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Politics Bain Over Newt Any Day

Bain Over Newt Any DayThis week, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney called on newly minted front-runner and noted historian Newt Gingrich to return the estimated $1.6 million he made providing “strategic advice” to Freddie Mac, the quasi-governmental agency that has done the hard work of making “toxic home mortgages” a forever feature of our national portfolio.

To this, Newt, the great American theorist, unsheathed his trademark intellect and offered a completely irrelevant yet vaguely smart-sounding retort: “If Gov. Romney would give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over the years at Bain, then I would be glad to listen to him. But I bet you $10, not $10,000, that he won’t take the offer.”

Nice, Newt. When the former House speaker wins the nomination, he and the president can discuss how the rich are “bankrupting companies,” engaging in profit-mongering and risky behavior, and generally messing up the world for kicks. And throwing in Romney’s recent debate gaffe (or what I’m told is a gaffe) was a nice touch, as well. You may not have heard: Romney laid down a bet with fellow candidate Rick Perry for a cool $10,000 (or what Newt probably spends on lunch every week) during a recent debate. Doesn’t Mitt know that candidates, no matter how successful they may be, must always act as if they mow their lawns and eat curly fries at diners on Friday nights. If not, the electorate will be deeply insulted.

This kind of rhetoric is nothing new for Republicans. During the 2008 primaries, Mike Huckabee noted that “Mitt Romney looks like the guy that fires you.” This assessment was backed up by then-candidate John McCain, who, we soon found out, understood as much about the economy as Meghan McCain.

If you get rich working in finance, there’s a good chance you did something wrong, right? And Mitt, well, Mitt is heartless. Mitt worked for Bain Capital. Mitt was part of the private equity firm that salvaged poorly run, bloated businesses — sometimes through “painful” cuts and firings. There are honorable ways of getting rich (peddling political influence and/or writing books), and then there’s the Wall Street way. Newt, no less of a flip-flopping careerist than Romney, sold his political connections for wealth rather than create any.

If Romney could — or wanted to — do to federal government what Bain did to failing companies, we would all be better off. If a Romney administration gutted bureaucracy, he would help create more efficient institutions of government. If Romney believed taxpayer dollars should never be used to artificially prop up rotting or unprofitable ventures, great. If he believed that some companies needed to fail so other, more innovative ones could take their place, awesome. If he believed that risk — a concept so reviled by this administration — is the driving force of capitalism, he might be onto something.

Certainly, it’s a philosophy that beats more Newt-style technocratic “conservative” capitalism and capitalism infused with subjective concepts of progressive “fairness” any day.

And Lord knows there are many reasons to worry about a Mitt Romney presidency. However, knowing what we know now about his time at Bain Capital is not one. Neither is the fact that Mitt is a stiff rich dude.

Republicans would be better off letting the president and his friends vilify success and profit rather than feeding the perception that investment risk and creative destruction are things we should avoid. Yet I suppose that watching Gingrich go down this road tells us more about his candidacy and ideological flexibility than it does about any of those quixotic “solutions” he has in store for us.

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Follow  at @davidharsanyi.

Comments (6)

  • kelsonus
    Posted on December 21, 2011 at 1:40pm

    http://www.therightscoop.com/rush-reads-thomas-sowell-column-on-newt-gingrich/

    Report Post »  
  • Redmanblackdog
    Posted on December 15, 2011 at 3:43pm

    I’ll take Newt any day. 15 Trillion in debt. And Newt was a big player in getting the budget balanced when he ran the house. Lets get the budget balanced first and foremost, or all else is gone. If we can get more conservative Senators in to help Jim Demint, and more conservative house members, not like Boehner. Then we can get this country back to its basic principles. Newt can’t do much without the help of the congress. But we need anybody but Obama. Lets stick together no matter which Republican is nominated.

    Report Post »  
  • theloudtalker
    Posted on December 14, 2011 at 11:00pm

    Anyone that gripes about what Bain Capital did has NO EFFING CLUE how business in America works. Perhaps if Romney was president he could have actually offered a true restructuring of GM, not the Obama version of bankruptcy that did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix the problems. What did it do? It gave the unions billions in ownership while screwing bond holders, and did NOTHING to change the people and processes that led to GM’s failure in the first place. So I WELCOME what Romney could do to/for our government.

    Report Post » theloudtalker  
  • SubmarinerDoug
    Posted on December 14, 2011 at 11:43am

    All the little nit picking, or might I risk sounding as geeky as Glenn and say, Newtpicking ( Oh, that was bad, sorry…) aside, the debates are little more than political theater, designed to give Chelsea Clinton something to talk about besides how proud she is of the folks, and to entertain the political junkies. They mean NOTHING. Want proof? George Bush ( 41) famously said ” Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES.” A few years later, he made a deal with Ted Kennedy to raise taxes in exchange for a cut in spending. Kennedy agreed. Bush caved. A few months later, Bush lost. Spending of course, has NEVER in modern times been cut for ANYTHING! So what can we learn from this? 1. Never make a deal with the devil, or a Democrat. 2. Presidential debates, like any good show, are a nice diversion for the evening , but mean nothing. 3. Look at what the man does, not what he says. Signature achievement of Newt s political career: Contract with American, pressing Bill Clinton to welfare reform, tax cuts, triangulating to the right. Signature achievement of Mitt Romney s political career: Romneycare, ie, Obamacare lite. What Hillary Clinton was slammed hard for during Clintons health care takeover attempt, Romney achieved. And , I might add, is singularly proud of it! He wont back down from it, but intendes to debate Obama on the theme, my State run healthcare is good, yours is bad. I ll repeal yours. And then what? Again, look at what the man DID when he had power.

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  • Voice_ofFreedom
    Posted on December 14, 2011 at 12:59am

    The quip about the 10000 is due to the way in which Romney stated it and nothing else. As far as the Freddie Mac thing, it‘s already been explained if you’d care to open up your ears and pay attention. Newt was paid as a consultant. He gave them “advice”. They chose not to follow his advice. This was stated, I believe, in his first interview with Sean Hannity after he started rising in the polls.

    Report Post » Voice_ofFreedom  
  • jpndhouse
    Posted on December 14, 2011 at 12:44am

    Newt Gingrich engages in the very “class warfare” that he was so quick to condemn.

    Perry, by the same standard, also engages in class warfare with his quip about the $10,000 bet. Yeah Perry, just because someone is rich, they are then out of touch with “normal people”… What a douche!

    Report Post »  

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