The Big Ugly

Posted: January 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 primaries, Injustice system, just because, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, right wing hate grouups, The DNC, the GOP, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 25 Comments

Hard to say what’s been worse this past week—putting up with a stomach virus or watching the ongoing GOP train wreck.  In years past, the Gingrich factor would have been an instant tonic because the possibility that Newt Gingrich would pitch himself and his tainted legacy against a sitting Democratic President would be too, too delicious.

But that was then.  This is now.

Though I’m no Mitt Romney fan, the very idea of Uncle Newt in the oval office makes me shudder.  Though I’m no Barack Obama fan, Uncle Newt makes POTUS look immensely attractive.  No small feat.

So where I might have jumped with joy in the past  [oh please, let the Republicans nominate the ugliest, least electable candidate of the bunch], instead I’ve been thrown into a miserable funk.

The choices suck, the conversations continue to move to the extreme right and the American electorate flails in desperation.

If there’s any bright spot it is this: the longer Uncle Newt basks in glory, the more ugly he will reveal, namely the Republican penchant for the politics of petty grievances—the howl of the entitled patriarchy, still wounded by Paradise Lost; the claim of religious bigotry—the war on Christianity—while dismissing or denigrating any religion but their own; and the aggressive promise that if they can’t win, they’ll make damn sure no one else does.  In addition, Newt’s recent success exposes the Tea Party for what it has truly become—a group of mindless obstructionists.

Sorry, you cannot make lemonade out of this one.  Not when a voting group is willing to endorse and support a serial liar, a hypocrite without shame, a man willing to blow the dog whistle on all the old prejudices and wounds of race and gender, or conjure up the ghost of Andrew Jackson, a man Gingrich says knew how to deal with his enemies: he killed ‘em.

Native Americans, I suspect, have a different take.

Uncle Newt’s declarations might sound good in a John Wayne movie but not for the White House, not in the year 2012 when the country and the world is precariously perched on a knife edge.

But there’s more.  The Newtster has taken on capitalism itself, exposing the underbelly of Republican economics—the mythical ‘free’ market, the unchained melody that without restraint will bring a Renaissance of prosperity and goodwill to hardworking Americans.  Or so the tune goes.

Sing that to the unemployed, the homeless.  Better yet, belt the lyrics out loud and clear to the nearly 50 million Americans now collecting food stamps, Uncle Newt’s favorite whipping boy.  Or sing that discordant lullaby to the children [over 20%] now designated food insecure.  Because unfettered capitalism has been the GOP’s clarion call for the last 40 years.  Think about ‘trickle down’ economics, stagnating wages, the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the call for ever-lower taxes because the ‘job creators’ need that extra revenue to make things right.  Now recall the financial meltdown of 2008, where Wall St. took the unregulated ball and ran right off the cliff.  Screaming ‘liberty’ on the way down doesn’t quite cut it for most of us.

This is the plus side of a Newt Gingrich, who with a magician’s flourish has pulled back the curtain on the Big Ugly.  The lie is massive and cruel.  The lie has inflicted pain and suffering on millions, both here and abroad.

The Hopemeister

The counter to all this is convincing the public that Barack Obama is a socialist/Marxist in hiding.  President Obama is many things but a socialist and/or Marxist he is not.  Barack Obama is a brand, a man marketed to the American public as a national savior.  He was and is not.  He’s simply a marker for the status quo.

And that’s where my ongoing funk comes in.  On one side, we have Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul all extolling the Big Lie as the disease that will cure us.  And on the other side we have President Obama pretending he’s Teddy Roosevelt reborn, ready to slay the Dragons of Monopoly.  Only his words do not match his actions.  They never did.

And then there’s us, the American electorate, the Consumer Nation brought low by dwindling expectations, the super-power made suddenly and irrefutably mortal.  Will the election of 2012 rouse us from the trance that brought us to this moment?  Will we see the Big Ugly for what it is rather than what we dreamt it to be?

Or will we tumble back into a dark and endless sleep?

Not to be overly depressing, there are glimmers of light on the horizon.  Citizens are standing up, questioning the lack of justice in the system, the ongoing extraction of wealth by the top 1%.  Despite the lack of coverage, the Occupy Wall St. movement still survives in small towns and cities across the country.  Grassroot efforts are pushing ahead to remove the influence of money in government—Superpacs writ large.  Several Constitutional amendments are gaining signatures and support to upend the Supreme Court’s ‘corporations are people’ decision and more and more voices are rising up in books and magazines, on the blogs and in tweets to push back the Robber Baron mentality of our corporate, government and financial institutions.

Will it be enough?  I don’t know.  The Big Ugly has a hell of a head start.  But if Aesop is any guide, the Hare who dismisses the Tortoise should be well advised: We’re coming.  Slow and steady, We the People, are coming nonetheless.

Saturday Reads: South Carolina Primary Edition

Posted: January 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Mitt Romney, morning reads, Newt Gingrich, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, poverty, racism, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 33 Comments

You're despicable!

Good Morning! It’s Saturday, and tonight is the South Carolina primary and Sky Dancing will be following the results tonight. But I have cartoons on my mind. Last night I was watching Hardball, and there was a discussion of Newt Gingrich’s hissy fit at the beginning of the CNN South Carolina debate on Thursday night. Here’s the video:

Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, and Eugene Robinson discussed Newt’s performance and decided that he hit all the right notes for South Carolina–anger at the media and the “elites,” a sense of being victimized by the power structure–and in fact may even beat Romney tonight. But the best part was when Eugene Robinson said when Newt said “despicable,” he (Robinson) couldn’t help thinking of Daffy Duck.

It’s such a perfect image for Newt’s self-righteous, overblown act. And it is an act, as far as I’m concerned. I loved the way he turned around the question about what he did to his ex-wife by talking about how *he* felt pain, not that he caused pain to his wife Marianne or anyone else. Here’s how I’ll forever think of Newt Gingrich from now on–as Daffy having a hissy fit.

And here’s what I’d like to say to Newt Gingrich:

Just one more …. What I’d like to do to Rick Santorum:

I know, I know, this is supposed to be a morning news post. So here are a few news and opinion links for you.

The latest polls suggest the South Carolina primary will be very close. The Clemson Palmetto poll has Gingrich in the lead.

“We expect a reaction by the electorate to the personal revelations about Gingrich to be registered on Saturday, however, we do not think it will be substantial enough to erase the lead Gingrich has over Romney,” said Clemson University political scientist Dave Woodard.

“Our head-to-head matchup of the candidates has consistently shown Mitt Romney competitive. The margin for Romney has evaporated this week, and we believe that Gingrich — who led our December poll with 38 percent to Romney’s 21 percent — will win the South Carolina primary,” he said.

Among poll respondents who had chosen or were leaning toward a candidate, this third Palmetto Poll showed Newt Gingrich (32 percent) leading the field over Mitt Romney (26 percent), up slightly from a month ago. Ron Paul came in third (11 percent), about even with his December poll rating. Rick Santorum remained in fourth place (9 percent), despite a significant jump over his ranking last month.

Wow! What an amazing turnaround for Daffy, I mean Newt. The NBC News Marist poll (PDF) showed the race tightening before the debate and even more so afterwards. And today’s Gallup tracking poll showed that Romney’s lead over Gingrich nationally has shrunk dramatically.

Mr. Romney’s position nationally as the front-runner appears to be weakening. In the latest release of Gallup’s tracking poll, conducted Sunday through Thursday, Mr. Romney leads Mr. Gingrich, 30 percent to 20 percent. Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul are each supported by 13 percent.

At the start of the week, Mr. Romney had a 23-point advantage over Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum. These results only partially reflect the events of the week, including the departure of Rick Perry on Thursday, the focus on Mr. Romney’s taxes, Mr. Gingrich’s two debate performances and the revelation that Mr. Santorum had apparently won the Iowa caucuses after all.

The NYT reports that Romney’s people are in shock over the sudden reversal of their fortunes.

With Mitt Romney facing the biggest challenge to his presidential aspirations since he announced his candidacy, his aides acknowledged Friday what seemed unthinkable just seven days ago: He could lose the South Carolina primary….

Having been stripped of his victory in Iowa on Thursday after a recount that gave the state to Rick Santorum, Mr. Romney now is in danger of being defeated in Saturday’s primary here by Newt Gingrich, who had been declared dead not once but twice in the past year, including less than two weeks ago when he finished fifth in New Hampshire. A new Clemson University poll of South Carolina voters released on Friday showed Mr. Gingrich with a six-point lead over Mr. Romney. It was within the survey’s margin of sampling error but captured a dynamic shifting in Mr. Gingrich’s favor.

At this stage of a primary election, campaigns work hard to manage expectations so they can put the best possible face on the actual voting results; Mr. Romney’s aides were no doubt being mindful of that as they spoke in relatively gloomy tones.

But, as Mr. Romney faced attacks from all sides, renewed questions about his own stumbles and whether he is conservative enough for the grass roots of his party, there was a real aura of apprehension coursing through his campaign. With his prospects of wrapping the race up quickly apparently diminished, Mr. Romney and his strategists began preparing his staff, his supporters and his financial bundlers for a longer and rougher march toward the nomination.

Boo hoo hoo. Poor Richie Rich! Karl Rove must be having a conniption fit. Honestly, I’d be worried if I thought the Republican insiders would ever give the nomination to Newt; but frankly, I’m still a lot more worried about Mitt winning it.

Charlie Pierce is down in SC right now. Let’s see what he has to say about all this.

It was always going to happen this way — Newt was going to go back into his wheelhouse, ripping the media and spouting in the general direction of the White House whatever pile of pejorative adjectives popped into his head at the moment. He tried, lamely, to be a statesman, and the party faithful ignored him. Once he became the vandal he was born to be, the political arsonist among the abandoned tenements of Republican thought, he was bound to take off again. The base doesn’t want someone whose ideas on job creation will triumph because they are superior to the president’s. They want somebody who can beat him bloody, vicariously, on their behalf, somebody who can “put him in his place.” They want someone who will kill the administration just for the sheer fun of watching it die. That’s why Newt’s fortunes took off after he slapped around Juan Williams on Monday night, and that’s why they went into hyper-drive on Thursday when he declared to be “despicable” any public mention of the chronic staff-banging that wrecked his second marriage and that helped wreck his speakership. Sooner or later, he was going to light the whole race on fire just to giggle over the flames, and that meant he had to come do it in South Carolina, and that meant he had to come do it in the upcountry around Greenville, where the base of the base always has been located, where people can be found who will gleefully join him around the bonfire, where is located the ancient home office of American treason.

“Look,” says Kellen Giuda, the young National Coalitions Director for the Gingrich campaign, waving his hand over a map of the state that hangs on the wall not far from The Cold War Room, “this area down here in the South, this was always more moderate. This is where McCain won last time. Up here, around Greenville, that’s always been the more conservative area. This time, people concentrated their effort down there near Charleston, because they wanted to get that whole military vote down there locked up. But, now, they’re starting to see that this is the place where the conservative vote really come from.” The endorsements are coming thick and fast now — Rick Perry! Michael Reagan! One-hundred Tea Party leaders from around the country! — and they are settling on Newt, and not on Rick Santorum, because Santorum, while admittedly a dick, is not an angry bully of a dick, and that’s what the base is looking for. In fact, the Gingrich campaign tore up its schedule on Friday, and will now have the candidate working the upcountry districts around Greenville hard all primary day.

“An angry bully of a dick.” Just what we need in the White House.

This is interesting: Catholic Leaders Challenge Gingrich and Santorum on Divisive Rhetoric Around Race and Poverty

More than 40 national Catholic leaders and prominent theologians at universities across the country released a strongly worded open letter today urging “our fellow Catholics Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes on the campaign trail.”

In the lead up to Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich has frequently blasted President Obama as a “food stamp president” and implied that some African Americans are more content to collect welfare benefits than work. Rick Santorum attracted scrutiny for telling Iowa voters he doesn’t want “to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

The open letter reminds the two presidential candidates, vying for Christian conservative voters, that U.S. Catholic bishops have called racism an “intrinsic evil” and consistently defend vital government programs such as food stamps and unemployment benefits that help struggling Americans.

The full text of the letter is at the above link. Let’s face it, both Santorum and Gingrich are just cafeteria Catholics. They go along with the Church on abortion, birth control, and other anti-woman positions; but when it comes to war, capital punishment, and caring for the poor and downtrodden, they go their own way.

Speaking of Santorum, Politico reported on his SC closing argument: “values.”

The former Pennsylvania senator retreated to comfortable territory, the conservative Upstate region of South Carolina, to speak to huge crowds about values and cement his base on the eve of the state’s primary.

“It’s decision time as to what South Carolina is going to communicate to the rest of the country,” he told the crowd at a packed town hall meeting in Boiling Springs.”What is the Upstate going to say? Who are they going to stand behind? What message are they going to send to country as to who the conservative standard-bearer will be?”

“It’ll be you, Rick!” audience members shouted, applauding.

Polls show that tomorrow’s race here is really between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich: Santorum is competing for third place with Ron Paul. But the former Pennsylvania senator has vowed to continue his campaign to Florida, which votes Jan. 31. A strong performance in the conservative bastions of South Carolina can propel his argument that he is the real conservative in the race.

I know Santorum has no shot to win the nomination this year, but my guess is he’ll be back in 2016. I think he’s very dangerous to democracy, and IMHO we need to keep an eye on him. As for Ron Paul, I’m boycotting him in this post.

That’s all I’ve got. What are you reading and blogging about today?

The Art of Political Speak

Posted: January 12, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 primaries, Frank Luntz, Hillary Clinton, just because, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

If GOP strategist Frank Luntz is correct—The Republicans’ dilemma is all about language—then Republican candidates need a fast tutorial in word use.

Capitalism, for instance: a no-no word is number 1 on Luntz’s list of ‘Shall Nots.’

And so, The Eye of Newt’s attacks on Mitt Romney, specifically citing the immoral form of capitalism practiced by Bain Capital, how it destroys jobs, often leaving community wreckage in its wake, takes a “F” in the Frank Luntz speed course–Poisoned Words for Politicians, 101.

Free Enterprise is an acceptable phrase.  Better yet is Economic Freedom.

In an almost comical exchange between Luntz and Sean Hannity, the word-meister explained that:

The word capitalism was created by Karl Marx to demonize those people who make a profit. We’ve always talked about the free enterprise system or economic freedom.

Suddenly, they’re trying to defend something that has only 18 percent support.

OMG!  Not only are Republican candidates eating their own, but they’re using a word created by Karl Marx!  Call in the Commie Cops.  Call Phyllis Schlafly to resurrect Joe McCarthy and his goon squad.  If you want a true chuckle watch the following:

Need we mention that President Obama [of whom I’m no fan] is repeatedly referred to as a ‘socialist?’  Yet now we have Republican candidates using Marxist terms and doing what they insist Barack Obama has done: wage war against capitalism.

This is what happens when your political philosophy is sloppy and baseless, when the only attack you can muster is one both supporting and attacking your centerpiece idea: unfettered capitalism, free market fundamentalism, which leads to vulture, crony capitalism.

The kind we have right now.

Rick Perry jumped on the Gingrich bandwagon and defended his own Romney attacks as doing the frontrunner a favor by distinguishing venture capitalism from vulture capitalism.  Better to defend it now than later, the Texas word wrangler said.

Did you think Rick Perry read Greg Palast’s book Vultures’ Picnic?   I think not.

Not to be outdone by Rick Perry’s explanation, Uncle Newt offered a more startling explanation.

It’s an impossible theme [Mitt Romney’s business practices] to talk about with Obama in the background. Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect.

Got that?  The Devil made Newtie backtrack, rethink his strategy.  Regrettably, it’s impossible to slam Mitt Romney with a clean conscience while Barack Obama is in the White House.

Oh, the unfairness of it all!

Just as a reminder: Uncle Newt is considered an intellectual in Republican circles!

Despite what the Newster says, his sudden reevaluation of Romney attacks could—just possibly—have something to do with the massive flack he’s received from conservative quarters.  Rush Limbaugh suggested Romney aim this barb at Gingrich over Mitt’s unfortunate ‘I like to fire people’ comment:

“Yeah, I like firing people, but I never fired a wife on her deathbed.”

Ooooo.  That hurts!

Even though I have no horse in this race, this is just too, too delicious.

If I were Frank Luntz, who made a specific point of listing the Ten Commandments of Political Speech in late November, I’d seriously consider demanding my wayward pupils stay after school to write 1000 times:

I will never use the word capitalism.  I will never say the word bonus.  And on my mother’s grave, I will never-ever utter the words: Wall Street.

The election of 2012 is stacking up to be a thing of true wonder.

Btw, did you know that Hillary Clinton received 10% of the New Hampshire vote, a write-in effort.  And yet, not a peep from the MSM.

I’m shocked, I tell you.  Positively shocked.

When Newt Gets Cranky, Really Cranky and then . . . Goes Nuclear

Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 primaries, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich | Tags: , , | 23 Comments

Ahhh.  The Day of Reckoning is upon us.  Again. The clown cars come out, circle the ballot box and we all . . . wait the results with bated breath.  But until all those votes are counted, we have Uncle Newt’s latest reincarnation:

The Anti-Capitalist!

It’s amazing to watch the GOP race.  We ‘ve had stars rise and flame out before they streak across sky.  But Newt Gingrich took the super-nova route after Iowa’s humiliating results.  Still, the latest attack on Mitt Romney for making money, lots of money, while heading Bain Capital is really off the charts for Republicans.  Any Republican. Here’s what Newt said to a group of reporters in Manchester, NH:

“You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?”

Okay.  I can certainly appreciate that statement.  But I’m a Democrat Wandering the Wilderness.   Better yet, back in the 90s, my husband and I had a run-in with a corporate raiding mission that took down a 100+ year-old company in Philadelphia.  A lot of wreckage left behind with displaced workers and economic ripples to the wider community.  It’s called ‘creative’ capitalism, which is a nice, almost fuzzy phrase that takes the sting out—for those that create the mess, and then walk away, pockets a-jingle.

But Uncle Newt?   He’s a champion of capitalism, even the ugly, crony kind.  I’m not sure how Gingrich squares this attack on Romney, particularly with the latest reveal that, back in the day, Gingrich himself was involved with leveraged buyouts.

Upon leaving Congress in 1999, the former Speaker joined private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. as a member of its advisory board.

It is unclear how long Gingrich served on the advisory board, or how much he was paid. The campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Hummm.  Wonder if the firm hired him as a historian?  Inquiring minds want to know. Btw, in the CNN Money piece, Forstmann, Little & Co is cited as one of the original leveraged buyout firms.

To steal from Rick Perry–Oops!

Gingrich’s attacks were signaled earlier, of course, when he publicly vowed a blood feud, retribution for the carpet-bombing Mitt Romney’s Super-Pac delivered in the run up to the Iowa caucus.  Hell hath no fury like a foiled presidential candidate.  Especially when the candidate in question has such a high regard of himself [often referred to as hubris] and for whom hypocrisy is second nature.  We’ve seen this side of Newt Gingrich before when he righteously carried the impeachment standard against Bill Clinton, all the while carrying on his own illicit affair.

But considering how the entire Republican establishment has worked with such diligence, sworn absolute allegiance in making Barack Obama a one-term president, this strategy seems short-sighted, flawed.  Unless, of course, party politics takes a back seat to personal vendettas.

Gingrich has not gone uncritiqued by the party faithful.  Some of the responses I’ve picked up in columns and online are: disgraceful, disgusting, unhelpful and my favorite—he sounds like an Occupier [you know those people who need to take a bath and get a job].

Gingrich’s daughter, Jackie Cushman, attempted to defend her father’s bomb throwing when pressed with the question—won’t this undermine the GOPs’ conservative message [ya think?]:

I think the process that we’re going through — the whole primary process — the whole point is to figure out who is the best candidate to beat President Barack Obama.

That must be the official line from Gringrich’s campaign people because the prickly candidate said much the same thing.

Gingrich yesterday defended his new attacking posture, saying it is better for Republican voters to know the truth now and to force Romney to aggressively back his record.

“If somebody is going to crumble, they better crumble before the nomination,’’ Gingrich said.

So, it’s for the good of the party?  Tear Mitt Romney a new one and voters will come to their senses, see what they’re missing in not voting for Newt.

Good try but no cigar.  Although as Minx mentioned last night, Newt Gingrich has one solid fan, Todd Palin.  Someone [a small-minded person, no doubt] suggested that Todd’s endorsement was in exchange for Alaska’s Independence.  I cannot verify that.

True, I’m merely a spectator [a biased one at that] to the ongoing fracas.  But what I see in Newt Gingrich is pettiness, a hair-trigger temper and envy, none of which is becoming in a presidential candidate.  Still, I can almost feel sympathy for Uncle Newt—Mitt Romney appears untouchable, unflappable.  He’s handsome, calm, in good shape and from all reports, far richer.  It really isn’t fair.

Here’s the thing: I’m guessing Gordon Gekko would be downright stunned and heartbroken by these blistering attacks.

Greed is not good?  Predatory capitalism should be shunned?

Newt, we hardly knew ye.

New Hampshire will decide now.

Tuesday Reads: Gordon Gekko for President?

Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, morning reads, Newt Gingrich, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, unemployment | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

Good morning! Today is the New Hampshire primary. We’ll live blog the returns later tonight. As of last night, Gordon Gekko Mitt Romney had a big lead in the polls, with Ron Paul second and John Huntsman and Rick Santorum tied for third place.

Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, holds a 24 percentage point lead over his closest rival, with 41 percent of likely Republican primary voters indicating they’d vote for him, the WMUR New Hampshire Primary Poll said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul from Texas was favored by 17 percent of likely primary voters, followed by former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, each with 11 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich collecting 8 percent.

Several polls indicated Gingrich would finish in the top three.

“All of the candidates behind Romney have a good chance finishing anywhere between second and fifth place,” said Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center in Durham.

Yesterday Romney stepped in it again when he told an audience that he really likes firing people.

The final day of campaigning saw Romney under fire for a comment about health insurance that quickly became fodder for criticism.

Asked about the issue in Nashua, New Hampshire, Romney said he wanted a person to be able to own his or her own policy “and perhaps keep it the rest of their life.”

“That means the insurance company will have the incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them,” he said.

“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” Romney added. “If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me.”

Romney complained that everyone was taking his remarks out of context, but when you’re a former corporate raider worth $250 million, it’s probably a good idea to watch what you say about putting people out of work.

Anyway, the latest meme about Romney is that he’s Gordon Gekko brought to life. I think it’s a pretty good comparison. I don’t know if you recall the quote from the recent Vanity Fair profile of Romney that I included in a recent post:

Romney described himself as driven by a core economic credo, that capitalism is a form of “creative destruction.” This theory, espoused in the 1940s by the economist Joseph Schumpeter and later touted by former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, holds that business must exist in a state of ceaseless revolution. A thriving economy changes from within, Schumpeter wrote in his landmark book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, “incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” But as even the theory’s proponents acknowledged, such destruction could bankrupt companies, upending lives and communities, and raise questions about society’s role in softening some of the harsher consequences.

Romney, for his part, contrasted the capitalistic benefits of creative destruction with what happened in controlled economies, in which jobs might be protected but productivity and competitiveness falters. Far better, Romney wrote in his book No Apology, “for governments to stand aside and allow the creative destruction inherent in a free economy.” He acknowledged that it is “unquestionably stressful—on workers, managers, owners, bankers, suppliers, customers, and the communities that surround the affected businesses.” But it was necessary to rebuild a moribund company and economy.

That sure sounds Gekko-like, doesn’t it?

Yesterday, Rick Klein of ABC News addressed the Romney/Gekko issue.

Virtually all of Romney’s rivals are now sensing a powerful issue. Jon Huntsman said today that the firing comment shows that Romney is “completely out of touch” with the American economy.

Rick Perry, skipping ahead a state, is calling it the “ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it.”

Gingrich is equating Romney’s business style with finding “clever legal ways to loot a company.” Rick Santorum’s stump speech includes a line about not needing a CEO as president, and he suggested at ABC’s Saturday night debate in New Hampshire that Romney’s background calls into question whether he “can inspire and paint a positive vision for this country.”

Romney hasn’t made matters easier for himself as he’s tried to connect with voters on the economy. The son of a millionaire business titan said over the weekend: “I know what it’s like to worry about whether or not you are going to get fired.”

Klein claims it’s too late for any of this to affect the New Hampshire primary results. I wouldn’t be so sure. New Hampshirites are famous for making up their minds at the last minute. Remember Hillary’s surprise win in 2008?

Romney has been expecting the Gordon Gekko comparisons, so you have to wonder why he hasn’t managed to curb some of these Gekko-like remarks.  I guess he just can’t help himself.

Mitt Romney says he knows a photo in which he appears with other executives at Bain Capital LLC posing with cash in their hands, pockets and mouths will be used against him if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.

The 1980s image — called the “Gordon Gekko” photo by some Democrats, a reference to the Michael Douglas character in the movie “Wall Street” — offers an easy attack line at a time of high unemployment and sharp rhetoric against the nation’s top money managers, investors and bankers.

“We posed for a picture, just celebrating the fact that we had raised a lot of money and then we hoped to be able to return it with a good return,” Romney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Here’s Romney’s defense of the photo on Fox News Sunday.

Andrew Leonard of Salon also discussed the comparison of Romney with Gekko.

Like Gekko, Romney made his fortune buying and selling companies; and like Gekko, he believes that his “greed is good” version of rough-and-tumble creative destruction is a positive force for America, weeding out the bad performers and nurturing lean-and-mean profit engines. If you are looking for the paradigmatic exemplar of the new style of capitalism mogul launched by the Reagan revolution, Romney is your man. Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko is merely ersatz.

But what Leonard finds so amazing is that this attack on Romney and his leverage buyouts is being led Newt Gingrich.

The shock is to see Newt Gingrich and his financial backers channeling the Oliver Stone critique so passionately and wholeheartedly. If you have not seen the three-minute advertisement “When Romney Came to Town,” the soon-to-be debuted documentary lambasting Romney as the enemy of the American worker, prepare to be flabbergasted.

“Their greed was only matched by their willingness to do anything to make millions in profits.”

“This film is about one such raider and his firm.”

“His mission: To reap massive rewards for himself and his investors.

“Romney took foreign seed money from Latin America, and began a pattern exploiting dozens of American businesses.”

And so on. Michael Moore doesn’t sting this hard, and MoveOn isn’t this angry. If Romney, as expected, ends up winning the Republican nomination, Obama’s campaign team can relax. Their work has already been done.

Here’s the trailer for the 27-minute documentary that Gingrich backers have purchased.


Politico calls it “the Bain Bomb.”

While conservatives look unlikely to unite around one alternative to Romney, the campaigns themselves are uniting around the theme that the former head of Bain Capital looted companies, tossed people out of jobs and is now exaggerating his success at the venture capital firm.

In the context of this moment in American politics, in which frustration with the privileged is boiling hot, the attack, from Republicans on one side and the Obama campaign on the other, will test Romney. If he ends up looking more like an opportunist who profited for the few than like a man who created jobs for the many, it’s hard to imagine his polls numbers won’t drop.

Conservative bloggers, who generally can’t stand Romney have begun defending him against his rivals attacks, and Dana Millback called Romney “the Scrooge McDuck of the 2012 presidential race. Bloomberg reports that buyout firms are getting nervous about damage to their reputations.

This could be fun to watch. I thought Newt’s attack on Romney yesterday was spot on.

Is Romney full of shit or what? He even makes Newt Gingrich look good. I hope Newt sticks around and continues letting it all hang out. Every single word he said about Romney was the truth.

I’m going to wrap this up with a more serious take on Romney from Robert Reich: Mitt: Son of “Citizen’s United.” I had forgotten that Reich ran for governor of Massachusetts in the the Democratic primary in 2002. Please go read the whole thing and try not to weep while you’re doing it.

As Reich says, Romney is the ultimate big money candidate. He was in 2002, and now with the help of the Roberts Court, he has more money than any candidate ever dreamed of before. If you thought Obama was the candidate of Wall Street–and he was in 2008–Romney is soooo much more so. He has money and connections that make Obama’s fundraising look pathetic. And none of this money even needs to be reported–it could be coming from overseas, even from foreign governments, and we’d never know.

Tonight we’ll find out of any of this barrage of Gordon Gekko/Mitt Romney comparisons will have any effect. I’m rooting for Romney to be taken down a peg. And then on to South Carolina!

Please share your links in the comments, and I hope to see you tonight for the live blog.

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