Newt needs to stand up and state very clearly for the media, that this Bain business is NOT an attack on capitalism. It is an attack on the ethics, character and decision making of a man who wants to be President. Just like Newt must answer for every vote he has cast in his career, so must Mitt answer for the decisions he made, especially since Mitt made his job creation skills an issue.
Newt must be clear once and for all that he is a free market capitalist in every way. This is about Romney and his character and ethics. It certainly sounds like, in at least a couple of Bains many deals, that those ethics may have been lacking. If that is the case Romney owes the people a defense of his actions or an admission of poor decision making.
Conservatives like Rush need to realize that this is about one man and his ethics and mindset NOT an attack from the left as he has so often claimed.
Moe Lane
PG DeFreese
Victoria Coates
Daniel Horowitz
Dan Spencer
Muddled message is patrially to blame for the confusion
dajeeps (Diary) Thursday, January 12th at 10:14PM EST (link)Let’s face it – the video produced by Winning Our Future is not well done. It draws no distinction between free market capitalism and market socialism, which seems like quite a valid attack on Romney based on his proposed agenda.
Quite a few Republicans don’t know the difference, even after all the facts and events of the housing and financial crises, the bailouts, political elites picking winners and losers, epic failure of centralized economic planning, and Obama playing venture capitalist with tax dollars all played out in front of us. There is no shortage of criticism of these when considered individually, yet they come out in full defense of this kind of market system we have that superficially looks and feels like capitalism, but is based on a Keynesian model that is more command-centric with heavy doses of government involvement.
Even worse, the party of Reagan, of free markets and limited government is coming close to settling for a candidate that represents more of the same rather then upending it and restoring free markets. They don’t get that our economic problems go way beyond Obama, and just replacing him with someone who does market socialism with a different spin isn’t going to solve any real problem at all.
…”I would quarrel with both parties and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.”
–John Adams
Dajeeps, the party of Reagan is coming close
avgjo (Diary) Thursday, January 12th at 11:37PM EST (link)to such a disaster for, among other reasons, blind allegiance to the GOP and dogmatic belief in our ‘principles’.
The ‘blind allegiance’ is indicated by a lack of any real, sustained and specific criticism from prominent conservatives of GOP leadership and by the willingness of many of those same folks to play ‘two wrongs make a right’. Rush and Hannity are the worst about this. Let a dim say something factual about a republican, and those two are immediately out with something the same done by a democrat. Two wrongs make a right.
The dogmatic belief is exemplified by the current Bain controversy. Apparently, according to many on our side, criticizing a specific company or type of company = anticapitalism. This is no better than leftists who claim that that criticizing obama = racism or unAmerican behavior.
Romney may well get the nomination because of these two processes. He’s not had a glove laid on him by the ‘right media’ (RS being a RARE exception) and now his actions at Bain (legal or not, moral or not) are being defended in a dogmatic way that would make a Medieval Inquisitor proud. Critical inquiry is being shut, and many on our side being sheep, will simply take Rush or Ingraham or Hannity’s word that Newt and Perry are anticapitalist, and vote for Rombo instead.
This crap will destroy our party. We have to find media and office-holding alternatives to the clowns currently claiming to represent traditional American values.
Ceterum autem censeo, Obamaecuram esse delendam.
It’s the morality, stupid.
Credit Newt's phenomenal communication skills
WillWong (Diary) Thursday, January 12th at 11:53PM EST (link)With being able to present the difference between examining Romney’s record at Bain versus attacking capitalism! Romney is running on his record of creating 100,000 jobs while at Bain! It is perfectly ok to examine that claimt. Huckabee has gotten soft after spending three years at Foxnews! Newt will do what Huckabee failed to do….that is to win the GOP nomination!
I get the why of exposing Romney's Bain record
dajeeps (Diary) Friday, January 13th at 11:46AM EST (link)And unethical behavior, especially in the matter of KB Toys, is an issue.
But what I find lacking is the contrast between the choice of market ideologies between Gingrich and Romney, and it seems the most important issue of our day. Of the two presidents we had that had extensive business experience, Harding and Hoover, we can find that at least in one case there were things going on behind the scenes that the people found hard to swallow. Teapot Dome. There were accusations swirling around Hoover that were never proved as the focus shifted to dealing with the financial and social calamity of the Great Depression. But of course these, things like the Teapot Dome scandal, are common place in politics today that people almost expect, reflecting how far we’ve come down the path of corporatism and market socialism. Romney has never repudiated it, and I just don’t see how, without a dramatic change in the level of involvement government has in markets and the level of influence big market players have in Washington, we can get out of this decent into economic obscurity. We just simply cannot afford the same sort of corporate protectionism and welfare that has been going on for decades any longer.
…”I would quarrel with both parties and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.”
–John Adams
I just want to give you props
texashistorian (Diary) Friday, January 13th at 11:56AM EST (link)for mentioning the Teapot Dome. Credit Mobilier is another good one. What was outrageous in 1924(or 1873) is status quo today, yes?
I am with y’all who reject the dogmatic defense of Romney and Bain on “free market” grounds. I accept that what they do is part of the system, legal, and happens. I don’t accept that we have to insist that it is good.
The real problem as I wrote in a diary yesterday, is what Mitt’s time at Bain suggests about the man, his loyalties, and decision-making approach.
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
- Paul Johnson
Couldn't agree more avgjo.
westcoastpatriette (Diary) Thursday, January 12th at 11:55PM EST (link)I have the same feeling about the way so many have attacked those of us who are disgusted with the VA GOP and what is happening there right now. The corruption and game playing that is taking place in our party is just as disgusting as when the democrats steal elections and yet, people jumped all over Perry and Newt for calling foul and trying to do something about it. The silence coming out of the VA GOP and the Romney camp for that matter is incriminating in itself and depicts people completely devoid of any integrity and willing to do anything to steal an election.
This has got to stop and it has me really bummed out. I refuse to be party to a corrupt party that is going to cover their eyes and pretend things are fine when obviously they are not. A crook is a crook no matter which letter they have after their name.
Newt did clarify that its not an attack on capitalism
Juggernaut (Diary) Friday, January 13th at 2:32AM EST (link)and Romney should have never attacked Newt saying the Speaker should return the $1.6 million in consulting fees…..that’s anti-capitalist by Romney’s own standard.
What everyone should just admit the attacks on Newt are politics only and Newt isn’t hurting anyone but Romney. Which is what they don’t want to hear.
The 75% don’t wantt Romney.
The 100% minus OWS and a few leftists want capitalism.
Therefore capitalism has not changed nor has politics. Both are dirty at times and both can and do work to the nations advantage so long as people separate the 2 and focus on winning the future.
RomneyCare is Right Wing Socialism – please feel free to use is as often as possible…….it will kill his campaign.
Romney “severely conservative”? That’s the opposite of a “compassionate conservative” like George W. Bush? Actually, we know what a severely conservative is. It’s Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney is no Dick Cheney.