It is also clear that the Republican establishment wants the Republcan primary to end after South Carolina

Probably won't happen. Romney is trending down in SC. Rasmussen (who have the Dr. Fate Seal of Approval) confirms the trend today...They have him down to 28%
And as the swiftboat type ads hit the airwaves in SC, it'll probably chip away even more.
It really depends on how bitter Gingrich is...

Sounds like you support the Rasmussen polling data as well. You seem to trot it out when it suits you.

"Rasmussen - Brought to you by the conglomeration of Fate/Ricky"

Sounds like Newt and Pelosi sitting on a couch.

RepublicanInsiderRicky wrote:

It is also clear that the Republican establishment wants the Republcan primary to end after South Carolina

Probably won't happen.

Well, as you have your finger on the pulse of Republican politics, very well. I guess we'll just have to get used to it.

Oh, Nostradamus of the North, how will South Carolina finish?

Who, oh Canadian Carnac, will win Florida?

Romney is trending down in SC. Rasmussen (who have the Dr. Fate Seal of Approval) confirms the trend today...They have him down to 28%

Fascinating. Who was leading in South Carolina before Iowa? I mean, you do know EVERYTHING about polls AND the Republican Party, right? Gingrich is surging, right? After all, it was only in November that Gingrich was way down in the polls in South Carolina, which just happens to border his native Georgia. Here, have a look:

http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres20 ... ry/rep/sc/

Yes, it's clear Gingrich is flying high. Less than two months ago he was only at 33%. Meanwhile, today he's at 25%. That's a surge!!!

And as the swiftboat type ads hit the airwaves in SC, it'll probably chip away even more.
It really depends on how bitter Gingrich is...

Oh, he's bitter. He's bitter enough to ensure I would not vote for him if he is the nominee. That takes some work, but he's succeeded. I will not vote for someone who sounds more like Ralph Nader than Ronald Reagan.

One problem with the "swiftboat" analogy: there were facts to back up the allegations that Kerry was nothing more than a backstabbing, cowardly rat. After all, he testified before Congress, painting with a broad brush all who served over there. Since he was an officer, why didn't he report the egregious, illegal conduct of those miscreants? After all, that was his duty.

There is an answer: Kerry lied before Congress and was an anti-war misfit.

Of course, the fact that he just so happened to marry into money was an added plus. There was nothing admirable about John Kerry, so swiftboating worked. No one liked the guy.

Now, could it work against Romney?

I don't think so. First, watch what happens in South Carolina. My guess, although I don't know as much about how conservatives think as RepublicanInsiderRicky, I'm guessing Newt will suffer the fate of most kamikazes. Paul might finish higher than Gingrich. If Gingrich keeps up his anti-Bain rhetoric in the SC debate Monday night, he could find himself finishing 4th or worse. Not bad for a favorite son candidate, eh hoser?

More "bad news" for Romney:

Romney leads Rick Santorum 34-15%, with Newt Gingrich at 14% and Ron Paul at 13% in the survey, conducted from Jan. 7-11 among a nationwide sample of 1,188 Republican registered voters.

You, Ricky, are a tremendous political prognosticator. I can only pray you tell us Obama is going to get reelected.

Yes, I know that latter poll is a national poll. However, will an indecisive result in South Carolina, followed by a Romney thumping of the field in Florida (Jeb Bush is preparing to endorse Romney), going to hurt Romney?

Doubtful.

bbauska wrote:Sounds like you support the Rasmussen polling data as well. You seem to trot it out when it suits you.

"Rasmussen - Brought to you by the conglomeration of Fate/Ricky"

Sounds like Newt and Pelosi sitting on a couch.

Thus, I will no longer cite Rasmussen. I don't want to taint my own Presidential ambitions.

Oh, and sadly for Ricky's candidate, er, Newt, it turns out he and his Super-Pac don't know what they're lying about:

The Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler took a very close look at it — and ripped the film and Gingrich with a four-Pinocchio rating, and a particularly stinging rebuke:

Newt Gingrich, meet Michael Moore!

The 29-minute video “King of Bain” is such an over-the-top assault on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney that it is hard to know where to begin.

Let’s begin with how the filmmakers present their case that Unimac went out of business thanks to the predatory nature of Mitt Romney. It turns out that not only did Romney have little to do with Unimac, the firm hasn’t gone out of business at all. It’s currently producing appliances in Wisconsin, having moved there long after Romney left Bain and actually as Romney was concluding his term as governor of Massachusetts:

Bain Capital bought the business from Raytheon in 1998, and Romney left Bain a year later to run the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In 2005, Bain sold UniMac (also called Alliance Laundry) to a Canadian entity known as Teachers’ Private Capital. The factory was moved from Marianna to Ripon, Wisc., in 2006, after Bain’s involvement ended — a fact made clear on the Web site of a laundry repair business co-owned by the people featured in the film.

In fact, Mike Baxley, who was interviewed for the film, said that he and his partner had “absolutely no idea” that the interviews were for a film about Romney and Bain. He said they thought they were being interviewed for a documentary about the factory closing.
“They said they wanted to know what it was like when the factory closed down,” he said, and he, his partner and his partner’s wife agreed to interviews after “they flashed a little money at us.” (Baxley, a Republican who said he had not yet thought much about the nomination contest, declined to reveal the amount.)

After watching “King of Bain” at The Fact Checker’s request, he said: “We were pretty shocked. Our quotes were seriously taken out of context. There is a real lack of facts.”

Only one of the cases presented in the film actually involved Romney at all, the decline (not failure, as the film states) of Ampad. The company exists as a subsidiary to Esselte, as Kessler notes, but did close its Marion, Indiana facility, which left a lot of bad feelings among the former workers there. But why did Ampad decline? Its core business — business supplies — got undermined by cheaper retail competitors, like Staples — a company that grew because of the investment of Bain Capital and Mitt Romney.

So, how will this impact the race, once the electorate find out Gingrich is lying?

freeman2 wrote:Bain is going to be an albatross around Romeny's neck, Making 200 million by going in and firing workers--that is just not going to go over well this election cycle.

Unless it comes out that he did something illegal or grossly improper, which is very unlikely, I think this Bain thing will blow over. He was being a capitalist. The job market has to be fluid, adjustable: you have to fire people sometimes, and, honestly, it might not be a bad skill to have in a bloated, inefficient organization like the federal gov't. The only people for whom this is going to matter will be people who wouldn't have voted for him anyway.

BTW, I looked for Newt's 30 minute movie on Romney and Bain on Youtube and couldn't find it. If anyone has a link, share it, I'd like to see where he goes with it.

geojanes wrote:

freeman2 wrote:Bain is going to be an albatross around Romeny's neck, Making 200 million by going in and firing workers--that is just not going to go over well this election cycle.

Unless it comes out that he did something illegal or grossly improper, which is very unlikely, I think this Bain thing will blow over. He was being a capitalist. The job market has to be fluid, adjustable: you have to fire people sometimes, and, honestly, it might not be a bad skill to have in a bloated, inefficient organization like the federal gov't. The only people for whom this is going to matter will be people who wouldn't have voted for him anyway.

QFT!

Yes, George, that would be Romney's spin on it. The Wall Street examined Romney's record at Bain and said of 77 investments 22% of the companies filed for bankiruptcy by the end of the 8th year of Bain's investment. Bain lost all of their money in another 8%. Also noteworthy is that Bain made 70% of its money in only ten investments, four of those companies that were invested in going bankrupt aftewwards. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... in+capital

A somewhat neutral source says this about Romney:

"So, where does that leave Romney? His innovations helped open the door to a massive accumulation of wealth by executives and investors while ordinary workers became “commodities” and thus expendable.

That was a big contributor to the income inequality that ultimately spawned the Occupy Wall Street movement. But it also helped make US companies much more efficient and competitive on the global stage.

How voters will sort this out may well decide which direction the country will go in the future.

But neither Romney nor his opponents can have it both ways: They can’t call him a “vulture” capitalist without recognizing his real contributions. And he can’t own Staples if he doesn’t also own Ampad. But then he’d be a job killer and a job creator.

Because you just can’t separate the “creative” from the “destruction” in capitalism. Denying the existence of either is like saying clouds aren’t part of the sky."

I have to disagree with you George. This issue of huge rewards for Wall Street investors with employees getting nothing from it is a critical issue in the general election. Even South Carolina Republicans may not like the Bain story. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... litics_pop

By the way, here is an article discussing the investment in Ampad. http://www.massresistance.org/romney/am ... index.html

The very impact that Republlicans are coming down on Gingrich and Perry to stop these attacks tells you that this is a sensitive issue.

Also amusing is the fact that McCain attacked Romney on this issue in 2008 but is now defending him. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/0 ... ?mobile=nc

See also Colbert's take on Bain. http://www.tvguide.com/news/video-colbe ... ofileid=05

Freeman, I'll stack Romney's business record against Obama's without any fear of losing.

Obama held a press conference today, the day after announcing he would add another $1.2T to the national debt, to trumpet consolidating several agencies and saving . . . wait for it . . . $3B!!!

Let's talk about money. Let's talk about leadership.

The main advantage Obama has on Romney is that liberals who hate capitalism and folks who believe they are entitled to life on the government dole represent a substantial number in the electorate. If presidential elections had anything to do with merit, Obama could only get immediate family (including the illegal aliens) and staff to vote for him.

Free, I get it. The private equity business can be a messy one. Believe me, especially nowadays, the private equity guys wreck good companies all the time. When I know someone who's company is being taken over by private equity, I say "get out now!" Because even if you stick around, your job is going to change in ways that you're not going to like. But the payoffs are so big that they can have many losers before the one winner makes up for all the losers and then some. The WSJ article didn't compare Bain's record during Romney's tenure with other firms, but it seems fantastic. Nowadays, there is so much more money that even marginal deals get funded. I doubt you could name a single firm of any size operating today that has a success rate close to Bain's in the 80s and 90s.

But more to the point, Romney was just playing but the rules of the system, and people just can't and won't get mad at a guy because he made a fortune playing by the rules. For instance, on these boards and elsewhere, I've railed, repeatedly, that the richest among us pay some of the lowest income tax rates, including many current day private equity people. Make $100,000,000 and pay 15%? It's terrible, and an injustice for which we should all be embarrassed, but you can't get mad at someone paying 15%. That's the rules, and they are playing by the rules. You can't expect them to say that they'll voluntarily pay 39.6% because it's the right thing to do. No, we expect people to play by the rules and follow the rules, and that appears to be what Romney and Bain did.

He wasn't a social worker. He didn't run an employment agency. Bain existed for exactly one thing: to make money, and it did that very well, which makes Romney's private sector career a very successful one. Unless it comes out that he cheated in some way--which seems so unlikely--voters are going to let this 'scandal' slide.

Tangentially related:

US Senate Candidates (Texas) all trying to out Ron Paul each other at recent debate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... wVxec6uesA

Here's the "win our future" video: http://www.kingofbain.com

While it's over the top, it's not a bad description of what private equity does.

freeman2 wrote:See also Colbert's take on Bain. http://www.tvguide.com/news/video-colbe ... ofileid=05

Very funny ... btw, I think Geo has captured this issue the best. If you believe in free enterprise, you can't fault people if they are playing by the rules. As to job statistics, you also have to look at what would have happened to these companies if private equity did not come in. Those jobs may have been lost anyway.

ray

. If you believe in free enterprise, you can't fault people if they are playing by the rules. As to job statistics, you also have to look at what would have happened to these companies if private equity did not come in.

Absolutely true. But when you are electing people who make up a lot of those rules, then the sense of unfairness that pervades the current economic and politcal climate (from both tea Party and OWS) is key to the Bain issue.

Are people comfortable electing someone they are reasonably certain is going to maintain all those rules that essentially redistribute money up (mostly through taxation policy) , or elect someone who might occassionally try to even the competitive situation? (Like a flat tax or a revision of tax deductibility as "expense items" every budget.Currently those rules on tax dedctions have to be revised legislatively and they never get brought up....Why not?)

Examples of where past actions and current words conflict will be a constant problem for Mitt.Dollerama. Bain made nearly a billion dollars buying 50% of Dollerama and turning that sub Walmart retailer into a monster winner. Then Mitt campaigns on fighting China's unfair trade policies taking jobs from Americans. You have to search pretty hard to find products in Dollerama that aren't Chinese imports.

Example: Mitts answer to the auto industry collapse was to let them go bankrupt. Compared to the successful bailout .... those who work in the auto sector will understand that the bailout has worked out pretty good and that the dislocation of as complete bankruptcy would have destroyed a lot of middle class families ... They understand that the collateral damage of a bankruptcy, seen as necessary but regretful by the monied managers like Mitt, falls on their families. And that seeming lack of empathy, plays pretty well when his public persona is also so inauthentic.

The reason Tea Party members don't vote for Mitt, is largely that they see him as a figure that will continue a lot of what they also see as unfair. And thats why he's been taken back a notch by the Bain swift boating....