrat theme in 2012. Democrats care about the 99% Republican only care about the 1%.

Occupy people will be out next summer. Romney will be labeled the candidate of the 1%, Obama will be labeled the candidate of the 99%.

It will be repeated over and over in the MSM.

[John Valentine]

Let me re-phrase my post:

The truth is that NO ONE should pay the slightest attention to ANYTHING printed in the Guardian, regardless of what it is. If the Guardian printed that the sun was coming up tomorrow on schedule, it would be only because they were ordered to print it by their Communist Party liaison officer.

[alloysteel]

We are faced with the situation in which the incumbent is so inept, so incompetent, he cannot possibly be re-elected to his current job.

Yet the opposition arrayed against him are fragmented, without a coherent message, and unable to bring an honest review of all the incumbent’s failures and vulnerabilities, that he will probably be re-elected anyway, and not only that, the briefly held majority of Republicans in the House will be swept away, and the Senate shall remain firmly in Democrat hands.

OK, go ahead, run away and support your third parties and splinter groups, if that brings any moral satisfaction. But it sure won’t do a thing for that shining city on the hill that is the beacon for all mankind in these trying times.

Atlas Shrugged. And the John Galts retreat to their redoubts.

[1010RD]

Jason Farago

Jason Farago is a New York-based writer and critic who contributes to the London Review of Books, Monocle, n+1, and other magazines. He is also editor of The Bugle, an American publication on culture and ecology

[ansel12]

The left has a right to feel betrayed by Romney though, for almost 60 years they had his support, and he delivered some massive victories for them, judges, homosexual marriage, 50$ abortions, Romney/Obama care, and so on.

[1010RD]

A sampling of Jason’s recent work:

Latest

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Herman Cain: pizazz magnate no more

31 Oct 2011:
Jason Farago: As scandal tarnishes his presidential campaign, the shine comes off Herman Cain’s outsider appeal: he’s just a run-of-the-mill pol
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21 Oct 2011:
Jason Farago: Even by the low standards to which we hold our media, the invisibility of the eurozone crisis in America is just weird
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13 Oct 2011:
Jason Farago: The enigmatic judge keeps a low profile; yet, time is very much on the side of the supreme court’s most reactionary justice
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20 Sep 2011:
Jason Farago: A significant battle may have been won but the gay rights movement is in danger of losing the war
146 comments

[jimbo123]

Jason looks like a fag.

[LibLieSlayer]

THAT is a face that has met many a scrotum.

LLS

[Utmost Certainty]

We are faced with the situation in which the incumbent is so inept, so incompetent, he cannot possibly be re-elected to his current job.

Yet the opposition arrayed against him are fragmented, without a coherent message, and unable to bring an honest review of all the incumbent’s failures and vulnerabilities, that he will probably be re-elected anyway, and not only that, the briefly held majority of Republicans in the House will be swept away, and the Senate shall remain firmly in Democrat hands

It should be of no great surprise to anyone that there are so few leaders left at this point. The unfortunate vicious catch-22, is that if we had more effective leaders around in the 1st place, people like Obama probably wouldn't have attained office—or in the very least, there'd have been effective resistance galvanized to contain him. It didn't happen.

[gusty]

It is painful to watch isn't it. A slam dunk for conservatives thrown away over petty factionalism on our part. We have completely lost sight of the prize in our insane search for the perfect. This country's downfall will be summed up in one word, immaturity. We have become a nation of children, sheep and losers. Our Founding Fathers were both Principled and Practical men. Both elements needed in maturity. Lack one, and the jig is up. The other side is made up of the Principled (The Looney Left) and the Practical (the Hacks) but not those who are both. On our side, we have the Principled (those looking for complete purity), and the Practical (our Hacks, see Trent Lott). We as a nation are in big trouble. There might be no stopping this run away train, because there is no one willing to stop it.

[Palladin]

Rest in peace, Cardhu.

We will miss you and your salient posts very much this election season.

[Joya]

My regards to Cardhu’s family.

[luvie]

God rest the soul of this FReeper who was killed in an auto accident in Arizona. Condolences to his family and friends who mourn and miss him.