Here we go again with the American political scene erupting in attacks on capitalism. But this week it hits with a new twist. This time the anti-capitalist rhetoric is coming from some of the Republican candidates for president!
Early on Monday, candidate Mitt Romney uttered what many are considering a gaffe. In a discussion about health insurance and his ideas on what he’d like to see done with it, Romney said that he likes the idea of being able to dump a policy or plan that doesn’t suit him and getting another one. In that context he said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” This phrase has become a sticking point for Romney’s opponents.
Newt Gingrich immediately attacked Romney’s record at Bain Capitol — a company that specialized in buying troubled companies and rehabing them. Gingrich criticized Romney as acting the role of a vulture, swooping in on a company only to begin “draining out its cash and walk out without concern about the consequences.”
Speaking of vultures, Rick Perry similarly jumped on Romney’s work at Bain. Jake Sherman reports:
Rick Perry is back on Mitt Romney — in a big way.
At a town hall here, he reprised his attack on Romney’s Bain Capital, but took it a step further.
“I will suggest they’re just vultures,” he said of firms that “loot” other companies. “They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”
Team Romney replied to that slam at Politico:
“It is no surprise that, having spent nearly half a century in government between them, Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry have resorted to desperate attacks on a subject they don’t understand. We expect attacks on free enterprise from President Obama and his allies on the left — not from so-called ‘fiscal conservatives,’” she writes. “Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry seem to think that running against the private sector is the way to revive their floundering campaigns. Governor Romney will continue talking about his experience in the real economy, his vision for getting America back to work, and how important it is that we defeat President Obama in November.
The low polling Jon Huntsman also slammed Romney saying: “What’s clear is he likes firing people, I like creating jobs.”
For his part, Rick Santorum has defended Romney saying on Fox News, “I just don’t think as a conservative and someone who believes in business that we should be out there playing the games that the Democrats play, saying somehow capitalism is bad.”
A storm of criticism has come these GOP Romney slammer’s way today, however. From the blogs, to the Media even to Rush Limbaugh (who said on his radio show that these GOP candidates are attacking Romney from the left), tongues are wagging asking why Republicans are suddenly all about attacking the capitalist process?
Stung, Gingrich responded to this criticism saying that it is “baloney” to say he is attacking capitalism.
Gov. Romney has repeatedly said that one of his major qualifications to be president is his record in the private sector. You look at his record in the private sector and people say, “Oh, no, you’re not allowed to question anything about that. That must be a sign that you’re anti-capitalism,” which is baloney.
This has all been an early indication of what the Obama campaign will try to do to Romney if he becomes the GOP nominee. It has fostered at least two high profile conservative groups to come to Romney’s defense. Both The National Review and the American Enterprise Institute have defended Romney’s work at Bain today.
There is one line of thinking, though, that holds that it is good that Romney gets hit with Bainisms this early in the campaign. Why? Because if Romney can weather the attacks and come through them unscathed, if Obama later tries to raise the same points people will look on the charges as old news that were already dealt with. This, they say, inoculates Romney from the attacks later in the general.
Whatever the case, it is a strange turn of events, is it not?
January 10th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Limbaugh blasted Newt again for this nonsense.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/10/gingrich_goes_perot_on_romney
January 10th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Rush also made it abundantly clear that he did not consider Romney to be a Capitalist, mainly for Mitt’s support of TARP and the healthcare mandates.
I have to say I am disappointed that Newt is pursuing this course without bringing up Adam Smith. In his “The Theory of Moral Sentiment”, Smith described how the “invisible hand” of the free market would ensure that the “gluttony of the rich” would fill the bellies of the poor. This due to the need for a moral balance between the ‘commercial virtues’ and the ‘noble virtues’.
But after Smith spent a couple of years in France, the penny-wise Scotsman reversed course in “The Wealth of Nations” and admitted that in less than ideal circumstances, we would see the “gluttony of the rich is unproductive labor.”
Now that would be a GOOD Newt-like answer to the whole issue. Gingrich does best when he sticks to the 18th and 19th Centuries.
January 10th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
You also have to admit that aside from the “I like to fire people” gaffe, Romney also made another gaffe this weekend talking about how he too has faced the prospects of being fired and getting a pink slip. If you believe he was actually ever in such a position, then I have a couple of bridges I’d love to sell you!
January 10th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Liberals and Democrats are not anti-capitalists and socialists.
This is a damn lie, from wingnut land.
January 10th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
I would put my faith in either Newt or Mitt before the one with the radio show that could not get past his first semester of college.
Oops, community college.
January 10th, 2012 at 7:33 pm
The terms liberal and socialist are fairly synonymous in today’s political lexicon.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
In the wingnut political lexicon.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
I have a different view. I am a firm believer in capitalism, and I believe that the free enterprise system is the best economic model devised by man. Romney and his partners at Bain had every right to buy up non-competitive companies, fire workers, liquidate assets, and profit from it. But that doesn’t mean that the American people have to agree with or reward the manner in which Romney chose to exercise his economic freedom.
Freedom comes with responsibility – it requires self-governance, guided by a commitment to values and ethics.
This is true of our most fundamental rights. We have the constitutional right to free speech. This right extends even, and especially, to speech that is controversial, or offensive. But if someone engages in hateful, racist, or communist propaganda, no one would question whether the American people would be entitled to hold it against them if they ran for our highest political office. The people would be entitled to hold such a person accountable not because the freedom to speak doesn’t exist, but because of the manner in which the individual chose to exercise that freedom.
This is not class warfare. America has been blessed with many creative, entrepreneurial visionaries who have made fortunes for themselves while creating jobs and opportunities for others, adding value to our economy and bringin prosperity to our country. Alas, the Bain capitals of the world are a different sort, a parasitic breed that take value from the system without adding it. ANd they have every right to do it — but the American people can – and should – choose not to reward them for it.
January 11th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Well written, Keith! I for one am considering writing in Vermin Supreme, “A Tyrant You Can Trust”, for president in November.