Damn.
This is why the Bain issue is so horrible: the biographical contrast.
“President Obama – who, like Mitt Romney, earned a degree from Harvard and all the opportunities that affords – began his career helping jobless workers in the shadow of a closed-down steel mill. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, made millions closing down steel mills.”
But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn’t just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fucking unimaginable fortune doing it. That’s the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain. […]
Many, many people in, say, South Carolina, have lost jobs. That’s rough enough. But if Romney comes across as the man who made a fortune off this kind of Wall Street maneuvering, he becomes a symbol and a focus for all the roiling populist discontent out there. When he is responsible for someone losing her house, the contrast with his multiple mansions and private beach gets a little de trop. One ad with one victim could be poison.
Of all the jobs he liquidated, moreover, many are in the American heartland. And his response to the people in this documentary – white working class heartland Americans, the GOP base – is that they are merely envious of his achievements. They don’t come off that way in the ad. They come off as bewildered, betrayed and sure that Romney’s goal in all this was merely, solely to make money for himself – the kind of money that most Americans cannot even compute.
I simply cannot imagine a worse narrative for a candidate in this climate; or a politician whose skills are singularly incapable of responding to the story in any persuasive way. This ad is powerful. Romney has already seen a drop in South Carolina. I suspect he’ll drop some more. And I suspect once the potency of this line of attack is absorbed by the GOP establishment, there will be some full, if concealed, panic.
And Mitt Romney was supposed to be the most competitive and most electable candidate. Once we are through with him, Mitt Romney will be toxic and unelectable. The conservatives might as well nominate Santorum so they can get that thing out of their systems where they always blame their landslide losses on the fact that their candidate wasn’t radically conservative enough. When Santorum loses in a 400 vote electoral landslide, I don’t see how they can see Santorum was too liberal. If Romney is the nominee and he goes on to lose, the conservatives will still be freaking out in 2016 and they will pass up Christie, Huntsman, Jindal and Bush as too liberal and go for some whackjob.
Which is good for us I guess.
The Tea Party goes out with a fizzle.
Oh, they’ll be their usual hootin’ and hollerin’, but they’ve proven they aren’t a force to be reckoned with – other than burning the house down. And, to think, for a while I was actually concerned about them.
In the end, the Tea Party will do what it does best – deny Romney the win in the general. In other words, burn down the house.
You know, the hard-hitting populism in Newt’s ad would have come in handy during the public option nonfight, the tax cut extension nonfight, and the debt limit nonfight.
For all of you who shrugged and said “What can the President do? He doesn’t have 60 votes!” – Newt has your answer.
Why did we have to wait more than two years to see this kind of ad created, and then it was created by a Republican?
We always knew this kind of populism would be effective, but were not able to get through to the White House and and our ConservaDem senators. They wouldn’t listen to their base; maybe now they will listen to Newt.
See how it’s done, President Obama? Senator Coons? Give a big Thank You to Newt, and then go bring home those lost Reagan Democrats.
If Newt wins SC and parlays it to the nomination, and if he sticks with these kind of ads, he will be running to the left of Obama. This is dangerous and might possibly work.
Newt is like a running back on a busted play who sees a big opening on the left side of the field, while both teams are all clustered around the right.
hahahahahahaha.
Puck, first, Romney is the GOP nominee. There is no stopping him. Romney’s vulture capitalism is the kind of business the GOP likes, and they are attacking Newt for it. So Newt won’t win.
And even if he did, he would tack back to the right so fast you’ll have whiplash.
Trust me, Newt Gingrich doesn’t turn left when he drives. So he won’t be running to the left of Obama.
After this ad, Newt is already running to the left of Obama. In that weird kind of Republican-populist way that isn’t exactly left, but the populist elements make it basically the same.
And if Newt were to win on that ad, he won’t shrug it off so easily. It’s that strong. It debunks all current Republican theories of job creation, several of which have been enacted by President Obama and our Delaware Senators.
Romney was going to have a tough time in the South anyway, and now the Bain ad is taking a further toll. If Newt can stay in past SC, we will be seeing that ad in Rust Belt states as well. I guess I need to go check the primary schedule and delegate counts.
Remember, Romney has been winning in states that have low unemployment. He hasn’t yet confronted the unemployed, where the Bain ads will resonate.
If we are lucky, Newt will push Obama all the way back to 2008.
C’Mon Dude. There are no left-of-center populists in American politics today. It is cemented in DC conventional wisdom that even the hint of traditional liberalism is enough to kill political aspirations, and that sensibility is self-reinforcing.
If anyone (Gingrich, Obama, Pelosi, Wasserman-Schultz) appears to be progressive populist, it is for advertising sake – not for governing purposes.
That said, if the Republicans nominate Romney – it is game over for them. Romney is unelectable.
I’m just saying that on paper, the populist path looks good for Newt. Traditionally Democrats have retained long-term majorities by being on the correct side of kitchen-table issues. But now Democrats are legislating against the polls on issues like health care, tax cuts for rich, business regulation, and flirting with raising the Social Security age (and maybe benefit cuts).
There is a clear gap between what the people support, and what Democrats are passing. How long can you retain majorities while you are passing bills against the people?
I don’t know if Newt sees it or not, but he has the opportunity to take advantage of that gap. Give Democrats what their leaders aren’t giving them.
Newt isn’t going to out-teabag the other guys. The teabagger message has peaked and is failing on all levels, so why not try something new?
The Republican noise machine that made liberalism a dirty word is now trained on Newt. There is a brief window of opportunity now for Newt to turn all their hate and extremism back on themselves and come out on top.
You are right though, he probably won’t take that opportunity. But he sure as hell is leaving a good video trail.
Puck, newtie is already running back to the right. it’ll take him a week or so, but by super tuesday, he’ll have dropped out and kissed Romney’s ring, blaming all the negative attacks on his love on country and Obama.