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Title: Why Mitt Romney Will Prove To Be a Feeble Presidential Nominee
Source:
thedailybeast.com
URL Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl ... eble-presidential-nominee.html
Published: Jan 16, 2012
Author: by Michael Tomasky
Post Date: 2012-01-16 00:37:56 by TwentyTwelve
Keywords: Mitt Romney, Feeble Presidential Nominee
Views: 160
Comments: 11
Why Mitt Romney Will Prove To Be a Feeble Presidential Nominee by Michael Tomasky Jan 15, 2012 7:15 PM EST Mitt’s getting hammered in the “King of Bain” attack ad, but that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Michael Tomasky on why Romney will be stunningly weak in November. This weekend, social conservative leaders from around the country are gathering in Texas (where else?) to see if they can coalesce around a Mitt Romney alternative. That will wrap up Saturday. The next day, the Tea Party groups of South Carolina will convene in Myrtle Beach to, uh, see if they can coalesce around a Mitt Romney alternative. A week ago, all these people seemed like cranky sore losers. They’re still probably cranky sore losers, but one thing has changed: now that Romney is known as the King of Bain, their reservations about his electability don’t seem quite as crazy. In fact, they’re not crazy at all, because Romney is a stunningly weak candidate. I started on this theme of Romney’s weaknesses last week when I wrote about his reactionary tax plan and his refusal to release his own taxes, and what an unfortunate (for him) cocktail those two ingredients will make for him. I then noted, after New Hampshire, how his victory speech was all wrong, and how easily rebuttable his arguments against Obama are. Now, the Bain attacks put into sharp relief another reason for his weakness. He has just one argument, and the Bain “creative destruction” narrative comes close to killing it. Romney’s argument, of course, is that he has the know-how to fix the economy and put people to work. But as more and more people learn about what Bain did in private equity—the story will fade a bit now, but return with a roar this summer and fall—more and more people will come to realize the truth of the matter, which is that Bain wasn’t about creating jobs, it was about making investors who were usually already rich even richer. Jobs were sometimes created as a side effect, and they were sometimes destroyed as a side effect. But jobs were an ancillary consideration. Profit—for shareholders, yes, but mostly for Bain—was the idea. Romeny Supporters listen to Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, speak during a campaign stop at Cherokee Trikes & More on January 12, 2012 in Greer, South Carolina., Mark Wilson / Getty Images Romney’s team has started its Bain pushback, and we’ll soon see gauzy testimonials from regular Americans who work at Staples and other places Bain helped. The "King of Bain" documentary has, of course, been seriously challenged, and the filmmakers incredibly used some stories that took place after Romney had left the firm. But there's still enough material in one or two of those stories to make for some wrenching ads that are bound to pack more emotional wallop. And they’ll resonate more because of who Romney is and how he comes across—his gaudy net worth, his difficulty connecting with people, all of that. In some ways, the most damning thing in that documentary is that he tore down a $12 million beach house in La Jolla because it was inadequate to his needs. Toss in that ghastly remark about it being all right to discuss inequality in “quiet rooms,” which I feel certain we haven’t heard nearly the last of. Which quiet rooms did he mean? Not churches or funeral parlors. He meant corporate board rooms, where everyone would agree with him. An astonishingly frank moment, like the comment about liking to be able to fire people. I know he was talking about insurance companies, but here in the 99 percent, we don’t “fire” insurance companies, or usually doctors and certain other service professionals. We change them. It was a word choice that really did reveal a world view. Is this really the man to make the case to middle America that he is their rescuer? It’s a joke. What Romney is depending on—the only thing that can elect him, really, along with I suppose a terrorist attack or some unforeseeable revelation or scandal—is a lousy economy. That can maybe elect him. But let me pose this question. What if the economy is in pretty decent shape by the fall? The creation of 200,000 private-sector jobs in December is nothing to scoff at. In fact, Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, emailed me Monday morning in response to my question about the unemployment rate in this election year to say: “Based on the growth in the adult population, employment levels in Dec. 2011, and a couple of alternative assumptions about how fast the labor force will grow over the next 10 months, it appears to me than employment growth will have to average 155,000 to 170,000 over the next 10 months to hit” a jobless rate by Election Day of 8 percent. He cautions that the labor force participation rate (LFPR, explained here) could affect that a bit, requiring a somewhat higher number. Fair enough. But Burtless also told me in an earlier conversation that the LFPR rose over the last quarter of 2011, meaning more people participated in the work force and looked for jobs—which in turn means that “yeah, but people are taking themselves out of the labor market” is slowly becoming a smaller and smaller asterisk. So—170,000 jobs a month? Consider this: We averaged 133,000 jobs per month in 2011, and the year gone by was certainly pretty crappy, especially the first seven or eight months of it. Is it insane to think we’ll average considerably better than that in 2012? Romney is already a uniquely bad messenger for this particular year for the reasons laid out above. But if by Election Day we’ve been adding that many jobs a month every month for basically a year, Romney’s message will be irrelevant. Oh, he’ll get 47, 48 percent of the vote, because we’re a divided country, and he’ll take back a couple of states Obama picked off because of the singular historical circumstances of 2008. But a majority will not want to change horses, especially when the other horse is carrying Romney’s kind of personal baggage and is promising policies that are warmed over versions of the policies that created the economic crisis in the first place. I have no great confidence in the brilliance of Obama’s political team, but this should not be too hard, even for them, and Mitt can find himself a nice quiet room in La Jolla to go ponder the what-if’s. Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long. Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. Poster Comment: Romney is already a uniquely bad messenger for this particular year for the reasons laid out above. But if by Election Day we’ve been adding that many jobs a month every month for basically a year, Romney’s message will be irrelevant.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Good article. Romney is this (s)Election Cycle's McCain - a candidate who cannot win.
I agree.
McRomney looks like he belongs on a mortuary slab. His face is dead.
You need Bob Dole in that pic, also.
Debate Fact Check: Romney's 120,000 Jobs - NYTimes.com
Mitt Romney Claims He's a Job Creator...Record Shows He's a Job Cutter | Video Cafe
August 11, 2011 What Romney leaves out of his stump speech, however, is just how bad his state’s job creation statistics were during his four years as governor. Different job creation studies rank Massachusetts in the bottom four states during Romney’s administration. A study by the independent think tank MassINC ranked the state 49th in job creation from 2001-2007, ahead of only Michigan. And according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Massachusetts ranked 47th, ahead of only Michigan, Ohio, and Louisiana. Michigan and Ohio, both located in the Rust Belt, faced heavy job losses due to the flight of manufacturing jobs from the Midwest. Louisiana, meanwhile, lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. During Romney’s period as governor, Massachusetts’ job growth was just 0.9 percent, well behind other high-wage, high-skill economies in New York (2.7), California (4.7), and North Carolina (7.6). The national average, meanwhile, was better than 5 percent. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Mitt Romney Lies About Job Creation Record at Bain During ABC Debate | Video Cafe January 07, 2012 07:28 PM Mitt Romney Lies About Job Creation Record at Bain During ABC Debate By Heather Romney came right out of the gate at this Saturday night's ABC Republican primary debate lying about his job creation record at Bain Capital. Here's part of the exchange via the LA Times -- Romney takes heat over Bain record: Asked to respond to an anti-Romney ad campaign that will be waged by a super PAC backing his candidacy, former House speaker Newt Gingrich shied away from directly endorsing the ads – which scrutinize Romney's record at Bain Capital – but delivered a pointed jab at the Bain business model. “I'm not nearly enamored of a Wall Steet model where you can flip companies, you can go in and have leveraged buyouts, you can basically take out all the money, leaving behind workers,” Gingrich said. Pressed to explain a comment he made last month that Romney earned his fortune by “bankrupting companies and laying off workers,” Gingrich punted, referring instead to a New York Times story that detailed the history of one company that was taken over by Bain. “Well, I”m not surprised to have the New York Times try to put free enterprise under trial,” Romney said. “I'm not surprised to have the Obama adminsitration do that either. It's a little surprising from my colleagues on this stage.” Romney again repeated his claim that Bain created 100,000 jobs under his leadership. His math has been questioned in recent news reports – like this one from the Washington Post, which says the 100,000 figure “obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain.”Romney defended the figure: “I'm a good enough numbers guy to make sure I've got both sides of that.” The Washington Post's Ezra Klein was following the debate on Twitter and noted that Romney's claim about the net-net on job losses is just not true and pointed to this article as well as the one linked from the LA Times above:
0:28 sec. YouTube video: McCain, is it Romney or Obama?... Romney, another Obama. Uploaded by VoteDrRonPaul2012 on Jan 9, 2012 Vid comment: haha! Ron Paul 2012 ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Nancy Pelosi: GOP knows Mitt Romney can’t win - Seung Min Kim - POLITICO.com
#2. To: TwentyTwelve (#0)
#3. To: Original_Intent (#2)
Romney is this (s)Election Cycle's McCain - a candidate who cannot win.
#4. To: TwentyTwelve (#3)
#5. To: TwentyTwelve (#3)
#6. To: Original_Intent (#4)
#7. To: Original_Intent (#2)
Good article. Romney is this (s)Election Cycle's McCain - a candidate who cannot win.
#8. To: TwentyTwelve (#7)
Mitt Romney Claims He's a Job Creator...Record Shows He's a Job Cutter | Video Cafe
Article excerpt: Massachusetts, which Romney governed from 2003- 2007, ranked 47th among the 50 states in job creation numbers during his tenure. [...]
#9. To: GreyLmist (#8)
#10. To: TwentyTwelve, All (#3)
McCain forgets Romney's Name... Romney, another Obama.
#11. To: GreyLmist (#10)
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