Former Obama Official Defends Romney on Bain Capital
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WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney is running into headwinds in his own party for, of all things, being a successful capitalist. Newt Gingrich, in fact, has walked his charges back, while his Super PAC has not. The other news on Newt Gingrich is that he is now leading Mitt Romney by only 2 points. From The Hill:
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 seven percent and Rick Perry’s five percent trail the pack. – Poll: Romney slipping in South Carolina, holds just 2 point lead over Gingrich
However, Tuesday on “Morning Joe”, Steve Rattner, a former Obama administration official, known as the Obama Administration’s Car Czar and Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury, defended Mitt Romney on Bain Capital, saying it’s not at all what either Gingrich or Perry are implying.
It’s not going to make Obama the re-election campaign very happy, because Democrats are depending heavily on their own negative Bain Capital campaign, which says the same things as anti-Romney conservatives.
“Fair is fair. … But I think these attacks are unfair. I think Mitt Romney, not only had a very successful career throughout business, but Bain Capital is a terrific, first class firm. Managing money mostly for foundations, for endowments, for pension funds on behalf of exactly the people Rick Perry thinks he’s trying to harm, and they had a great record with 80 or 90 investments, all of which made a lot of money for their investors… and he did it in a perfectly honorably, appropriate way. … – Steve Rattner, on “Morning Joe” (comes at around 3:11 in video above)
I’ve written several tough pieces on Stephen Rattner, most recently when he said he might write a check to Scott Brown, because Elizabeth Warren was “on the wrong side of a lot these issues.” But this is someone who is considered a Wall Street whiz, whose wife, Maureen White, has raised millions for Democrats, and someone who is going to vote for Obama in November.
Let me also say something about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism in conjunction with his ethics, business and personal. There has never been a hint of impropriety in his life. This guy comes off stiff for a reason. He is, but he’s also deeply righteous, which is rooted in his religion, with the ethics of faith part of his business life as well. Like all fundamentalist faiths, Mormonism is very rigid, which also acts as the set backdrop for Romney’s entire life. But there is a reason I’ve labeled him Mr. Ice (Barack Obama is Mr. Cool), which also comes out of his Mormon faith that is rooted in rules not compassion, which will be fully seen once everyone reads the new Vanity Fair article, The Dark Side of Mitt Romney.
Come November, if Mitt Romney is the nominee and still has problems, it will be a lot larger than Bain Capital.
Think of candidate Barack Obama and what he weathered on Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, but also his thin record.
Bill Clinton made it through bimbo eruptions that made “60 Minutes,” after a lounge singer produced the tapes and bragged of a long-term affair.
Anyone counting on Bain being the knockout blow on Mitt Romney is engaging in wishful thinking. It’s more likely to come through gaffes like “I like firing people…” which besides making him sound like a mean SOB, hits people emotionally that Romney doesn’t care about them, making Mitt unlikable.
Statements like this won’t help either, from Greg Sargent:
QUESTIONER: When you said that we already have a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy, I’m curious about the word envy. Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?
ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it.
Mitt Romney’s wrong. It’s not about envy, it’s about fundamental fairness and a playing field that people feel guys like him stack against them. If anything, this country’s long overdue for a little class warfare, if that’s what you want to call an argument meant to stir people that the middle class is being carved away.
Taylor Marsh is the author of the new e-book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.
22 Responses to “Former Obama Official Defends Romney on Bain Capital”
TM, thanks for that clip. I think both good and bad will come out of the attacks on Bain.
One, free material and groundwork for O.
But, Two, it will prepare and harden Mitt, for O’s attacks. Meantime, stuff on Bain from guys like Rattner and the financial types may substantially weaken the attacks and make them seem whinny.
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
@dduck
Two, it will prepare and harden Mitt, for O’s attacks.
Yeah I had the same thought. If this was going to be Obama’s main offensive against Romney it’s coming out awfully early and by the time Obama/Romney have a direct debate Romney will have his response down pat.
dduck says:
JANUARY 12, 2012 AT 1:03 PM
Yeah, the pro Newt Super PAC, run by Citizens United jackal David Bossie, will make good focus group fodder for Obama reelect.
More importantly it let’s Romney get way out in front of it very early.
DaGoat says:
JANUARY 12, 2012 AT 3:55 PM
The Romney team is already preparing pro-Bain clips. If this had landed in August 2012, like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, I think he’d have been in real trouble, spending the entire fall campaign scrambling.
MatthiasKlein says:
JANUARY 12, 2012 AT 1:14 PM
“Free market capitalism” doesn’t work without regulation, because we humans are greedy and will always bend the model. We found that out before & again in 2008.
Romney says America is a family.
A person born into the Romney household will benefit from that family’s wealth immediately and as an heir. That person will enjoy freedoms like education in safe schools, higher education, practically automatic wealth regeneration, healthcare anytime without worry of cost, no worries of elderly care or elderly living costs. No worries about the affordability of healthy foods clean water. Not to mention the freedom from fear and a confidence throughout life that comes with all these “freedoms” will be the birth-right of the Romney family.
In the larger sense, people born or legally immigrated into the United States should have, at the very least, some basic rights to the wealth of the nation like Romney’s family has. After all he did say our nation was essentially a family.
Of course Americans don’t have these freedoms. The rest of us have to struggle for them and some freedoms will never be affordable to us no matter how hard we work. So when Romney and his fellow Republicans suggest that America is a, “family”, I beg to differ. In my opinion, Romney and his family have taken from me and mine unjustly. Why should vote for man? Why should I care one iota about his power ambitions?
Allen, said: “In my opinion, Romney and his family have taken from me and mine unjustly. Why should vote for man? Why should I care one iota about his power ambitions?”
“Of course you realize, this means war.” -Chuck Jones
“Mitt Romney’s wrong. It’s not about envy, it’s about fundamental fairness and a playing field that people feel guys like him stack against them”
very well said
All you guys/gals., feel free to start your own venture capital firms. I hope they all do as well as Bain.
Meantime I am pissed because all those athletic types can jump higher and are stronger than me. It’s not fair, just like that Brad Pitt guy with all his luck with roles and women. Why not me?
“Mitt Romney’s wrong. It’s not about envy, it’s about fundamental fairness and a playing field that people feel guys like him stack against them. If anything, this country’s long overdue for a little class warfare, if that’s what you want to call an argument meant to stir people that the middle class is being carved away.”
I’ve seen other versions of the “envy” comment before and it comes aross as more pudding headed and clueless each time. That someone in Romney’s position would say such a thing when so many Americans are struggling so hard in this rotten economy demonstrates how truly disconnected and insular his world is. In the quote above I would substitute a couple different words for “carved away”. Use your imagination.
Duck, we aren’t upset about the guys that jump higher. We are upset about the commission that make the rules and the refs that give that guy all of the calls.
The IRS calls foul on a waitress for not reporting her tips correctly, while GE doesn’t pay taxes at all.
I’m not against Bain capital or the work Romney did while working there. I am against a system that gives them, and companies like GE, a massive advantage over everyone else. We do not live in a free market society. The rules of capitalism have been twisted into an oppressive form of corporate communism.
Sorry, Sl, when you next go to a Staples to buy anything, think Bain.
Cause they were in competition with hundreds of other venture capital people (who sometimes do help struggling businesses, but not always since sometimes it just delays the inevitable bankruptcy like Solyndra).
We will be reading, ad nausea, about Bain from here on, so let’s judge whether they wear white hats or black hats from pro and anti Mitt studies.
And now the left-wing attack machines are even “trying” to put Mitt in the same box as Bernie.
I’m sick of people criticizing others that do well, and that includes those picking on Beyonce.
“I’m sick of people criticizing others that do well”
People who “do well” at the expense of others, by exploiting others, and then who want to become president of the USA deserve all the criticism that can be dished out. It’s called accountability.
It’s also called BS……………..
Yeah, why not me Duck? I can kick Romney’s arse, even with my gimp leg and single buttock with one hand tied behind my back, so I should be able to TAKE what I want from him….by your standard.
Because that’s what he has done to me, by your standard!
“One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready, and four to GEROOOOONIMOOOOOOOO!!”-
Chuck Jones
People who “do well” at the expense of others, by exploiting others, and then who want to become president of the USA deserve all the criticism that can be dished out. It’s called accountability.
People doing well at the expense of others is a basic tenet of capitalism, but ideally we all do well at the expense of each other, ie we all receive benefit while also providing a service.
A lot of what I see directed at Romney is a general unhappiness with big business and Wall Street. It is still not clear to me whether that unhappiness should be directed at Romney specifically. Here at TMV I have read criticisms of bond traders and brokerages somehow directed at Romney. That’s apples and oranges since Bain Capital was neither. If Romney did something wrong it should be spelled out, not lumped into “Wall Street is bad”.
Since most of the commenters here are Dems, if not liberals, why shouldn’t they take cheap shots as the left media is also doing. “He enjoys firing people”.
Maybe we can join in on the fun when the Dems have there next presidential primary.
DDuck says:
“Maybe we can join in on the fun when the Dems have there [sic] next presidential primary.”
I am sure you will, DDuck. Can’t wait
But at what cost?
Investment bankers only measure success with one metric: profit. Plain and simple. Nothing else is even vaguely on their radar whatsoever!
It’s a form of mental illness, really.
Sane people understand there are many metrics of success, including income but also health, happiness, whether their kids or friends are happy, whether they have clean air or water to drink, whether they can engage in their favorite hobby, if their pets are helthy, etc.
But venture capitalists see only $$, and only see success as measured in more $$$. These guys simply cannot see anything else but, and they are fundamentally incapable of seeing any of the hurt caused by their profiteering.
It is this brand of mental illness that makes them patently unqualified to be political leaders.
People that have no qualifications other than being BS artists and community organizers are more qualified. And please spare me the “Yah, but they really care about people, not the almighty buck”.
Too bad they couldn’t save the 1000 jobs at Solyndra.
I would not believe the King Of Bain propaganda anymore than I would believe what Romney has to say about it. Particularly, the first few paragraphs here are enough to save me the time to watch it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/four-pinocchios-for-king-of-bain/2012/01/12/gIQADX8WuP_blog.html
The point of capitalism is that in an environment of free exchange, acting in self-interest has the side effect of benefiting society as a whole. You can argue with to what degree this happens in practice and therefore argue for certain regulations and restrictions, but you can’t argue with the general principle without throwing out capitalism entirely and ignoring hundreds of years of evidence.
I don’t believe Romney for a second when he says that his goal at Bain was to create jobs. Maybe seeing businesses grow and jobs created gave him warm fuzzies, but if it wasn’t making him money he wouldn’t have done it. But, the point is: what’s wrong with that?
If you are a liberal you can argue that it’s wrong because he was milking a system that is bent to favor the 1% at the expense of the 99%. That’s a fine argument and no doubt will be made against him in the general election to appeal to people sympathetic with the occupiers.
But for someone who claims to be a fiscal conservative, free-market supporter, as all of the Republican candidates claim to be, the answer is: nothing. Unless you can show that he acted unethically, and a superpac with tons of money just attempted to do that and the result ended up being smoke and mirrors.
Perhaps we could call upon a historian to give us a primer on capitalisim and venture capital investing in general. Oh, he is to busy being a historian to FDMC and other giant firms, and like your typical historian raked in millions in “historical consulting fees”.
The Dems, and most knocking Bain here, are happy to follow in the path of the Mitt attack ads that Leni Reifenstahl would have approved of for their effectiveness
For those not afraid to touch a copy of the WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204124204577154521024107002.html which points out that:
“At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, the GAO’s private-equity report observed that academic research “generally suggests that recent private equity LBOs [leveraged buyouts] have had a positive impact on the financial performance of the acquired companies”
All private equity firms are not angels, but the better ones, like Bain, add value, and yes net positive jobs, to the economy.
We can debate, but please don’t be closed and narrow minded.