MANCHESTER, NH — “You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?”
Who said it — Elizabeth Warren? Dennis Kucinich? Noam Chomsky?
Not quite, that was Newt Gingrich talking to reporters at an energy company in Manchester on Monday about his new effort to paint Mitt Romney as a greedy one-percenter who finds “clever legal ways” to go about “looting a company” while screwing over its workers.
Gingrich’s argument against Romney over Bain’s history of downsizing has become increasingly similar to the Occupy Wall Street crowd’s criticism of the financial system, let alone national Democrats. Compare his latest attacks to, say, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is spearheading the party’s current anti-Romney effort.
“Mitt Romney, I think, is more of a job cremator than a job creator,” Schultz told TPM recently. “He was a corporate buyout specialist at Bain Capital. He dismantled companies. He cut jobs. He forced companies into bankruptcy and he outsourced jobs and sent jobs overseas.”
The former Speaker is making the case that, in contrast to good old fashioned businesses who make stuff, Romney and his ilk have instead gamed the system to create a soulless machine that profits from the misery of others. Whereas Republicans used to merely whisper that Bain was an electability problem for Romney, Gingrich and other candidates are now openly making the case that the invisible hand has failed to stop corporate raiders from hurting American workers — even as they condemn President Obama as a radical socialist for his rhetoric on Wall Street.
“I am totally for capitalism, I am for free markets,” Gingrich assured reporters on Monday. “Nobody objects to Bill Gates being extraordinarily rich, they provide a service.” What he instead is concerned about is when an investor receives “six-to-one returns, and the company goes bankrupt.”
And that’s just the candidate himself. Previews of a new film produced by a pro-Newt Super PAC that will air in South Carolina are as brutal as they come about Romney’s brand of management.
“Capitalism made America great - free markets, innovation, hard work - the building blocks of the American Dream,” the narrator of the film intones. “But in the wrong hands some of those dreams can turn into nightmares.”
Gingrich defended his new negative tack to reporters on Monday, saying Super PAC spending by Romney supporters left him little choice but to go on the offensive. He insisted that his brutal new anti-Romney line wasn’t kneecapping his party’s general election chances.
“If somebody’s going to crumble, they better crumble before the nomination,” he said.
Rick Perry has been running hard against Wall Street in recent days as well. One Iowa ad said Romney “made millions buying companies and laying off workers” and Perry himself went after the frontrunner in South Carolina for talking about how he was once worried about receiving a “pink slip” himself.
“I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I’m sure he was worried that he’d run out of pink slips,” he said, per CNN.
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
Newt on Romney:
His bologna has a first name,
It's P-I-O-U-S,
His bologna has a second name,
It's horses A-S-S,
He loves to dish *^it every day,
Raid corporations for his pay,
And shuts the place down where you work,
'Cause he's another Wall Street jerk.
All we have to do is page back a few years and look at Newter's response to the slight given him by then President Clinton. By the time his hissy fit had run it's course he had managed to get his bloviated butt run out of DC by his own party. Call this Snot Shots, Part Deux.
Has Newt decided that since he will not get the nomination, Romney will not get to be president?
bison I think Newt's thinking is if he can't get to be president then NOBODY will.
Admittedly, he hasn't really thought it through, but y'know... Newt's a man of ACTION.
spas485bison
This can't be Newt's decision. Super PACs aren't supposed to coordinate with candidates I thought. Who can get the FEC to check into this? spas485 bison
casualreprobate If there's anything to check into - CREW.
“You have to ask the question, is capitalism ... money?” said Freddi Mac's resident historian.
Nice to see some facts in a Republican campaign for a change.
marc23 More like half-truths considering Gingrich is in the 1% as well.
Maybe Newt will get a second surge, now that he has an attack video AND the coveted endorsement of Todd Palin.
bearclaw I just sent a link to that... figured they could use it in a "Who Gives a Rat's Ass" section of TPM2012.
http://news.yahoo.com/todd-palin-endorses-newt-gin...
davidasrbearclaw Does this mean Ms Palin will not be running for the Preznitsy? Or is Todd just a little more crazy than we thought.
Commie Dearestbearclaw Yes.
Commie,
Maybe Newt promised Todd that in a Gingrich Presidency, Alaska will be given its independence. Then Todd and Sarah can reign as King and Queen of the Frozen North.
Commie Dearestdavidasrbearclaw SCHIZOPHRENIA LIBEL!!!!!!
anouthouseCommie Dearestbearclaw I've been thinking on this some in the past half hour or so (yes, I have no life) and I started wondering what Todd had to promise/give up to Caribou Barbie to make it Not About Her this time?
davidasranouthouseCommie Dearestbearclaw "Really, Sarah? ANOTHER kid?!"
I usually go to the source for all things Palin:
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/davidasr anouthouse Commie Dearest bearclaw
stephen-maturin Oh DAMN... I wish you'd have warned me not to have a mouth full of dinner before I read that!
NEWSMAX attacks the TPM/JMM Seal of Approval Candidate
Monday, 09 Jan 2012 03:47 PM
By Paul Scicchitano
Read more on Newsmax.com: Voters Eat Up Gingrich’s ‘Pious Baloney’ Jab at Romney Important:
JohnMcCSF Flagged spam.
JohnMcCSF - Newsmax? What a joke
In principle, the Newt believes that "capitalism" really IS about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money. But he has a campaign to run, and god damn it, he'll lie to take down Mitt Romney. Not that he'd govern differently, of course.
HarryBowman Mitt may get the nomination, but Newt is making sure that he will not become president.
They used to call people like Willard "vulture capitalists." But then later I suppose that kind of piracy became routine and unworthy of comment.
rmwarnick They still do, but the animal rights people objected to casting aspersions on vultures.
rmwarnick "routine and unworthy of comment"? Hell, it became SOP and worthy or praise! What's a company for, if not to strip of its workers (lazy bums), recover all the money sunk into pensions and investments, and play the derivatives market?
Louise Amen! Love the Gorey avatar!
“Nobody objects to Bill Gates being extraordinarily rich"
Actually, I heard people bitching about how rich Bill Gates was all the time until he turned into a philanthropist.
Flying Squid I still curse Bill Gates every time I use a pathetic Windows program. From what I can see far from Silicon Valley is that Gates was more successful at squashing the competition than he was creating great products.
Having worked in academia and non-profits, where we were expected to suck up to rich people because they might make a donation, I am not impressed by rich people's philanthropy.
merrymirth I have quite a few problems with the Gates foundation myself, but it's not worth going into here.
@Flying Squid It doesn't bother me that Bill Gates and Mitt Romney are super rich. I'm upset that they pay a lower effective tax rate than I do.
Bill Gates got rich by ignoring the entire concept of ethics. He sold the DOS operating system to IBM even though he didn't invent it and didn't even own the rights to it. Flying Squid
rmwarnickFlying Squid "Bill Gates got rich by ignoring the entire concept of ethics."
That's the core theme of a Hollywood classic, "Chinatown": if you can steal big enough, they name streets after you instead of throwing you in jail.
spas485 "Come on, Jake"
"Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
rmwarnickFlying Squid Really? I don't doubt it, but I didn't know that. Can you recommend a worthy journalistic expose? I'd like the details for a project.
The TNT film "Pirates of Silicon Valley," which was based on the book "Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer" by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. merrymirth Flying Squid
rmwarnickFlying Squid rmwarnick Thanks. I will take a look.
merrymirth Also have a look at the PBS documentary, "Triumph of the Nerds" if you can find it.
Flying Squid Gates is worthy of bitching about because of his monopolistic tendencies, general business thuggery and unsavory business ethics. But, at least he did provide something. At least he performed a service that some people thought was valuable enough to pay for.
He's at least a decent a businessman as a street corner crack dealer.
Romney has done none of that. On the humanity scale, Romney is a level below that street corner crack dealer.
All pretense of Newt as a candidate are gone now. This is the Newt we all know. Only one goal remains: The utter decimation of Mitt Romney. As a Georgian and long time sufferer of Newt's blowhard ways, I think this is the one time I can remember being ecstatic about Newt's tendency toward political murder-suicide.
atliberal Do we mind if Gingrich rips Romney into shreds? Hopefully, Romney will be such a tattered scarecrow by the time that he gets the GOP nomination that Obama will be able to leave him as nothing but a pile of rags and sticks by November.
After all, Obama has to make sure that the margin of victory is so wide that no computer-vote-counting shenanigans can steal it, the way they stole it from Kerry in Ohio.
Louise - from my post - "this is the one time I can remember being ecstatic about Newt's tendency toward political murder-suicide". Not sure how you read that as me having any reservations about this development.
atliberal If he cannot be president, than he is going to make sure that Mitt cannot either.
Newt: "I am totally for capitalism -- unless I can score a few cheap political points by trashing it, in which case: Proletarians of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"
peterprinciple GOPers of the states unite. You have nothing to lose but your brains
jeffgee "GOPers of the states unite. You have nothing to lose but your brains.
"Can't spend what you ain't got; can't lose what you never had." -- Muddy Waters
I don't believe it, this creep is stealing some of our best material!
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