I was going to write a long-ish post about Romney and capitalism but I think this Newt clip is better in some ways.
Remember, John Kerry “reported for duty” in 2004 and tried to argue that his military service made him more qualified to be commander in chief. And then people started saying, hey, let’s take a long (and arguably slanted at times) look at that service. This isn’t much different.
Romney’s tried to do a dance to say good at private equity = good at creating jobs. Pointing out that one doesn’t equal the other isn’t socialist. It’s stating something which is actually fairly obvious. Mitt Romney is already playing with fire. If you don’t believe that there are occasionally what I’ll call “excesses of capitalism,” then you’re left trying to explain to a disbelieving huge portion of the electorate why 2008 happened. Blaming it on Congress and less than cautious mortgage lending is probably not going to work. And the President is not going to be dumb enough to be attacking capitalism writ large.
PS Mitt Romney said today that issues such as fairness or tax policy should only be discussed only “in quiet rooms.” Which is another line that I feel like the President might be referencing in a speech in, say, 8 months. What does that even mean? I’d like someone to ask Romney what other policy issues should only be discussed in a quiet room.
PPS Apparently Newt somewhat backed off of his Bain comments today in SC while shaking hands or something. One wonders whether Newt realizes that this is the youtube age of campaigning and that EVERYTHING is now on video. I’m not convinced that he’s really backing down on this yet. (Indeed, his spokesperson sent a tweet tonight saying he wasn’t backing down, he was misquoted, etc…)
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