Tea With Mittens

Someone made an anti-Romney documentary about Mittens and Bain capital, and now a Super PAC for Newt has bought it and is planning to run it in pieces as attack ads. Here is the trailer, which is an attack ad in itself:

The “production values” of this thing make it almost a stereotype of right-wing attack ads, complete with ominous imagery and music. But Steve M. argues that this approach is unlikely to hurt Mittens among right-wingers. Why? Because to accept that Mittens exploited capitalism to make a quick buck at others’ expense is to admit that capitalism is not perfect. It is exploitable. It needs to be regulated.

Oops.

Thomas Frank makes the point that Romney is actually the quintessential bagger candidate. So what if he’s not credible on social values issues, like abortion.

If nothing else, you in the Tea Party movement have spent the last three years teaching Americans that they no longer matter — not when we’re supposedly in a battle for the very soul of capitalism.

And here comes Mitt Romney, the soul of American capitalism in the flesh.

Frank argues that if Mittens is the nominee — which is looking pretty likely at the moment — the Right will be forced to come clean that it’s all about defending the rich and privileged, and all the rhetoric about liberty and patriotism is window dressing.

And keep in mind that, with Mitt Romney, venture capitalist, carrying your banner in 2012, you will finally get to submit your capsized vision of social class to the verdict of the people — the actual flesh-and-blood people, that is, not the corporate “people” who make up the S&P 500. You will get to defend exactly the sort of “person” your movement has longed to defend since it was birthed by a CNBC reporter almost three years ago to the cheers of a bunch of derivatives traders in Chicago.

You will get to explain your peculiar conviction that the way to react to a gigantic slump brought on by frenzied finance is to unshackle Wall Street. You will get to line up behind a heroic businessman, like those rugged, resourceful fellows in the Ayn Rand novels you love. You will get to go into battle for the job creators, which is what all capitalists are, right? (Well, okay, maybe not the guys at Bain Capital, the particular outfit where Romney made his pile, but the theory is all that really matters, isn’t it?)

Indeed, your leadership cadre is already playing up the inevitable criticisms of Romney as a job decimator as a way of launching a grand debate about capitalism — by which they mean, of course, freedom itself. When Newt Gingrich criticized Romney a few weeks ago for his career in private equity, the airwaves of your winger-tainment world exploded with outrage. “This is the kind of risk-taking, free-market capitalism that most people who call themselves conservatives applaud,” intoned Brit Hume on Fox News. If Newt had a problem with Bain’s operations, announced syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, “then Gingrich really doesn’t believe in capitalism at all.”

I’m actually starting to warm to the idea of Romney as the nominee. See also Krugman, “America’s Unlevel Field.”

13 thoughts on “Tea With Mittens

  1. I like the idea of making Bain Capital the bane of Mitt’s existence.

    And he is the quintessential model for modern American capitalism – a rich, smug, asshole who took inherited money, joined a “Vulture Capital” firm, and squeezed businesses and their people out, to make still more money.
    And now, he wants to make the whole country ripe for the plucking by running for President.
    PLUCK YOU, MITT!!!

    The most fun part is that even our lazy, obtuse, compliant, and complicit MSM is noticing that he is an unlikeable, lying, SOB.

    And the bestestest part is that the Republicans might be stuck with him for the General Election.

    But the sad part is, he just might win in his hopelessly stupid, ignorant and arrogant country, where he, or any Republican starts off with 27% of the base who will vote for an “R” no matter how much they hurt themselves and their families.
    And the fight is to get 50%, plus one vote, of the people who aren’t a part of the sociopathic authoritarian knuckle-dragging cave people.

  2. Because to accept that Mittens exploited capitalism to make a quick buck at others’ expense is to admit that capitalism is not perfect. It is exploitable. It needs to be regulated.

    Not according to wingnut logic. Mitt’s exploitation of capitalism to make a quick buck, is a feature, not a bug. It’s how capitalism is supposed to work. Creative destruction and all that. It never occurs to the wingnut that it’s their own lives that are being destroyed.

    I’m pretty warm to Mitt as the nominee. On one level with all the hokey contradictions he’s going to embody, as the GOP plasters a salt-of-the-earth image over someone who nobody could ever mistake for such, as well as his chronic lying, Mitt will surely prove to be a feature rich target for Team Obama. The GOP imagineering team is going to have their hands full with Mitt.

    OTOH, he’s the closest to Obama philosophically of all the nominees, and so it should be interesting to see what comes out of that. Tom Toles did a “separated at birth” cartoon showing a black Obama baby next to a white Romney baby in a hospital nursery. There’s more uncomfortable truth to that than many want to acknowledge.

  3. I recently read that profitable bank activities make for a bad economy. With a little projecting, the profitable corporate/venture capitalist activities also make for a bad economy, an economy that will see the already beleaguered middle classes heading into a direct challenge to those lofty ‘right’ words, “the pursuit of happiness” for most of us.

    Other than that revolting scenario, the longer I am ‘forced’ to see and hear Mitt, the smarier he becomes. By now, I definitely can echo ‘cund.’

  4. to accept that Mittens exploited capitalism to make a quick buck

    Most wingnuts of my acquaintance would be proud of Willard Magic-Jockeys for this. They admire it when their authoritarian leaders are expoliters and bullies; the followers are just stupid enough to think that they’re in on the con because they get some vicarious thrill from seeing the exploitation and punishment of people they don’t like.

  5. I think of how Governor Rick Scott of Florida got elected in spite of the public being aware that he/or his corporation received the largest fine for fraud in American history. The repugs and voters of Florida turned a blind eye to Scott being a sleaze bag and bought into the false logic that he was a good business man and understood how to create jobs. A lot of people can’t think past the idea that Romney was successful( made money) in business so he will therefore be successful as President in healing the economy. I wonder how much of a negative Romney’s corporate raiding and destroying jobs will be counted against him?

  6. Romney can’t be portrayed as the salt of the earth, but maybe as the “fleur de sel du monde”? I just knew high school French would come in handy! Thanks, Mrs. Sue “French” Fry!

    Has anyone added that “my friend” line to Romney’s lies? It sounds even less true from him than it did from McCain.

  7. I also think Mitt’s VP choice is going to be a firecracker, just as SP was for McCain. The GOP will need somebody who isn’t dull and uninspiring, for many reasons, not the least of which is to deflect attention from Mitt. I’ve read others float Rubio’s name. They’re going to put somebody exciting on the ticket to pull in the reluctant.

  8. I think Mittens will cynically draft Frothy for running mate, in the erroneous belief there are people back in PA that like him. It could also sucker in some of the Catholic vote.

  9. His bologna has a first name,
    It’s P-I-O-U-S,
    His bologna has a second name,
    It’s horses A-S-S,
    He loves to dish it every day,
    Loot corporations, cut your pay,
    Then shut the place down where you work,
    ‘Cause he’s another Wall Street jerk.

  10. Well, thanks, KYLE!
    Now I have coffee all over my keyboard………..

    My right wing friend called me on Sunday morn with a “plan” to bring manufacturing back to the good old USA.
    The first thing “we” need to do is get rid of the unions that are ruining this great nation of ours, then we can lower wages and cut benefits so the “job creators”
    can come back from offshore and the middle class will be back in eight years or so. “WE” also need to cut regulations that make it unprofitable to run factories, and allow for drilling in the deep water gulf and ANWAR.
    He didn’t much care for my idea of eliminating benefits for veterans that never saw combat, which would really save piles and piles of cash (he is a veteran who never saw combat).Not that I think that is a good idea, but it sure ruffles his feathers……….

  11. Nice, Kyle!

    And erinyes, your r-w friend sounds like a typical Conservative.
    He’s for cutting everything that doesn’t affect him or his family. Then, suddenly, spending on THAT is ok – but nothing else!

    There a ‘selfish and obtuse’ gene that Conservatives have that we don’t. And that really shows itself when they also suffer from an irony deficiency.

  12. There’s a credibility gap in the GOP platform big enough to swallow an M-1 tank. The Tea Party dreams that they are for (good) small business and against (evil) big business. I can go along with that, generally. They want to roll back federal regulation that’s ‘strangling’ small business and preventing expansion and new jobs. Maybe. Can I have a few examples of those regulations, those small businesses, and maybe the business plan(s) that show the cost of federal regulation to be the deciding factor. Isn’t the good small business vs evil big business argument also an argument to break up some of the monster banks and corporations?
    (Crickets chirping)

    There’s also the argument that Obama supports evil big business and is in the pocket of bankers. Proof of this is evident to them – he’s hired bankers to run Treasury and CEO’s to serve in key positions. Who do you suggest is more qualified to evaluate monetary policy – a meteoroligist? Should Obama hire the homeless to cabinet positions. But the Tea Party is convinced – despite the Wall Street regulation and despite the way OBAMA straight-armed BP – and despite new air regulation – They think OBAMA is a tool of (evil) big business.

    The biggest contradiction in the Tea Party narrative is in the regulation they would repeal. The rank-and-file TP idiot thinks he is going to free small business. Frank Dodd doesn’t affect small business. If the EPA is abolished, its the big energy giants who benefit. The big polluter in Tampa is the electric company, whose coal-burning plant is filthy. They pay the EPA fines as a cost of business. If the feds are castrated, when a giant like BP uses the Gulf for a toilet, small businesses are wiped out.

    I’m not sure how it will play in the general election if Mittens is perceived as a vulture. He’s playing to the ‘moderate’ who is the least likely to embrace Romney as a cutthroat pirate. Maybe I should contribute to Newt’s super PAC.

  13. “The big polluter in Tampa is the electric company”
    Yep!, I inspect structures near the “Big Bend” plant. The fallout is corroding galvanized steel several miles from the plant.
    ‘Gulag, my right wing friend is a former John Birch’er, recently Glenn Becker’er.
    I still love the guy, but he’s kinda like a stupid little brother; drives me f’in nuts.
    Things are strange in Glennbeckistan…..

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