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(UPDATED) Why ‘When Mitt Romney Came To Town’ Is The Most Brutal Campaign Video Evah
Jan 13th, 2012 | 29 responses
I have just watched When Mitt Romney Came to Town and it is, in a word, devastating.
The 28-minute film from Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC, a series of interviews with ordinary folk whose lives were never the same after Romney’s Bain Capital bought and took down local companies, is a double condemnation — both of his private equity work and the business model he used to get filthy rich.
The interviews are with families from four businesses that Bain looted:
Some of their comments:
“I had to leave my home because of a man who has 15 homes.”
“They never could get enough. No matter how much they had they always wanted more.”
“We used to be a town full of industry . . . and overnight that changed.”
“They had no intention of keeping us.”
“When you’re there all those years . . . we always went on the same and then we have this company come in and destroy everything we worked for.”
“I cried a lot.”
“The hardest day for me is when he done loaded the U-Haul because we had lost our home. That was hard, very hard.”
“They wanted the machinery. They didn’t want us.”
“Christmastime used to be the biggest thing we had and you only got maybe two gifts for your kids, that hurt.”
“There’s times when you skip a meal so your kids can have something to eat.”
“He is the man who destroyed us.”
The interviews are interspersed with sound bites of Romney at his most imperious. It matters not that some of them are surely out of context:
Examples:
“For an economy to thrive there are people who will have to suffer.”
“Creative destruction does enhance productivity.”
“I didn’t just watch jobs being created, I created jobs.”
“Corporations are people, my friend.”
“I am working very hard to make sure that the workers of this country have a brighter future.”
As David Nir puts it at Daily Kos, “The attacks, the language, the framing — the very core — of this hit job sound like things you’d expect from a lefty operation. . . . It’s been pretty remarkable watching the GOP primary field adopt the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street in slamming ‘corporate raider’ Mitt Romney over the past few days, but this just takes the cake. Amazing stuff.”
Ed Kilgore, writing at The Democratic Strategist, calls the video “a heat-seeking missile aimed directly at the white working class id,” and it is that white working class that Romney needs if he is going to beat President Obama.
The video, of course, is much longer than the typical 30- or 60-second television ad, and Gingrich’s surrogates are considering plans to buy half-hour blocks on South Carolina television. In the meantime, the entire video is getting saturation coverage throughout the state.
But is the video fair?
Romney has very much brought When Mitt Romney Came to Town on himself. After watching the video a second and then a third time it gave me new insight into why he remains so unpopular among so many Republicans and has not, in business parlance, been able to close the deal after a year of non-stop campaigning. This has less to do with his politics (whatever they are on a particular day) than the reality that he is a resume without a man.
Mitt Romney is an empty suit, not a winner.
We’ll go to Andrew Sullivan for the final word:
What makes [the video] 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 f—ing 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.
29 Responses to “(UPDATED) Why ‘When Mitt Romney Came To Town’ Is The Most Brutal Campaign Video Evah”
I’m not sure if unethical capitalism will matter much this election. The argument or, “debate”, seems to be Social Capitalism vs. Unrestricted Capitalism.
The Republican party is betting that the later, described as “free market or unregulated, “business”, is what people will vote for, while blaming the former for our economic and employment woes. That is the argument they have always promoted. If you are a free marketer, you must tune out ethics at least to some degree, in my opinion.
The media holds the key to what people think, with longer term indoctrination of viewers, not so much the political adds. CNN suggests to the public that it is “moderate”, or, otherwise “unbiased thus moderate”, presumably with the ear of the independents and other “moderate” persona. To my dismay, I’ve noticed CNN has been pushing toward the “free market” political ideology, with their subtle comments coming more often since the Christmas holidays.
If you believe that moderates, or, independents will decide this election, you must believe that CNN wants you to believe that it is they, that have what you want to hear. In my opinion CNN is fiscal conservative and social liberal. Romney must be their kind of candidate, so I doubt CNN will promote much anti-Romney conversation in their programmed propaganda, baring some shocking revelation.
Citizens United is David Bossie’s pro-Gingrich Super PAC. His video “Hillary the Movie,” was the foundation for the Citizens United case.
The Romney hit video is made from the same mold.
you reap what you sow
The Republican Party is certainly “reaping” hatred among their peers now.
Let’s face the dire truth. The US is founded on vulture capitalism. What else is slavery?
It is a myth that capitalism is pure and good by itself and must not be regulated. It is now time to stand up for true righteousness and expose the hypocrisy.
Remember the civil war and how unwillingness and stubborness led to the bloodiest war in the history of the US. Great Britain got rid of slavery in a peaceful way. The United States, where all men are created equal on paper, had to have it pried out of their fingers.
What would happen if the rich, who profit from vulture capitalism, and their powerful friends in the media and in Washington, are as stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge the evil of vulture capitalism. Why would God not bring justice to those oppressed by this selfish system as He did for the slaves?
Watch my video: A German’s preachers thoughts on 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpLYq525SpM
How do people *think* Mitt got rich? By leveraging his influence and name to convince a bunch of corporate raiders that he would give them legitimacy and political cover.
Another guy born on third base, who is trying to make us believe he hit a triple.
The myth of a free market is a powerful one. The belief that there is a natural, organic, self-regulating market that can exist largely independently of the government has probably caused more economic damage to the United States than anything else in its history. And while doing all of this damage the myth survives virtually unquestioned. It is in fact looked to as the major way to repair the damage that it caused.
The myth requires absolute fealty from its faithful to its tenets. To admit that the market is even in part a product of the society and the society’s government is to admit that the market is subject to that society and government and not the other way around. Only if the market is a product of nature and not of man must we accept its outcomes no matter what they are. If instead the market is a product of man then if we are unhappy with the market’s outcomes then we can try to change the market to produce the outcomes we want.
Couple this with the myth of the successful businessman rescuing government from itself by running it as a business and you have probably 95% of Romney’s campaign and appeal. This myth ignores some simple facts.
The problems that businesses and the market solve are simple and easy compared to ones the government has to solve. By definition the problems that government has to solve are the ones that the simple mechanism of the market can’t solve.
A business has only one goal, profit, and only one group to satisfy, the stockholders, the owners. The goals of government are multiple and diverse and it must satisfy a majority of the members of society. Success is easy to measure in business, just count the money. Success in government is much harder to measure and the measures are different depending on who is doing the measuring.
Both government and business are human endeavors and as such are subject to failings of humans. But our government is much more exposed and transparent than our businesses, its failures are much more exposed than those of businesses. It is axiomatic that most people believe that there are two totally corrupt and inefficient organizations around, the government and the company that they work for.
merkin-
-”Both government and business are human endeavors and as such are subject to failings of humans. But our government is much more exposed and transparent than our businesses, its failures are much more exposed than those of businesses”-
Man you really got that right. I would add that as long as business gets it’s way, government is going to stay vulnerable. Which is unfortunate for our people, because it will be at the expense of our people.
When I said reap what you sow I was actually talking about how his supporters went neg against Newt. Up until recently one of the things I liked was Newt mostly refrained from hitting the other candidates too badly and tried to slam Obama or hit talking points. If anyone thought Newt had mellowed from when he was one of the most skilled cutthroat politicians out there this shows them different. I bet Romney is regretting his big shoulders comment now.
RE the corrupt and traitorous citizens united decision – this quote from a friend of Bill Moyers: “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
As for Romney, he might as well be a robot given some of the comments he’s made. The empathy deficit in today’s R’s isn’t new, but Mitt is taking it to new levels.
I watched the video. If moveon.org had made it, most of the pundits (not just Fox News) would likely have been hammering it as way over the top. I’ll give this to the producers of the video: it is harsh.
If anyone thought Newt had mellowed from when he was one of the most skilled cutthroat politicians out there this shows them different.
Thanks
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merkin:”Both government and business are human endeavors and as such are subject to failings of humans. But our government is much more exposed and transparent than our businesses, its failures are much more exposed than those of businesses.”
As I’ve tried to get across several times, the big problem comes from the unholy alliance between the two. Business is more vulnerable to the opinion of people than government, as the SOPA fight is so aptly showing. Your legislators can ignore your calls and letters, but GoDaddy discovered very quickly that they couldn’t. Even the almighty Bank of America sounded retreat when faced with consumer backlash.
With business, small to medium sized groups of people can effectively scare them at any time. Legislators have to worry about only the majority.
Zephyr-
That Bill Moyers quote is the best I’ve heard in years. Thanks for posting it.
I guess we need Elizabeth Warren to be the VP choice of Hillary Clinton someday, with Harrison Bergeron as the new Secretary of Equality, a cabinet level department (or better, Equalization). Success and failure, winning and losing, better and worse will be banned forever! Yeah!
Why haven’t we seen yet anybody trying to see if this was just a vulture kind of thing, 1980s style, ruthless, or something often more meaningful such as with the famous vulture Wilbur Ross that saved the steel industry, among other things, or if it’s more that Bain mostly was a real venture firm that financed start-ups. It’s just typical left-wing Occupy garbage we’re given.
I’m also still surprised nobody has quoted Schumpeter about “creative destruction” and had some (Romney? wow) say that he was an aid to the process. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I and Bain were a catalyst, an enzyme or hormone making the economy healthier!” What would the resction be to that? Ha ha
The film is terrifically effective almost as good as any made by Leni Riefenstahl.
brewhouse-
You have bigger worries than Hillary. Dennis Kucinich will be our President elect in 2016, and, I think it is wonderful.
“I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
Enron,
I think it’s a great little film and the producers could not have chosen better people… poor, hardworking vulnerable people who lost much because of Romney’s greed. Much has been made about Romney’s religious beliefs, which I could care less about. However Romney certainly has no morals. No doubt as a Mormon he tithes. He may even think of himself as a good person who helps others because of his donations. But you know what? You can’t buy your way into heaven. Especially if one destroys so many lives of innocent hardworking people for one’s own personal gain.
Umm…did none of you actually check the ‘facts’ cited in the film? Please got to factcheck.org or politifact.com to see the distortions, lies, and outright fraud that exist in the film. Yes it is devastating. Yes it is sad. No, it is not factual.
I am not defending Romney’s business career; I am simply trying to point out that one can cherry-pick the Bible as follows:
David danced before the Ark of the Lord. Jesus wept.
Gee, RC, if we wanted true facts and such, we wouldn’t watch any political ads.
I am happy that they are attacking Mitt at this early stage. They will punch themselves out and be left with the “empty suit” “can’t be trusted, etc., type of stuff.
Don’t count on any of the above folks to fact check any ads until Mitt’s come out.
Pro-capitalism is not necessarily pro-American.
Here are people who participated in the ruination of America. They have no business running for President because they clearly don’t care for the company.
Meantime Obama is kissing Warren Buffet’s a**.
Some people are real hypocrites.
Duck-
Warren Buffet is a Social Capitalist. He is creating jobs in this economy at risk to himself while other capitalists refuse to invest in business loans and capital investments in general until there is a sure bet to play. Warren Buffet deserves respect. There is nom hypocrisy here.
We are making some progress here. At least, Allen realizes there is not one “bad” group of “investors”, as the “they”, used by the Dems and others, implies.
Just as not all lawyers are out for the almighty buck at the expense of their clients and not all doctors opt for unnecessary operations and not all teachers could care less about their students and not all news commenters pander to the basest levels of their readers/viewers.
So get off your high horses guys.
Duck-
My horse is not too high, my legs are too short.
Nothing wrong with government, or more precisely, Democratic government or other PC favored investors (like state and union pension funds run who tend to vote Democrat).
That’s just ’cause we can’t nationalize it all without some people getting in the way
High heeled boots might work.
Duck-
High heeled boots? Yeah, just maybe you’re right…..