President Mitt Romney

[Peter]

Erick Erickson wrote:

The best thing Romney has going for him in this regard is Barack Obama also being an elitist.

end quote

At last, Adam can quit calling Mitt “Goody Two Shoes.” He’s b, b, b, bad - bad to the bone. Thank Joseph Smith, Mitt was not cussing as a result of being pepper sprayed at an Occupy Wall Street rally. I am sure he will follow the directions of all Park Rangers from now until the vote in November, and then he will go back to his Rebel Without A Cause, bad boy ways.

They are digging deep for the dirty mother lode, or should I say “mother of all loads” like this Headline: “Mitt allows Chris Christy to call protester Sweety, as Mitt frowns at heckler!”

Chris Christie just keeps getting rounder. Lay off the Dunkin Donuts, Governor. I just don’t see him as Veep. Mass. and NJ are both northeast States, both are Governors, and while he would be a breath of fresh air, he does not bring much Tea to the Party.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[BaalChatzaf]

Chris Christie just keeps getting rounder. Lay off the Dunkin Donuts, Governor. I just don’t see him as Veep. Mass. and NJ are both northeast States, both are Governors, and while he would be a breath of fresh air, he does not bring much Tea to the Party.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Our governor, Chris Christie is Heavy Duty. You would not want him to get on your case, because if he did, he would crush it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

Our governor, Chris Christie is Heavy Duty.

end quote

Who else supports Mitt? There are too many to list.

Peter Taylor

Ann Coulter, super model Cindy Crawford, Randy Owen, musician and lead singer of legendary group Alabama, Pat Boone, and the Osmonds, all support Mitt Romney. Famous TV personality and producer, Robin Leach, who first became well known by hosting and producing "Lifestyles of the Rich and famous", also supported Mitt Romney, as does former Miss America, Charlene Wells Hawkes also supported Mitt Romney, stating "Mitt Romney gave Utah world-class leadership. He turned around our Olympics."

''Mitt Romney isn’t an ex-college baseball stud like the first President Bush and doesn’t have the air of a jock, but that hasn’t stopped a slew of pro athletes and coaches from backing the ex-Bay State guv.

''A review of campaign finance filings shows Romney has gotten significant support from the pro sports world, raking in maximum $2,300 donations from Boston Celtics vice president Danny Ainge¹, New England Patriots honcho Bob Kraft², Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid and legendary sportscaster Vin Scully, etc.

South Carolina’s Governor Nikki haley. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter R-Michigan, Ross Perot, Christine O’Donnell, Chris Christie, former Governor John Sununu etc.,

And these politicians. 01. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) [Alabama-Alaska]

02. Fmr. Rep. Jack Edwards (R-AL)

03. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

04. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) [Arizona-Arkansas]

05. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

06. Rep. Tim Griffin (AR)

07. Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) [California]

08. Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA)

09. Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA)

Etc., there are 96 of them.

And these, higher up politicians.

01. Lt. Governor Kay Ivey (AL) [Alabama-Alaska]

02. Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard (AL)

03-06. Four additional State Representatives (AL)

07. State Senator Cam Ward (AL)

08. State Board of Education Member (AL)

08. Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell (AK)

09. Secretary of State Ken Bennett (AZ) [Arizona-Arkansas]

10. Attorney General Tom Horne (AZ)

Etc., there are 679 of them.

[Peter]

Two qualms I have with Mitt Romney are Cap and Trade and TARP (and “The Stimulus.”) Yet he now seems to have denounced his prior support of these issues. Rush is speculating today, “Would Romney give us TARP II or bail out Europe?” I emphatically say no.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Mitt Romney on Cap and Trade/Global Warming

“I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control. I do not support radical feel-good policies like a unilateral U.S. cap-and-trade mandate. Such policies would have little effect on climate but could cripple economic growth with devastating results for people across the planet.”

-- Mitt Romney in “No Apology,” p. 227

Summary: Mitt Romney on Cap and Trade/Global Warming

Cap and Trade legislation would be disastrous for our economy.

The earth’s climate has been constantly changing throughout its history. We should not take extreme measures when we are unsure of human role in global warming. Treaties, like Kyoto, would affect the U.S., but not major greenhouse gas emitters like China and India.

Rush Limbaugh is denouncing TARP on his show today January 10th at 1:11pm.

Here’s what I could find. Mitt Romney changed position on TARP on a video on Fox News with interviewer Neil Cavuto. About three minutes into the four-minute ad, the word "TARP" appears on screen. Then we see Romney in a split-screen with Fox News interviewer Neil Cavuto.

"TARP got paid back and it kept the financial system from collapsing," Romney says.

"So you feel it was well worth it?" Cavuto asks.

"Well, it was the right thing to do," Romney answers.

Cut to another video clip, and we hear Romney say, "TARP ought to be ended."

Here, in chronological order, is a sampling of what Romney has said on the matter.

In March 2009, Romney told Reuters, "The TARP program, while not transparent and not having been used as wisely it should have been, was nevertheless necessary to keep banks from collapsing in a cascade of failures. You cannot have a free economy and free market if there is not a financial system. … The TARP program was designed to keep the financial system going, to keep money circulating in the economy, without which the entire economy stops and you would really have an economic collapse."

In December 2009, he said to Larry King, "And by the way, TARP has served its purpose. TARP ought to be ended. We've got hundreds of billions of dollars there that is being used as a slush fund by Secretary (Timothy) Geithner and the Obama administration. Stop the TARP recklessness at this point and get ourselves back to creating jobs by encouraging businesses to grow, expand their capital expenditures and hire."

In January 2010, Romney was interviewed on Fox. He said, "That was an investment made to try and keep a collapse of our entire financial system from occurring," Romney once again told Cavuto. And also: "We were on a precipice, which, now we can sit back and say it wasn’t so scary. Well, frankly, it was a very scary time for a lot of people, and that’s something which was resolved."

Three months later, Romney’s book No Apology came out. He wrote that the TARP program "was intended to prevent a run on virtually every bank and financial institution in the country. It did in fact keep our economy from total meltdown."

But he criticized President Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary, Geithner, for using TARP as a "slush fund." Under Geithner, the program was "as poorly explained, poorly understood, poorly structured, and poorly implemented as any legislation in recent memory," Romney wrote. His final word on the subject: "It should be shut down."

More recently, while campaigning for the presidency, Romney has continued to defend the program as necessary to avoid a worse crisis.

"My experience tells me that we were on the precipice, and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system, wiping out all the savings of the American people. So action had to be taken," he said in a Republican primary debate in October 2011.

[Peter]

This was sent a few minutes ago. Good evening Governor and Staff. Here are some talking points that might help.

Bain Capital.

We are broke. I will use the acumen I sharpened in the private sector to shrink our bloated bureaucracy. I will eliminate waste and pare down the size of Government while streamlining Social Security and Medicare without eliminating them, so that they are sustainable programs. I will tell our deficits, “You’re fired!”

To hecklers and the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

Turn your anger towards the Obama administration that has lost you your job and lowered your horizons. Let me draw you a map. Lafayette Square is a seven-acre public park located directly north of the White House on H Street between 15th and 17th Streets, NW. Go there to protest the object of your anger and Occupy The White House.

To the Tea Party

I have heard it said that I am the “establishment candidate,” and that you will reluctantly support me to beat President Obama. Ladies and gentlemen I will bring a large bale of tea to the Tea Party. I will fervently support limited constitutional Government. I do not endorse national health insurance or Cap and Trade. I am for the Free Enterprise System.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

From Newsmax: Tea Party supporters lined up behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in his New Hampshire primary victory. Exit polls show that of the 51 percent of voters who said they supported the tea party movement, 37 percent went for Romney. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the projected second place finisher, had 22 percent of tea party support . . . .

end quote

37 percent of the people who say they are for The Tea Party in New Hampshire voted for Romney.

Before South Carolina it would be good to have some major stars of the Tea Party and who could also be potential Vice Presidential material endorse Governor Romney. Specifically I am thinking of Marc Rubio, Paul Ryan, Alan West (a good man but a long shot), and Rand Paul (also a long shot since his father is still running strong.)

Additionally the Possibility of a Veep position for Rand Paul would guarantee that his father Ron Paul will not run on a third party ticket. Conversely, Ron Paul could threaten to run a third party bid unless his son Rand Paul is selected as Veep.

My first choice would be Paul Ryan distantly followed by young Marc Rubio for strategic Latino vote reasons.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

From Newsmax: Tea Party supporters lined up behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in his New Hampshire primary victory. Exit polls show that of the 51 percent of voters who said they supported the tea party movement, 37 percent went for Romney. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the projected second place finisher, had 22 percent of tea party support . . . .

end quote

37 percent of the people who say they are for The Tea Party in New Hampshire voted for Romney.

Before South Carolina it would be good to have some major stars of the Tea Party and who could also be potential Vice Presidential material endorse Governor Romney. Specifically I am thinking of Marc Rubio, Paul Ryan, Alan West (a good man but a long shot), and Rand Paul (also a long shot since his father is still running strong.)

Additionally the Possibility of a Veep position for Rand Paul would guarantee that his father Ron Paul will not run on a third party ticket. Conversely, Ron Paul could threaten to run a third party bid unless his son Rand Paul is selected as Veep.

My first choice would be Paul Ryan distantly followed by young Marc Rubio for strategic Latino vote reasons.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

New Hampshire lessons:

1) 63 % of the Tea Party opposed Goody Two Shoes for the Republican nomination for President in yesterday's vote;

2) turnout in the Republican Party NH primary was sixteen percent (16%) lower than 2008;

3) this is Goody Two Shoes' home state, contiguous to the state that he was Governor in, and he could not break forty percent (40%);

4) Goody Two Shoes had an overwhelming amount of money compared to all the other candidates, and he could not break forty percent (40%); and

5) Goody Two Shoes has been campaigning for six (6) years and he could not break forty percent (40%).

He will win South Carolina because South Carolina's Republican primary voters do what they are told to do when in comes to following orders from the Republican Party elites.

Yep, Peter, get behind the Corporatist Mormon right away.

It is bad enough we will have to support him when, as it seems probable, he will win the nomination.

Towards that end, I am going to work on getting the primary vote out for Dr. Paul.

Adam

[Selene]

Analyzing the exit polls, I found one stunning plus for Goody Two Shoes! Despite have two (2) "conservative" Catholics in the mix..

"Romney, a Mormon, dominated among Catholics winning 45 percent of them.

One surprising finding: Santorum, a Catholic, won only about 8 percent of self-identified Catholic voters, a serious under performance on his part since Catholics accounted for more a third of the electorate Tuesday. Gingrich, also a Catholic, won 10 percent of Catholic voters, according to exit poll interviews."

If this is accurate and extends beyond the "unique" New Hampshire electorate, O'biwan will be landslided by Goody Two Shoes.

Adam

[Peter]

Adam wrote:

He will win South Carolina because South Carolina's Republican primary voters do what they are told to do when in comes to following orders from the Republican Party elites.

end quote

That is rubbish. Consent theory does not extend to Political Parties. They are not “Tar Heels” in South Carolina. You must think they believe that their motto is “While I breathe, I obey the “massa” and I am ready to salute him and open my wallet.”

Their two mottos are actually:

Dum spiro spero or “While I breathe, I hope.” and

Animis opibusque parati or “Ready in soul and resource.”

51 percent of New Hampshire voters support the Tea Party. Isn’t that a Northeast surprise? 37 percent of that 51 percent voted for Romney within a huge field, some from the south. Mitt’s numbers with Tea Party, regular Republicans and Independents were great!

You wrote about the exit polls:

If this is accurate and extends beyond the "unique" New Hampshire electorate, O'biwan will be landslided by Goody Two Shoes.

end quote

Fox news was just showing that Romney polled first and gets 59 percent approval from Conservatives and 59 percent from liberal Independents in the general election. Paul was sixth, yet I cheer every 2nd or 3rd place that Ron Paul gets, because it gets OUR message out and I am thrilled that he has so many people willing to vote for him. Tell me Adam, which state will he win?

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

That is rubbish. Consent theory does not extend to Political Parties. They are not “Tar Heels” in South Carolina. You must think they believe that their motto is “While I breathe, I obey the “massa” and I am ready to salute him and open my wallet.”

Peter:

When you think you are right about political history, you should do some research.

"It has historically been more important for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party; from its inception in 1980 through the election of 2000, the winner of the Republican presidential primary has gone on to win the nomination.^[3] "

In 2004, Bush won uncontested.

In 2008, McCain won.

• 1980: Ronald Reagan won with 55%, defeating runner-up John Connally.
  
• 1984: Uncontested (Reagan was the incumbent president and was re-nominated).
  
• 1988: George H. W. Bush won with 49%, defeating runner-up Bob Dole.
  
• 1992: George H. W. Bush won with 67%, defeating runner-up Pat Buchanan.
  
• 1996: Bob Dole won with 45%, defeating runner-up Pat Buchanan.
  
• 2000: George W. Bush won with 53%, defeating runner-up John McCain.
  
• 2004: Uncontested (Bush was the incumbent president and was re-nominated).
  
• 2008: John McCain won with 33%, defeating runner-up Mike Huckabee.
  
• 2012: TBD.
  

So, my statement seems to be of the "non-rubbish" material.

[Peter]

It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important. - Madeleine L'Engle

I was responding to this moronic statement of yours.

Adam wrote:

He will win South Carolina because South Carolina's Republican primary voters do what they are told to do when in comes to following orders from the Republican Party elites.

end quote

But now you have switched your con by saying I was responded to this eminently sensible quote.

Adam then quoted:

"It has historically been more important for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party; from its inception in 1980 through the election of 2000, the winner of the Republican presidential primary has gone on to win the nomination.[3] "

end quote

That is not what I was responding to. Your switch is intellectual dishonesty.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important. - Madeleine L'Engle

I was responding to this moronic statement of yours.

Adam wrote:

He will win South Carolina because South Carolina's Republican primary voters do what they are told to do when in comes to following orders from the Republican Party elites.

end quote

But now you have switched your con by saying I was responded to this eminently sensible quote.

Adam then quoted:

"It has historically been more important for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party; from its inception in 1980 through the election of 2000, the winner of the Republican presidential primary has gone on to win the nomination.[3] "

end quote

That is not what I was responding to. Your switch is intellectual dishonesty.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Peter:

Here is where this discussion stemmed from. This was written by a native South Carolinian who worked for five (5) years as a consultant to Republican primary candidates.

Michael Graham, who is the experienced Republican primary consultant, refers to Dave Weigel of Slate.com in advancing the argument about South Carolina's Republican base doing what the party wants it to do.

Dave Weigel at Slate.com writes “Haven’t We Lived Through This Primary Before?”

I'm thinking of a Republican primary. It starts with a candidate (John McCain/Mitt Romney) who ran once before, came in second place, and won over the party's elite class without winning over its base. Other candidates, understandably unwilling to accept this, line up: An under-funded social conservative (Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum), an elder statesman who's walked to the altar three times (Rudy Giuliani/Newt Gingrich), a libertarian who wants to bring back the gold standard (Ron Paul/Ron Paul).

Weigel goes on from there…and he’s more right than he knows:

…before Romneyites start protesting that South Carolina is full of Bible-thumping rednecks who have an irrational hatred of Mormons and dental hygiene, let me just say as a former South Carolinian that at least one of those statements is false.

Mostly.

More to the point, look at South Carolina’s record of water-carrying for buttoned-down establishment candidates like Mitt.

In 1992, it was New Hampshire that launched the Buchanan Brigades by giving a fire-breathing TV pundit almost 40 percent of the vote against the elder Bush. Three weeks later, in South Carolina, Pat got crushed as the “Bible-thumpers” rejected a true believer and stuck with the establishment incumbent. George H.W. Bush’s win there essentially ended the conservative insurgency.

In 1996, New Hampshire gave Buchanan an out-and-out win over Bob Dole — not South Carolina. The Palmetto State once again rescued the establishment’s designated big-government moderate and sent Dole on to the nomination.

In 2000 “maverick” John McCain was the trouble-making outsider while George W. Bush was the establishment choice. On issues, McCain was more like Dole, but for the GOP establishment W was the candidate of choice. McCain won New Hampshire, but lost the entire race in South Carolina.

And in 2008, with former pastor Mike Huckabee and Tennessee conservative heartthrob Fred Thompson in the race, South Carolinians still gave their support to the same McCain they had rejected eight years earlier.

For all the uninformed media spin about how South Carolina’s “extremism,” can anyone name a single time the GOP outsider or long-shot candidate won a presidential primary there? It hasn’t happened since Reagan in 1980.

And it’s not going to happen in 2012. Unless something truly astonishing happens, Mitt Romney will win South Carolina and the presidential primary will be over. The GOP will have picked a nominee before January’s even over.

It’s been the same stupid system for 30 years now. When is the GOP going to fix this?

Adam

[Peter]

I accept Adam’s explanation for what I saw as switching quotes for nefarious ends 8 -)

Adam wrote:

It’s been the same stupid system for 30 years now. When is the GOP going to fix this?

end quote

I would rather have primaries that are NOT winner take all. It would make for a more robust Convention. But the System is mostly fixed. The Tea Party is not a backroom full of fat cats making decisions while masking their reasons. The people the Constitution most needed to run, did not for personal reasons. Mitch Daniels from the great state of Indiana did not think his wife could handle it, though she and his grown daughters gave their green light. Paul Ryan would not consent to run, even after being bear hugged and coerced by Rush Limbaugh and Charles Krauthammer. Paul Ryan would not have lacked money or support, but he said his daughter and two sons who may be 10, 12, and 14 now were too young for the “campaign experience.”

If Paul Ryan had run the field might have been Ryan, Romney, and Paul. It was not the system. It is our expectations and hopes.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

The president of American Atheists, Dave Silverman, has written about Tebowing on the web. Silverman, 45, has added a clever twist to the fad. He is genuflecting like Tebow does when he prays, but he's also mimicking Rodin's The Thinker. This is a nod to the atheist or humanistic belief that it is man -- not a higher power -- who is purely in control of his fate. Silverman is Tebowing to his fellow man.

"The universe has a trillion stars," he says. "Ninety five percent of it is dark matter. It's hubris to think the Creator of all that wants the Broncos to win a football game."

Elsewhere -

BLYTHEWOOD, S.C. (AP) — Presidential candidate Rick Perry's criticism of Mitt Romney's business past had a boomerang effect Thursday, costing him the support of a prominent Republican in South Carolina. Investment fund executive and top GOP donor Barry Wynn told The Associated Press he was leaving the Perry fold to endorse Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. Wynn said Perry's attacks on Romney's time at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital had crossed the line in a political party that values free-market capitalism.

"I've been fighting for this cause most of my life," Wynn said. "It's like fingernails on the chalkboard. It just kind of irritated you to hear those kind of attacks."

Good. I also hope Crocodile Gingrich justly loses support.

From Newsmax

Gringrich South Carolina or bust.

Dear Friend and Supporter,

All the work we've done over the course of this campaign has led us to this: the South Carolina primary. You and I both know that this country needs Speaker Gingrich's bold leadership and conservative solutions now more than ever. Barack Obama has added more to the federal deficit than every President before him - combined! He's leading this country down a path of more government and less freedom, and we need a real Reagan conservative to help rebuild the America we love.

The South Carolina primary is make or break for this campaign . . .

I hope Gingrich drops out after losing in South Carolina, though it is odd that I never saw those attack ads from a Romney Pac against Gingrich in Iowa, but I do see Gingrich blasting Romney.

Peter

[Selene]

As a number of observers have noticed, Romney has escaped the main stream media anal exam that each of the other Republican candidates have received.

One exception to this "rule" came out of Chicago November 11,2011, but it is illustrative of how Obiwan's fascist media meat grinder will go after him. It will make the current Newt and Perry attacks seem tepid.

Here is the column and it is the tip of the ice berg...

How Romney grew rich by plundering companies

By Robyn Blummer November 11, 2011 9:30PM

Updated: December 14, 2011 8:25AM

If Mitt Romney wins the GOP nomination for president, the narrative for his 2012 run is pretty clear. He will tout his credentials as a savvy businessman who knows how to create jobs.

What Romney won’t tell you is that what he really knows how to do is create massive amounts of wealth for himself and his partners.

Jobs are another matter.

Romney co-founded the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1984, and owned 100 percent of the firm from approximately 1992 to 2001. During that time, he made a fortune while thousands of employees in some of the businesses Bain acquired lost their jobs.

The actions of Romney’s firm are detailed in the 2009 book by financial reporter Josh Kosman, The Buyout of America: How Private Equity is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy. The chapter that focuses on Romney and Bain Capital is aptly titled “Plunder and Profit.”

Private equity firms operate through leveraged buyouts. They create limited partnerships to buy companies, usually pretty healthy ones since it’s the only way to attract financing, and then they burden the companies with debt while trying to make the balance sheets look good, often by cutting costs such as workers or their benefits, to flip the companies within five years for a profit.

Private equity firms put a relatively small amount down, say, 20 percent, and the companies they are buying borrow the rest from banks making them responsible for repayment. Suddenly, a company that had a reasonable debt load, if any, is subjected to crushing repayment obligations.

The only reason this works, Kosman says, is because of a tax loophole that allows the interest on the loans to be tax deductible.

Now, when a business borrows money for capital equipment or a major expansion, it makes sense for the government to encourage that investment by making the interest tax deductible. But here the debt exists just so some clever rich guys can buy a company without much risk to themselves. By deducting the interest on the debt, the company reduces its tax liabilities and can use that money to make its debt payments.

Got it so far? Spend little, borrow big, evade taxes and get control of a lucrative asset.

Now the fun starts. To make a company look more valuable to a potential buyer, the companies are managed for short-term gains. Private equity firms often do this by making “deep cuts in spending on current operations and on research to develop new products.” Employees get fired. Reinvestment in the company is shortchanged — just the opposite of expanding economic growth and job opportunity.

Romney’s Bain Capital also figured out another way to make money from the companies it bought: have the companies borrow even more money and use it to pay the owners (themselves) distributions and dividends.

Romney denies that he was part of the decision to extract large sums from businesses that collapsed. But Kosman cites Geoffrey Rehnert, who helped start Bain Capital and who insists that Romney controlled the firm when it collected “enormous distributions from three companies ... it drove into bankruptcy.”

When companies managed by private equity firms do go bankrupt, as many do, crippled by debt and gouging, the private equity firms have already made a tidy profit from high transaction fees, management fees and dividend payments. It’s the employees and creditors who lose big.

While there may be cases where Bain Capital ended up improving some businesses, Kosman says “a significant amount of the money that Romney’s firm made was off companies that ended up going bankrupt.”

“Millions for me, a pink slip for thee,” is the playbook of many private equity firms, and Romney was one of their savviest players.

Robyn Blumner is a columnist and member of the editorial board of the St. Petersburg Times.

================================

Now my understanding of how Bain operated is not what is described in this piece. Apparently, the money that is used to leverage the buy outs comes from, for example, pension funds.

If anyone knows how a company like Bain operates, I would appreciate any insights you can provide.

Adam

[Selene]

This is how the Senatorial murderer went after Goody Two Shoes in 1994...

http://youtu.be/qyvy3Ze_fqw

Oh well just hit the link...

[Selene]

Hmmm...looks like Mr. Newt learned from Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox!

Despite a historic sweep of the first two nominating contests in the GOP field, Mitt Romney holds just a two percentage-point lead in South Carolina, his smallest lead of 2012.

Romney is the favorite of 23 percent of South Carolina voters, narrowly edging Newt Gingrich's 21 percent, according to the latest poll from Insider Advantage. Rick Santorum pulls 14 percent of Palmetto State voters, while Ron Paul rounds out the top four with 13 percent. Jon Huntsman's 7 percent and Rick Perry's 5 percent trail the pack.

The numbers could indicate that Gingrich's aggressive strategy — which has included controversial attacks on Romney's business and abortion records — is gaining him traction by hurting the GOP front-runner.

[Peter]

Adam wrote:

The numbers could indicate that Gingrich's aggressive strategy — which has included controversial attacks on Romney's business and abortion records — is gaining him traction by hurting the GOP front-runner.

end quote

I just watched the attack video, “When Mitt Romney came to town.” It features several people who lost their jobs at companies bought by Bain Capital. They are bitter and there is no Marxist rhetoric. The theme is that Romney bought companies then made money from closing them, losing these people their jobs, and leaving them without benefits. Apparently, the version I saw from Newsmax is a shorter version than the unofficial transcript of a fifteen minute version I found. I will print the full, unverified version at the bottom.

The following excerpts from various people sets the tone: Romney is evil because he doesn’t care.

Mitt Romney and them guys, they don’t care who I am.

Private equity leaders getting rich at the expense of American workers

They fire people, they cut benefits, they sell assets.

And that hurt so bad to leave my home. Because of one man that’s got 15 homes.

I feel that is a man that who destroyed us.

It was pretty much a family run organization. Everybody knew everybody and they cared about their employees. Everybody was in it for the quality. Trying to build a good product cuz, I mean, part of your name was on it. They met with everybody pulled everybody together and told us we were being sold to Raytheon which in turn turned out to be Bain.

I was scared. Very scared. Shortly after that in December of `07 my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. It was really scary You know, because that was one of the things we worried about is dropping our insurance and going out on our own. Not having any insurance with a job is really scary

Not having any insurance with a job is really scary

They did sell us. We were sold to A Teachers union out of Canada. What does teachers know about washing machines?

They never could get enough, no matter how much they already had they just could never get enough money.

end of excerpts

Were these people owed a living or owed a place to work? Was there anything dishonest done by Bain Capital? There is some insinuation without proof that fraud was used. The fact that people were scared, lost their jobs and benefits, or had their pay cut does not make a Capitalist immoral. That is the way the cookie crumbles. Freedom and Capitalism created the abundant civilization we have enjoyed.

I think Newt Gingrich has done Mitt Romney a service to bring this up before it is just Romney and Obama. But Newt is a crony capitalist, fascist skunk.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

WHEN MITT ROMNEY CAME TO TOWN (uncorrected transcript)

NARRATOR: Capitalism made America great. Free markets. Innovation, hard work-- the building blocks of the American dream. But in the wrong hands, some of those dreams can turn into nightmares. Wall Street’s corporate raiders made billions of dollars

NEWSCASTER: Private equity leaders getting rich at the expense of American workers

NARRATOR: Their greed was only matched by their willingness to do anything to make millions in profits. Nothing was spared. Nothing mattered but greed. This film is about one such raider and his firm. Mitt Romney became CEO of Bain Capital the day the company was formed. His mission. To reap massive rewards for himself and his investors.

WORKERS: Mitt Romney and them guys, they don’t care who I am. He’s for small business, no he isn’t, he’s not. You’re going to be on a hit list, you know that.

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

WORKER: They fire people, they cut benefits, they sell assets. But OK Let’s look deeper. Let’s look deeper in his life. What did he do when he was the CEO of this holding company?

NARRATOR: This film will highlight just four of Romney’s many targets. Four businesses, and And the thousands of employees who worked there.

WORKER: And that hurt so bad to leave my home. Because of one man that’s got 15 homes.

NEWSCASTER: He’s tearing down his 3,000 square foot house to build an 11,000 square foot house.

WORKER: I feel that is a man that who destroyed us.

(two minutes)

ROMNEY: I am intimately familiar with how our economy works. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people (Crowd jeers) Where do you think it goes? (Crowd shouts “Into your pockets!) Whose pockets? Whose pockets? Whose pockets?

NARRATOR: A story of greed, playing the system for a quick buck a group of corporate raiders led by Mitt Romney. More ruthless than Wall Street. For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town.

NARRATOR: The company was Bain Capital. Its CEO and president, a privileged son of a wealthy businessmen and politician, Mitt Romney. He had a Harvard pedigree and he was on a tear, making spectacular returns. Stripping American businesses of assets, selling everything to the highest bidder and often killing jobs for big financial rewards. One stop on Mitt Romney’s quest: Marianna Florida

NARRATOR: For more than 50 years, the UniMac corporations had steadily built an American workforce becoming the largest commercial laundry equipment manufacturer in north America

WORKERS : It was pretty much a family run organization. Everybody knew everybody and they cared about their employees. Everybody was in it for the quality. Trying to build a good product cuz, I mean, part of your name was on it. They met with everybody pulled everybody together and told us we were being sold to Raytheon which in turn turned out to be Bain.

NARRATOR: Back at his Massachusetts headquarters, Romney had found his target: Bain took control of UniMac

WORKERS: One of the first things that they did when we became part of the corporation was to start cheapening the product So you’d have to hurry faster though your work and the quality was going down. It got to the point where we would run out of parts trying to push so many out that sometimes we’d send a machine out without a part on it. You know, I just wish they’d left us alone back in the early `90s and we’d be making a lot of washing machines, and good ones. If they’d just left us alone as UniMac I think UniMac would still be running right now, as UniMac. And still have probably more than 500 employees by now.

(five minutes)

NARRATOR: According to New York Magazine, Romney’s Bain colleagues had a high distain for American businesses and their workers, describing them as sloppy and lazy. One of the very first orders of business for Romney and his team: Slash paychecks while keeping the workers in the dark

WORKERS: By that time, we already had a three year old. I was stressed out all the time because I never knew if I was going to have a job when I came in the next day We had insurance there. We both worked there. So when we go. if we was let go, we was let go at the same time Neither one of us had a job. And then at the very end they decided to shut the doors. I was scared. Very scared. Shortly after that in December of `07 my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. It was really scary You know, because that was one of the things we worried about is dropping our insurance and going out on our own. Not having any insurance with a job is really scary

NARRATOR: Romney and Bain upended the company and gutted the work force. Now they were ready to make a handsome profit.

WORKERS: They did sell us. We were sold to A Teachers union out of Canada. What does teachers know about washing machines?

NARRATOR: Romney and Bain sale to the Canadians netted a whopping 230 percent profit for Romeny and his investors. The deal left behind a trail of wreckage

ROMNEY: I’m convinced that if you want to create jobs, it helps to have had a job. And I’ve had jobs. And I’ll use that experience to help America.

WORKERS: They never could get enough, no matter how much they already had they just could never get enough money.

ROMNEY: For an economy to thrive there are a lot of people who will suffer as a result of that.

NARRATOR: For Tracy and Tommy Jones, their brush with Mitt Romney and company nearly tore their family apart.

WORKERS: We did. We It was very stressful and put a strain on our marriage Your whole lifestyle changed You’re making this much and now you’re making this much and your bills are up here and your income is still down here. It’s very bad, it’s very stressful.

NARRATOR: Romney and Bain’s cash rampage would ultimately slash jobs in nearly every state in the country. Like popular children’s toy seller KB Toys. Romney and Bain bought the 80 year old company in 2000, loaded KB toys with millions in debt. Then used the money to repurchase Bain stock. The debt was too staggering. By 2004, 365 stores had been closed

NEWSCASTER: The company is shutting down all of its stores. The attorney general is advising people to cash in those cards as soon as possible. As we told you yesterday, the toy chain has filed for bankruptcy.

NARRATOR: Romney called it “creative destruction”

ROMNEY: Creative destruction does enhance productivity for an economy to thrive as ours does there are a lot of people who will suffer as a result of that.

NARRATOR: Romney and other top executives take? $120 million. By 2009 the debt accumulated under Romney was too great. KB Toys was no more

ROMNEY: Heh! Make a profit, that’s the name of the game, right?

NARRATOR: Mitt Romney and Bain saw a 900 percent return on their investment. Romney and Bain’s profits, at the expense of 15,000 jobs, was described by the Boston Herald as “disgusting”

NEWSCASTER: Mitt Romney’s campaign boasts of the jobs the Republican presidential candidate created while running private equity firm Bain Capital h What it doesn’t talk about is Romney’s experience eliminating Jobs.

NARRATOR: Under Romney, Bain was making billions. At the same time, contributing to the greatest American job loss since World War II. It was called The Bain Way. Romney’s Bain Capital almost always managing to turn the misfortunes of others into their own enormous financial gains.

10 MINS

NARRATOR: A striking example of this was a technology company Bain financed with facilities in Texas, Colorado and California. The Company was called DDi. With help from friends at Wall Street’s Lehman Brothers, Bain was set to offer an initial public offering of stock in DDI. Lehman Brothers would issue a “buy” rating, and Romney and Bain would watch investors swarm. A signature of Romney’s Bain Way strategy: Employees were quickly fired to pump up profits. Helped by a favorable rating from Romney’s Wall Street friends. DDi’s 12 millions share IP raised a quick $70 million. People were buying into the promise that DDI was headed to become a billion dollar company. Then, instead of sticking with the stock ,Bain dumped it. Just after six months, Bain sold shares making $39 million Then they dumped the rest just four months later, collecting $54 million more. All the while the Wall Street banks they hired gave cover, issuing glowing reports. DDi ended up losing $400 million. Nearly two years later the stock was nearly worthless. The result: DDI filed for bankruptcy. 2,100 jobs were lost. Average investors without insider connections were left with huge losses.

(TWELVE MINUTES)

NARRATOR: Romney denies being involved with the controversial deal claiming to have left Bain to have led the 2002 Olympic organizing committee

Clip of Romney speaking French

NARRATOR: But FEC filings prove otherwise. During the DDi deal, Romney is listed as a member of the management committee of Bain Capital, with control of more than 1.3 million shares of DDi Corp. Sure enough, the probe uncovered evidence that Lehman brothers continued to encourage investors to buy DDi stock, even though they had “misgivings” themselves. Romany’s Bain-Way model played out over and over. Employees, creditors and investors were hurt.

But not Bain. Even though time and time again, thousands of jobs were lost, investors and creditors were out hundreds of millions. Romney and Bain made piles of money. The vicious cycle would play itself out in America’s heartland.

WORKER: Marion (Indiana) used to be such a booming town. We used to be a town full of industry. Were just like all family out there, you know. And it changed. Overnight it changed. It sure did.

NARRATOR: In 1992, an interesting prospect appeared on the Romney/Bain radar. A paper company called Ampad, with

With plants in Holyoke Mass., Buffalo, New York and Marion, Indiana.

The potentials was there for Romney and his investors to reap a

bonanza of cash, perhaps over $100 million

WORKERS: I think this company knew when they come in they had No intention of keeping us. And they told us that we’d been bought by Ampad and that we were all fired. Well, they said AmPad Corp., but the guy that was in charge of Ampad Corp. at that time was Mitt Romney. I was pregnant at the time, and at the meeting they told everybody that we were all fired, we had to reapply for our jobs. We made appointments to do this hiring process, we went in and interviewed and they would they would let us know yea or nay. I was a nay

We just knew we was gonna have a job. It was going to be OK for us until AmPad came in

No cooperation at all and then all of a sudden, boom, out of nowhere, Ampad and it really got greedy. It was not the way it should be. Everybody was fired. And you know, when you’ve been there all those years. The plant’s been in Marion all those years, and been sold the different time that we have , and we always went on the same. And then we have this company that comes in and destroys everything that we ever worked for.

(FIFTEEN MINUTES)

NARRATOR:: Romney’s hatchet men moved in, firing some, re-hiring others, slashing paychecks.

WORKER Well we had a paycut. I was cut two dollars on my wages

My husband and I raised a total of 10 children.

And we still had a 10 year old and a 12 year old at home. And I though

My gosh how are we going to make it.

NARRATOR: While keeping a smaller workforce, Romney and Bain Began executing a scheme the New York Times called “Getting back your bait.”

By running up extraordinary debt.

WORKER I think I was fortunate because I did have husband that I could talk to. I cried a lot. It was tough getting through. You didn’t know what was going to happen. You didn’t know if you was going to lose your house. There was times that we did get

ROMNEY: I am intimately familiar with how our economy works. I’m working very hard to make sure That the workers of this country have a brighter future

WORKERS: How he did not fix the economy when he pulled the rug out from under our plant

NEWSCASTER A political misstep for workers….That’s he’s unemployed, too.

WORKERS: it’s really easy to say you’re unemployed when you have millions of dollars. Every evening I listen to the news and I get very upset. Some nights it don’t pay me to listen to

especially when a certain candidate for president that ticks my ticker

NARRATOR: In six months, over 200 of the employees that Romney and Bain had rehired were all fired.

WORKERS: The ones I felt really bad for were the husbands and wives that worked together at the same place. Now they’ve got absolutely nothing.

NARRATOR:: Lula Gibson and her husband James were one such couple. They had a son in high school.

WORKER: I think the hardest part for me is the day that we had to load up the U-Haul because we done lost our home and we was getting ready to leave and I turned around and I seen my home, I had no more. And that was hard, very hard.

NARRATOR: For Shannon Conliff, the emotional toll was hard on a new mother

WORKER: It scared me, our first Christmas with our first stw baby

And it was unsure. The fear of not being able to provide for your family

People grew up in this area and then they had to leave this area to find other employments and they left most of their family behind to start over.

Oh Christmas time,. that used to be the biggest thing that we had was our Christmas and when you only got maybe two gifts for you kids that hurt.

You know when they have families, have little ones, heir livelihoods was there, they were making a good wage, and this company comes in and the knock it all away, the knock their wages down. They take their jobs away and then eventually they close the plant

We had lots of the kids college money, and we had to go through all of that. People were losing homes and , you known money they had saved , they had to use it up so you know to survive, to live.

NARRATOR: For Romney it was a score. Romney and Bain went on to make over $100 million from AmPad

ROMNEY: Corporations are people, my friend. Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people

WORKERS: Well And Mitt Romney was the one that was in there, and we feel like if he would have wanted to, he was in a position that he could have said, “Hey, these people still got time left.” No, that was not the deal. They wanted the machinery, they didn’t want us. And that’s want they got. They could care less about us they way I see it. Who am I? I’m Bob Saffit.

ROMNEY: Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets !

NARRATOR: To Romney and to others, it was a pit of despair.

WORKERS: And there were times you skip a meal so your kids could have something to eat. You know it’s amazing how many ways and how many means you can do with one package of hot dogs if you have to. That was rough.

WORKER: Losing a house. Losing a car How are you going to pay your bills?

NEWSCASTER Mitt Romney and Bain took a hit to their reputations, but not their wallets. He and his investors

NARRATOR: Romney had made himself rich beyond all imagination

He went on to purchase a $3 million home

Private beach

And a $12 million beachfront property in California

NEWSCASTER Romney is planning to bulldoze his 3,000 square foot home and replace it with an 11,000 square foot home instead

WORKERS: And that hurt so bad to leave my home because of one man who’s got 15 homes

NARRATOR: More than a quarter of a billion dollars. Wealthy Latin American investors, Is worth $65 billion today.

WORKER: He seems like an all right guy, just look at him. People that didn’t know him would think, hey, this guys’ OK But OK, Let’s look deeper in his life. I think he’s a money man and he’s going to look out for the money people. He didn’t look for us little peons anyway. He doesn’t look out for us. We’re just a little group over there. So you put him in charge up there over everything And then what? What’s going to happen then?

NARRATOR: For some of the thousands of American workers he left in the dust, the nightmare never stopped.

WORKER: It’s been rough on a lot of people A lot of lives were ruined. I don’t ever want to go through it again. .

NARRATOR:: Now Romney says he wants to bring what he learned on Wall Street to the White House. What would his cabinet look like? Who would he put in positions of power around him?

ROMNEY: I spent my life in the real economy. And I mean by that I didn’t just watch jobs get created and saved. I did that myself.

WORKER It happened so quickly, going in and the factory closed. Everybody was fired

ROMNEY: Being in the private sector for 25 years, therefore knowing how the economy works --why jobs come, and why they go.

WORKERS: And that hurt so bad, to leave my home. That was our way of life because I’d been there since I was 18 years old

ROMNEY: Not just watch jobs being created, but actually creating jobs.

WORKERS: He took away our livelihood. He took away our futures. You know maybe it’s kind of like the old saying, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

ROMNEY: It’s not a pretty picture, is it?

WORKERS: We don’t have middle class people no more. Rich and poor. That is it . And laying off 385 worker You didn’t save those jobs, governor. No, there’s no question. What happened here? We used to have a large middle class We don’t have the type of jobs to keep that median family going

He destroyed a lot of people’s lives out there Bain reaped millions

closed factories or plunged into bankruptcy.

That’s what they do. Is it right? NO, but it’s the way it’s done

They go back to greed. It all ends up back to greed

ROMNEY: There are a lot of reasons not to elect me

WORKERS: NO matter how much they already had, they

He’s more apt to put them out of work

ROMNEY: They just don’ know how jobs are created in the private sectors. That’s where I spent my entire career.

WORKERS: His job is to go in and fire people.

Most people I know, they’re just trying to get by

He’s not meaning one bit of what he’s saying.

ROMNEY: Hold on just a moment, hold on just a moment, hold on just a moment. No, it’s just politics. If you don’t like my answer, you can vote for someone else.

WORKERS: What do you get out of treating people like this ?

He is there for the almighty dollars

ROMNEY: 25 million people don’t have jobs and can’t find jobs (Crowd jeers -- Wall Street greed! Wall Street greed!) OK, next question, do we have another question?

On screen: Nearly every

Romney’s own financial statement shows his personal fortune to be at least a quarter-billion dollars

The bulk of Mitt Romney’s personal wealth remains in blind trusts

And overseas bank accounts.

[Peter]

I just renewed and gave a subscription to a friend.

Independent Objectivist,

Peter Taylor

TIA Daily • January 12, 2012

FEATURE ARTICLE

The GOP’s Lost Generation

Part 2: Ideas, Not Men

by Robert Tracinski

Editor's Note: Thanks to all of my readers who offered advice on switching to a Mac, for which there seems to be quite a constituency. My old laptop may be cobbled back together in some form as soon as tomorrow, but I'm going to make a switch as soon as I can.

I'm leaning toward a MacBook Air, which has better portability and a solid state memory, which seems appealing because most of my previous computer crashes (including this latest one) were caused by hard drive failures.

Here's one other way you can help. A good number of TIA Daily readers are up for renewal soon. You know who you are, because I've been sending you notices. I know most of you will renew your subscriptions in the next few weeks or months, but if you could do so earlier rather than later, it would help me replace my computer, and I would be personally grateful. Go to

www.TIADaily.com/subscribe.—RWT

This article is continued from the previous edition of TIA Daily.

So this is a choice between bad and worse candidates, and with their new anti-business rhetoric, the other candidates are doing what I thought was impossible: they’re making me think Romney might be the best of a bad lot.

If all of this seems familiar, that’s because the same thing happened last year. We ended up with a race between John McCain, 2008’s "unacceptable" statist moderate, Mike Huckabee (that year’s Rick Santorum), and Ron Paul. The story is consistent. Despite the supposed impact of the "Reagan Revolution," and despite the Tea Party revival of the past few years, the post-Reagan generation has not been able to produce anyone in the top ranks of Republican leadership who is a staunch, principled defender of capitalism.

Why?

Political horse race expert Jay Cost argues that the modern primary system—reformed in the 1970s to give less power to active party organizers and more power to relatively uninformed, non-ideological voters—is rigged against grassroots conservatives and in favor of bland, moderate establishment types.

Maybe so. But then again, the Republicans put forward plenty of bland establishment types before the 1970s. And this cycle's Andy Warhol primary, in which everyone gets to be the front-runner for 15 minutes, has provided plenty of opportunity for non-establishment candidates to have their shot at winning. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry all were Washington outsiders (to some degree or another) with a claim to the support of the Tea Party grassroots. Each had their turn as the "Not-Romney" front-runner, and they all undermined their campaigns through their own efforts. I don't doubt that there would have been room in this campaign for some of the other grassroots favorites who chose not to run (and may now be regretting that decision).

No, the bigger story here is that the major candidates, the ones with the most political experience, money, and endorsements, are those who have established themselves as national-level political figures over a period of many years. And how did such political leaders establish themselves over the past few decades, in the post-Reagan era? Largely by doing something other than being staunch, principled advocates of the free market. Congress in the 1990s did do some significant things to rein in the growth of government, but Republicans became distracted by the culture wars and by mimicking Clinton-style ideological "triangulation" by adopting "compassionate conservatism." In the past decade, their attention was diverted by a more understandable distraction, the War on Terrorism, but that meant that in domestic policy there was little counter-balance to the "compassionate conservatives," with their moderate welfare-statism and their push for an "ownership society" that included the issuance of lots of government-guaranteed mortgages.

In the fifteen years between the Republican Revolution in 1994 and the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2009, these were the issues that diverted the Republican Party from principled advocacy of the free market. And this is the period in which candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney built the base for their current presidential runs.

Ron Paul is a rather different case, but in a way he reinforces this point by showing that the only person who doesn't fit the pattern came out of left field—an apt metaphor when it comes to his foreign policy.

The deeper cause of this trend is ideological. The Republicans have a long history of me-too-ism when it comes to the welfare state, which is rooted in philosophical me-too-ism. Like the left, they grant the premise that self-interest is evil and that the individual needs to be sacrificed for the greater good of the community. Yet the Republicans are also influenced by the traditional American culture of individualism, the ideas of free-market economists, and of course the growing influence of Ayn Rand's individualist philosophy, a fact that became indisputable last year when we saw how many of Ayn Rand's fans on the right flocked to see the Atlas Shrugged movie.

But because this individualist strain of the right is not firmly ideologically established, it tends to assert itself only in times of crisis. This strain of the right becomes dominant only when the free market is under attack by a rapid and sustained push for government control of the economy, as it was in the 1970s under Carter, in the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, and today under Obama. When there is not an openly acknowledged crisis of the free market—as during the decade and a half between 1994 and 2009—then politics is dominated by something else that is a crisis (such as 9/11) or which substitutes for a crisis (presidential philandering).

So you can think of the current crop of presidential candidates as representing the GOP's lost generation, a group of political leaders who came to prominence at a time when the party had lost its focus, its will, and its ideological moorings on economic issues.

Hence the fact that Republicans have a poor "bench" this year.

Over at RealClearPolitics, Sean Trende also describes how losses in recent elections, particularly 2006 and 2008, knocked out a some up-and-coming Senate and gubernatorial candidates who might have provided a better alternative this year. The corollary, of course, is that the 2010 election provided us with one of best crops of radicalized pro-free-marketers we've ever had. But they have only just taken office and it is too early for them to have risen into leadership positions, established national reputations, and prepared to run for higher office.

That's the way our system is supposed to work. The Tea Party movement has radicalized a good portion of the GOP, but it is less than three years old, and our political system is designed to dampen radical swings in public sentiment and prevent a rapid overhaul of the political system. If that stops us from getting what we want, remember that it's also supposed to stop the left from taking advantage of political swings in their favor.

After all, can you imagine what would happen if some obscure state senator with a radical agenda could get elected to Congress, run for president after only two years on the national stage, and win because of a momentary lurch in public mood? Can you imagine what a disaster that would be?

Maybe you can, but the point is that this is not supposed to happen. It's just our rotten luck that 2008 was the exception to the rule.

The good news, as Sean Trende points out, is that the Republicans' recent shift to the right gives us a much better bench of vice-presidential candidates, particularly among 2010's Tea Party candidates. And that is where we should focus our political hopes for this year.

Right now, it looks like Mitt Romney has a very clear path to the nomination. He is comfortably ahead in South Carolina and Florida, the next two primary states, so the next month holds out the prospect of a series of clear wins for Romney, with no point at which he is likely to lose a primary. And I can't honestly say that there is a better alternative in the race.

If Romney is the nominee, the smart calculation for him to make—and he's the sort of guy who can be counted on to make the smart calculation—would be to pick one of these more radicalized younger politicians.

This is how vice-presidential nominations are supposed to work. The candidate usually picks someone who compensates for his political weak spots. George W. Bush was seen as inexperienced (which seems laughable now, after Obama), so he picked an elder statesman, Dick Cheney. Reagan was seen as too radical, so he picked a moderate, the elder Bush, to reassure the establishment. Romney is seen as too moderate, so his best choice is to pick someone who is seen as being more radical.

The most likely choice is Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Young and new to the national stage, Rubio went from the state legislature to the US Senate in 2010 as an insurgent Tea Party challenger to a moderate, statist, establishment Republican. Rubio could not have run for national office on his own, with even less time in Congress than Obama had, but on Romney's ticket he would bring three things. He could deliver a key state, Florida. He would appeal to a key demographic, the Hispanic vote, which would really hurt Obama because his campaign has written off blue-collar whites and is depending on the racial vote. And he shores up Romney with the Tea Party base, where Rubio enjoys an "A+" rating from grass-roots pro-free-market groups like Americans for Prosperity. He could serve the function Sarah Palin originally served for John McCain in 2008. The Republican base won't be enthusiastic about voting for Romney, but they will be about voting for someone like Rubio.

(Another way Romney can earn the support of Tea Partiers would be by indicating that he would appoint strong pro-free-marketers to key cabinet positions. I'm thinking someone like Mitch Daniels at the Department of Health and Human Services, where he would be in charge of dismantling ObamaCare and championing entitlement reform.)

Focusing on the vice-presidency is about more than hoping that Rubio will have an ideological influence on Romney, though that is likely to be significant. The vice-president has taken on a bigger role in recent decades as an advisor and adjutant to the president. But the point is also to groom one of the younger generation of Republicans, giving us a new leader for a slightly less lost generation of Republicans.

In the end, though, this is about more than waiting for the right leader to come along. One of my basic rules is never to give your heart to a politician. Never back him because you are convinced that he is a totally upright and principled man who will never deviate from the right and true course, because such men are vanishingly rare. This, incidentally, is what I find annoying about Ron Paul supporters: their love is blind. They are like a woman who has become infatuated with an unworthy suitor. When you point out his flaws, they don't get angry with him for having the flaws, they get angry with you for pointing them out.

By character and professional inclination, politicians are pragmatists. If we advocate the right views, win the public debate, and gain a constituency, we can cause the political pragmatists to adjust to the new reality we created. Here's a case in point: Mitt Romney's barnburner of a victory speech after the New Hampshire primary. Summoning greater sincerity than he has been able to fake up to this point, Romney declared:

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense. Our campaign is about more than replacing a President; it is about saving the soul of America. This election is a choice between two very different destinies.

President Obama wants to "fundamentally transform" America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great. He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.... He is making the federal government bigger, burdensome, and bloated. I will make it simpler, smaller, and smarter.

He raised the national debt. I will cut, cap, and balance the budget. He enacted job-killing regulations; I'll eliminate them. He lost our AAA credit rating; I'll restore it. He passed Obamacare; I'll repeal it....

Our plans protect freedom and opportunity, and our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle-to-grave assurances that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise more benefits, then I'm not your President.

Romney as the candidate who offers a "clear and unapologetic defense" of the "ideals of economic freedom"? This contest just keeps getting weirder. But note that this is more than just appealing rhetoric. He publicly and specifically committed to some key political goals, such as the repeal of ObamaCare and, more important, the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" proposal that would limit federal spending as a percentage of GDP.

Is this a "new Romney"? Yes, because we have made it politically advantageous for him to talk like this and to stake out these positions. If we hadn't, he wouldn't be doing it, and if we stop, well, I think we know that he's capable of elegantly reversing himself.

That brings me back to the point I've been making since the beginning of this cycle's misbegotten Republican primaries: this is a good year to focus on ideas and not men. Our task this year, and for the next four years, is to win the debate on its ideological merits, from the grassroots up. If we do that, our "leaders" will follow.

[Selene]

Adam wrote:

The numbers could indicate that Gingrich's aggressive strategy — which has included controversial attacks on Romney's business and abortion records — is gaining him traction by hurting the GOP front-runner.

end quote

I just watched the attack video, “When Mitt Romney came to town.” It features several people who lost their jobs at companies bought by Bain Capital. They are bitter and there is no Marxist rhetoric.

This video is devastating. I cannot get the picture out of my mind of Goody Two Shoes with the smile, the money in his hand and the jerk to his right with the money in his mouth!

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=_evS-T-c35M

Here is the entire twenty-eight (28) minute King of Bain film...

http://www.kingofbain.com/

[Peter]

Adam wrote:

This video is devastating. I cannot get the picture out of my mind of Goody Two Shoes with the smile, the money in his hand and the jerk to his right with the money in his mouth!

end quote

No one is really praising the attack video now, not even Newt Gingrich. But you got me thinking. I knew “productivity” was a religious virtue to the Latter Day Saints, as was charity or benevolence. I went to a Mormon site and the vast majority of Mormons polled viewed charity as a “necessary” virtue for salvation. They view "personal" chicanery, deception, fraud or failure as very, very negative.

If Mitt, as a Capitalist Mormon, profited through the failure of any company he most likely felt quite bad about it though he still took the money as a reward for his venture capitalism.

Gordon Gecho might say, “Greed is good,” BUT on a deep, personal level I am positive Mitt would say, “the creation of wealth is good.”

What is the difference? Both want to make money, but Gordon Gecho WANTS TO fool the other smart ass rubes on Wall Street or Main Street and take their money.

In contrast, it is Romney’s *intent* to do good and create wealth. Yes. I think intent is the difference, but with Capitalism, you win some you lose some. Benevolence makes you say, “I wish it had worked out better for the people who lost their jobs.”

While discredited altruism would say, “I owe the people who lost their jobs compensation.”

No he doesn’t nor would I think that if I were in Mitt’s shoes. In my younger years I worked for the giant, Moore Business Forms, until they closed their plant here and opened one in Mexico. I worked for IKON Copiers until my position was eliminated due to contraction in the industry. I welcomed my severances but I felt no need to make a video criticizing them for closing and eliminating my job.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

I just saw this so I am adding it to my letter. Larry Kudlow wrote in TownHall:

There’s a very troubled company out there called U.S. Government, Inc. It’s teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And it badly needs to be taken over and turned around. It probably even needs the services of a good private-equity firm, with plenty of experience and a reasonably good track record in downsizing, modernizing, shrinking staff, and making substantial changes in management. Yes, layoffs will be a necessary part of the restructuring.

[Selene]

Peter:

There has been an assault on free market capitalism for the last one hundred and thirty plus (130+) years, by various sources.

Presidential political persuasion picks "images" that are repeated over and over again through various mediums. The image of Goody Two Shoes in that one picture will form the foundation of O'biwan, the marxist's hate capitalism campaign.

Remember, the intellectual field has been fertilized with progressive hatred in our movies, books, sermons, television, school indoctrination and political gatekeepers since Dewey.

This overwhelming generational conditioning is manifesting itself in this year's election.

Now, thankfully, Obiwan has fucked up the economy so effectively, and deeply, that the gut level resentment of him and his policies may win the day.

My problem is winning the day with Goody Two Shoes because I have absolutely no confidence in his dedication to ripping the centralized state out by its roots.

I listen to him speak and I am not convinced that he believes what comes out of his mouth.

Now, this could be my personal blind spot, and I hope that it is, because this election is the watershed election.

Certainly, in my lifetime, this is the pivotal place to stop this onslaught of centralized collectivism.

Adam

[Peter]

Adam wrote:

My problem is winning the day with Goody Two Shoes because I have absolutely no confidence in his dedication to ripping the centralized state out by its roots.

end quote

The name, “Goody Two Shoes” could be worse. It could be, “Goofy Two Shoes,” but Mitt is no John McCain.

You cannot have it both ways, Adam. If he is a Goody Two Shoes then you should have confidence in his dedication to ripping the centralized state out by its roots, or at the very least to do the reflective, necessary, political things to put this country back on a sound financial footing. I don’t mean to imply any Captain Queeg obsessive-ness or Joan of Arc sense of destiny to him, but if you look at him reflectively, you will see that his internally driven self MUST SUCCEED. At his “goodiest” he will have the internal convictions of the Tea Party. At his “worstest” he will reflect the thinking of the most influential portion of the 2016 electorate so that he may be reelected. His record from 2013 to 2016 will be the chalk board he will draw his strategy upon. We must be part of the motivating influence. I feel the rational self interest of the Objectivist Movement is to get him elected and then influence him through the Tea Party and the radical Capitalists who were elected to the 2010 Congress.

It may be because of the conservative place where I live but I do not see the Tea Party shrinking at all. We are still here, seething with pissed off energy to put this country back together the way our Founding Fathers meant it to be, back the way WE want it to be, and the way it SHOULD BE. Attention! Hail to the chief!

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

Peter:

You live in Maryland...correct?

Isn't that like living in North Korea? It is an extreme left wing state, possibly as bad, or worse than Massachusetts. Maybe you should start where charity begins...

Secondly, perhaps you have not noticed, but the alleged "...radical Capitalists who were elected to the 2010 Congress" have been castrated by Boehner in the House, and, sold out by McConnell in the Senate.

Thirdly, you brought up the "goofy" description. My sarcastic "Goody Two Shoes" moniker strikes at the squeaky clean demeanor that he projects. Frankly, to deal with the statist scum in Washington, I would prefer a reformed blackguard who is a cynic which is a humanist with experience.

Finally, as long as the statist scum can look us in the eye and not pass a single clean bill that prohibits any and all profiteering from any and all insider information they are not deserving of any respect at all.

Therefore, I do not have your faith in a Romney administration.

Adam

[Peter]

The big cheese, Newt Joisey Edam asked:

You live in Maryland...correct? Isn't that like living in North Korea?

end quote

Say that moniker is pretty good. If you call Mitt goody, I will call you gouda.

I live in an entirely different part of the country named Delmarva or the Delmarva Peninsula, also called the land of pleasant living, or The Land of Sky Blue Waters because we are surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Some of us who live just across the Mason Dixon Line say we are from “Slower, lower Delaware.” We are also called “Down Homers” because when we disagree with people we say, “Now down home we don’t do things that way.” We call immigrants to Delmarva “Come Here’s” and we are suspicious of them.” We are Patriotic, Conservative, and Vote Tea Party Republican, except for retired Come Here’s who arrive from across the Bay, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey. We consider the Chesapeake Bay our castle’s moat.

Adam wrote:

Therefore, I do not have your faith in a Romney administration.

End quote

Picture the Left Wing, Right Wing Chart. Consider Mitt’s personae’s evolution, whether real or not. Consider where Obama has taken us. Where would you place each on the chart? Please no snit-iness. Seriously.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor