One of the most disgusting surprises in this GOP campaign cycle is the willingness of so many to use Leftist, anti-capitalist, arguments to wage war against Romney. We are talking about Bain Capital and Romney's wizardry with the private equity investment firm (he had a 10 to 1 success rate with Bain including saving Staples from financial disaster). He turned the Olympics around, but so many have forgotten this. He served as a relatively successful governor of Massachusetts, someone the GOP was proud to call a "Republican," back in "the day" - including the likes of Santorum and Gingrich.
The following parallel is the reason for my disappointment. If Romney is the GOP representative, here is Obama's strategy, in part:
- To present Romney as an uncaring capitalist, more concerned for profits than jobs.
- To use the major media, such as the New York Times, as rhetorical evidence of Romney's failings.
- To argue that Romney is primarily a private sector money manager and nothing more.
- To imply that companies and corporations have a moral obligation to provide jobs that supercedes their need to be profitable.
- To demonize "firing people" who do not meet certain standards as to profitability and efficiency. The seven words, "I like being able to fire people" were used by Romney in the context of dealing with folks who worked for him. It was immediately taken out of context by the Democrats, Gingrich and Jon Huntsman.
Today, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry, have all joined the Obama theorists in trying to win the nomination for themselves. Their arguments against Mitt Romney are the same arguments as stated above and precisely mirror Obama's class warfare game and the socialist pretense that wealth is a shared commodity that has nothing to do with the hourly wage.
Frankly, I am not interested in nominees who are willing to forego conservative principles and join with the Left in opposing Mitt Romney or anyone else.
Gingrich, appearing on the Megyn Kelly Fox News show, this morning, made this statement: "There has to be some sense of 'everybody is in the same boat.' " He implied that "Free market capitalism" is all about sharing the pain. He asserted that Romney profited as a malicious capitalist glutton, a corporate raider (my words, not his; his thoughts not mine), robbing healthy companies and destroying their ability to make money and provide jobs. Do we forget that Newt earned $1.6 million from Freddie Mac during the time folks were losing their homes in droves and did nothing to stop that avalanche ?
Gingrich has much explaining to do. As angry as I am with all this nonsense, Gingrich deserves to be considered. As time goes by, Newt will be asked about all this, in more detail, and his response might win the day; I don't know. He made sense with Megyn Kelly but his accusations against Romney need a great deal of confirmation. When you imply that a person is a crook, you had better be prepared to defend yourself. Understand that any one-sided discussion "makes sense," on a certain level. Earlier this morning, on Fox with Gretchen Carlson, Gingrich made it clear that Romney went far beyond acceptable standards for increasing personal wealth. He has stated that Romney "walked away from his fiduciary responsibility" to those who lost their jobs, as if a company's "fiduciary responsibility" is not fulfilled when a payroll is generated and work is compensated on the basis of an agreed upon wage.
Personally, I have never worked for a company under the notion that I was entitled to more than my hour wage, but this seems to be the prevailing fantasy of the Left and, now, of Newt, Perry and Huntsman.
I have no idea how Newt will be able to distinguish his words reflected in this post from this statement by Obama: "I do think that at a certain point, you have made enough money." Obama has made more than 9 million dollars since becoming president, so we wonder what "enough" really means to this clown. But, the larger question has to do with the problematic issue, for Newt, of separating himself from the communal push of the Leftists in our White House. I think he has done his campaign a great deal of harm, if not during this primary season, in the coming battle versus Obama.
As things stand, now, I am leaning towards Romney, but with an open mind. Understand that my "fab three" include Sarah Palin, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, in no particular order. The present cadre of GOP candidates are a compromise, for me, and I really do not like it.