Getty Images
When President Obama's re-election campaign began criticizing Mitt Romney's controversial private-sector background, the pushback was immediate. Republicans said it showed hostility towards capitalism; some high-profile Democrats balked; the many in the media predicted a public backlash.
The political establishment quickly formed a consensus: talking about Romney's history of leveraged buyouts and mass layoffs simply wouldn't work.
But there's sometimes a gap between what Americans believe and what they're told they're supposed to believe, and this might be just such a development. ABC's Amy Walters had an interesting report the other day:
"Bill Clinton and many in the chattering class may think that the attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain are a flop, but a group of women swing voters at two focus groups I watched last night suggest that they are working. While these women in Las Vegas and Richmond, Virginia still don't know much about Mitt Romney, a number of them volunteered that they were concerned about what they had heard about Romney's record from TV.
Said Rebecca from Richmond, "the whole thing where factories have shut down -- that concerns me."
Well, that's just a couple of focus groups. Maybe it was a fluke.
Or maybe there's something more to this: "The Obama campaign's jabs at Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, which have been widely panned up and down the Acela Corridor, could work quite well in Ohio, judging by the latest survey from the bipartisan Purple Poll. Across the 12 battleground states the monthly poll surveys, 47% of likely voters said they agreed with the statement that private equity firms 'care only about profits and short-term gains for investors. When they come in, workers get laid off, benefits disappear, and pensions are cut. Investors walk off with big returns, and working folks get stuck holding the bag.'"
This week's Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation poll conducted by PPP also found a significant number of voters less likely to vote for Romney in light of his Bain Capital background.
As Matt Yglesias put it this morning, "One of the most shocking moments of media out-of-touchness that I've seen in my lifetime was the spasm of pundits acting as if Barack Obama's criticisms of Mitt Romney's business record were likely to prompt some kind of backlash from the public."
If the Obama campaign's internal polls show similar trends, expect Bain criticisms to continue, whether the establishment likes it or not.
Leave a Comment:
Stupid women, why did we ever give them voting rights! Just you wait. The GOP is working hard to end this bull of women and minorities voting. When the right is done America Inc. will be a much better kingdom!
Really Paul? Hopefully that's sarcasm you're using, but I've seen other comments from you so I can't really tell.
Truth is the last group of white guys that were running this joint - left US: deep in debt, started wars that benefited themselves and their benefactors, attempted to disenfranchise our future generations by forcing them to be "taught to the tests" instead of really educated, and further polarized US all! Truth be told much healing of this nation could have been accomplished by sending the Bush mis-administration by sending them to the Hague for "Crimes against Humanity"!
Fact is you're probably paying more in taxes than Mittens and those 241 millionaire Congress critters, and as they're picking your pocket, you have the nerve to defend this theft. Free enterprise hasn't been FREE for the taxpayers, and therein is the crux of the problem! Bain Capital made money for their shareholders by feeding off of tax-payer subsidies while bankrupting companies throwing employees out of work, and those that were close to retirement ended up getting paid again thru tax-payer dollars as the shareholders & Bain walked away with massive profits! Even vultures wait til the carcass is officially dead; what Bain did is what lions do, seek out their prey, stalk them down and then tear into the flesh of the animal they've caught! If you think that that's a perfectly acceptable way to do business - then you need to seek out a priest/pastor/reverend along with psychological help.
Oh deary me, your words hath cuteth me to the quick. I fear I might expire.Ohhhh whoa is me...
Good thing I have 999 more personalities left.Oooops 998 I lost Rhett somewhere in Jersey.
Thank you for this type of clarifying reporting Steve. If I hear the hedging one more time from the likes of Chris Matthews, I'll go bonkers.
At first I thought the OFA had abruptly switched tactics going after Romney's Massachusetts records because of the inside-the-beltway CW that Cory Booker had somehow sandbagged it. Nice to know i was wrong. Nice to know that OFA is doing targeting placement for these kinds of adds like in the Rust Belt.
What we need now is to define the difference between real capitalism with long term investment in productive business vs Leveraged Buyout style Financial Engineering that only benefits a few Plutocrats.
I'm very disappointed that so many don't seem to understand the difference.
Another discussion you won't hear is the reason why CEO's get such big paydays. The reason is really simple, policy changes over the pass 3 decades have taken shareholders rights away so they can no longer control Executives and Boards.
Here's another interesting linkage that never get discussed. What organized group of shareholders are the biggest champions of restoring Rights to shareholder/owners? Public Pension Funds. The Corporatists would like nothing better than to completely weaken this pesky group of outspoken shareholders who want good corporate governance.
Sure wish Steve and Rachel would report on this. It seems to me the War on Public Workers Pensions started about the same time that the fraud from the toxic assets Wall Street stuffed into the pension funds was discovered. And the Pension funds started to pursue legal remedies to the fraud.
Precisely!
Focus on the devastating effect that factory closing has on the family.
The goal of venture capital firms like Bain is to make money for the investors. Whether there are jobs created or the company survive is secondary.
Romney was good at this.
Who are the "investors" in this country? Is it the 1%?
If Romney wins will we get venture capital-ized with the wealthy keeping what they have and getting more, leaving the country to fail?
[Sorry - am in a funk about this possibility]
I hear you MAPHI...but it's time to get out of the FUNK...I'm off to an OFA meeting to train more volunteers. THAT always gets me UP!
We must educate American about just how completely guys like Mitt are regarding our real Economy.
Last night Jon Stewarts guest was a Bain honcho who displayed a stunning ignorance of what our real economy comprises. Just stunning. There are 3 videos at the Daily Show site that should go viral to display the clueless understanding of a Leveraged Buyout idiot.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/extended-interviews/415035/playlist_tds_extended_edward_conard/414980
Methinks the Obama campaign knows MORE about what the voter is thinking than the pundits. I am really tired of the self-serving MEDIA telling me WHAT to think.
Like Mike Huckabee's stating, with a completely straight face, that the country would think Obama was doing a great job if it weren't for Fox News...
The point to make is that being successful in business by making profits is not the business of governing, and if Romney is making his business record a centerpoint of this campaign it is fair game for criticism.
Sheesh the parade of leftist gorillas tipping their hats to the music waiting for welfare checks is still dancing around. Look here now capitalism is what made America great. Where would we be if not for George Washington's brewery? How about Ben Franklin? Sure he smooched the Frenchies but he was just picking their pockets while he was at it.
Dang it even the bible praises the money changers and then there was that thirty pieces of silver and...uh I got to go check on sumpin'..
Nicely done, Mr. Campbell. Nicely done.
Where are the polls that show the public has a positive view of wall st and the bain capital crowd in the 1st place ? The wall st model is about cutting wages and shipping jobs over seas , along with a lot of greed and corruption , and looking down on everyone who is not mega wealthy , when did that become popular and something that needs to be defended among the working folks ? You have you gop base that is oblivious to these things of course
It is just another example of east coast msm living in a bubble , then thinking EVERYONE is thinking just like they are
Wall st is a part of our economy , but there is the economy outside of that , having them work together would be a great thing , yes? But wall st is rather hostile towards certain segments of our economy , they are not looking out for the big picture ...Our government leaders need to address these destructive behaviors , not pretend it does not exist
"Our government leader need to address these destructive behaviors" Bingo, Ding, Ding, Ding.
As far as I can tell only Elizabeth Warren even tries to address this. So many others are just clueless.
Wall Street was supposed to be about capitalizing business. Now it only wants the next Internet deal. Above I mentioned the Bain honcho on Stewart last night. He was all about the next Zuckerberg. He considers industry like making cars so 50'ies. He dolled on and on about Internet but was silent about Green Energy. Clueless, completely clueless. And he's supposed to be the best and the brightest? No way.
As was pointed recently- perhaps right here, by the Most Excellent Mr. Benen-we have had three presidents with business experience. All three were abysmal.
Knowledge of how to grab a buck has no relation to understanding how a big, complex Economy like the USA functions.
The beltway press was trying to scare off the Dems and the Obama campaign. The establishment pundits needed to protect their friends. Conventional beltway wisdom is, more often that not, wrong.
I remember a David Plouffe quote from 2008:
The Obama campaign needs to keep this attitude. The conservative beltway press is not your friend.
Obama's team is absolutely right to keep this critique up and alive. Even Wall Street would be far better off if it could get small investors to return to it -- they have fewer than half what they had than before they skewered the country with their gambling shenanigans -- and invested in companies that made things rather than juggled imaginary money.
This morning's NYT business section had an article on how the financialized economy only works if firms actually honor accounting's major principle -- that you not count as income something that hasn't been accomplished after 'hard' work has made it happen. The case in point was Corzine's bellyflop of a company. All of these firms chasing after imaginary money seem to be able to make that money from the 'hard work' of firing employees, cheating investors of dividends, and stiffing lenders. (E.g., BAIN.)
If the bonus check spends, you have made money.
Facebook is a good example. It's all based upon an imagined future and some very shady classes of stock for Zuck.
There are also many fewer stocks on the exchanges than a decade ago. Foreign companies left and many companies delisted to become "private". There are no regulations for "private" companies.
Attention Wall Street "gods":
I will not put my bread and butter in stocks where the managers have been playing hot potato, fast and loose with the bets they made for us to fail!
I will not buy into a system that bases its profits on imaginary speculation about threats from Iran to cause oil prices to wildly fluctuate.
I will not put my future in the hands of self centered worshippers of money and themselves. I hope the American people will see that the mergers and self promoters are not interested in making things work for everyone, just those up at the top.
I have been a consumer and will buy things (when I can) that promote alternative energy and things I value, like stuff that would bring hiring of U.S. workers. I am not going to be forced into shopping where I am told I must because of mergers. I will run away from mergers and non competitive companies. I will reward those companies that bring manufacturing back to the U.S. (hello, I am looking at Apple). I will never buy tires (etc.) from companies that would put profit ahead of safety in order to bust unions. See, I think there is value to people making things and installing things that know what they are doing, well trained and will not cut corners in order to please their boss and short change the customers, even give unsafe or inferior product or service.
so where is the cave you live in?
Three things:
SCOTUS, THE most important reason to vote Democratic on every ticket
The majority of voters, of all stripes feel the 1% are unfairly advantaged on taxes.
Gingrich and company did a fantastic job of negating Romney's positives when pounded by Bain, that was done early and often.
Allow the PAC's to set the table and ask the women again, how much fun it was to try and rinse that stain out of Grannie's lace coverlet now that it just has a brown spot of faded gravy every time you walk through the parlor...spilled by that idiot guy from Bain as he was trying to get you to buy term insurance, or sign off on fracking the back forty, don't it just make 'yall want to scream?
Bain can be huge, if someone needs a copy writer to script it, give me a call.
I did'nt hear Clinton.Rendell and Booker whining when the other republican candidates were jabbing Romney's record at Bain.Money talks,and all three have a stake in Private Equity.Why does'nt the Pres.keep pounding on all the things republicans were saying about Romney when they were canditates.Then it's his own party saying it and not the Pres.Why was'nt it an attack on capitalism when they were saying it?The President's ad's were not an attack on capitalism, but an attack on vulture capitalism.What risk did Romney take when investing in companies when he was at Bain? NONE! If the the company survived he made money if he sucked the life out of it he still made money.
Obama has no choice: attack, attack, attack. And he would be correct to attack. The Republicans are a malignant stew of ignorance, stupidity, and selfish greed. To not attack, to allow a bunch of idiotic Very Serious People (Krugman by way of ?) to convince against the attack would simply be political incompetence.
That means Obama's hormoneless campaign will not attack.
The Republican media machine will dispense information like "attack capitalism" ad nauseum (just reporting what Mitt, Trump(et) and Limpy say). The trouble is, some very small numbers might be pointing out that unregulated corps are acting as we allow them to. The question remains:
How can we allow corporations to be unregulated, but the rest of us are subjected to what they do? It's a two way street. I want to see us as in it for each other. How can I, when they keep bullying American workers and consumers, but still want to be subsidized and not pay tax. If they are doing something for US, then fine. Let's keep them going that direction, but it's not about the collective us. Regulate commerce, it's constitutional. People, it's not the capitalism, it's the unregulated capitalism that is not cooperating voluntarily, so then government regulates for our interests.
http://www.english-online.at/economy/capitalism/capitalism-market-economy.htm
What we need to do is start asking LOUDLY what kind of Capitalism do we want?
A capitalism based upon long term investment in productive enterprise with the benefits returned to all shareholders/owners and employees?
Or
A Plutocratic system were Financial Engineers extract value from both shareholders/owners and employees for the benefit of a few Plutocrats.
In other words, the makers of "conventional wisdom" are all wealthy idiots who have no idea that normal people don't see the world the same way they do.
Take a break this week-end and watch "Pretty Woman". Richard Gere's character is a private equity guy. So many good analogies and great lines in this movie. Gotta take a break, use it watching the movie w/your honey.
I get it, completely.
But, it sort of sounds like another classic movie where the Wiz says "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".
But yeah, humor is good. I got to see Margaret Cho the other night. For the first time in a long time, I went out and laughed, although quite raunchy, she was very fun.
Saw her interviewed recently, seems she's got her mojo back. Very funny lady.
It's simple, really: Mitt Romney is not a capitalist. He is a speculator. Financial markets are the engines of capitalism. A capitalist raises money in the financial markets and uses it to do something useful--to make or build things, to put people to work.
But as long as there have been financial markets, there have been speculators. The Founders called them stock-jobbers, and help them in contempt. The difference between a capitalist and a speculator, of course, is that a speculator find ways to game the system, to raise money in the financial markets and turn it directly into more money without having to go through the tedious intermediary step of doing anything useful.
One of my points for seeing the movie,Stephen. One conversation goes something like this;(Roberts)"So Edward, you don't build anything or make anything, what is it that you do?" (Gere)"I make rich people richer. Vivian(Roberts),we are so similar, we both screw people for money." (Vivian was a hooker)
Most Americans are not sufficiently inhumane and unempathetic to do what Romney did at Bain Capital. Throwing people out of work, seizing their assets and benefits packages and pensions for personal gain is beyond the wherewithal of most normal folks. Folks who lack empathy and compassion are considered to be psychologically abnormal, and Romney fits the bill. He's inhuman, he is clearly a shark in the disguise of a nice guy. He doesn't want people to see the real scales that cover his skin. In big shot world he's just another predator, which they consider to be normalcy.
It's too bad that the level of literacy in this country about business and economics is so low. If more people really understood what private equity firms and hedge funds do, Romney wouldn't have a chance in this election.
Why would any candidate in his or her right mind even consider NOT pushing back on Romney's record at Bain? That is THE biggest problem he faces in this economic environment. If the economy were booming, it might make sense to ignore it, but when people are scared to death about losing their jobs or their inability to find a new job, how can it ever be considered a mistake not to talk about the very real issue that Romney will not only not create jobs, he will very likely make things even worse?
This is a pretty obvious attempt by the conservative "brains" in the media to try and defuse the issue.