Of course—while he does disagree with Romney on some relevant policy questions—based on his record, neither does Barack Obama. (That’s a link to Slate’s Matthew Yglesias, who argues that Romney and Obama are both right about this here, and—in a reply to MoJo’s latest—here.)
Update: I missed this earlier, but MoJo’s Adam Serwer has a good account of how Romney and Obama are both basically on board with outsourcing and offshoring here.
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This is gonna be tough for the "you didn't build that" crowd to grasp but if you actually do build a prosperous and respected firm of Bain's caliber you're probably not tossing the keys over without adequate compensation. If you were selling a valuable home would you let the new owners take occupancy and title before agreeing on a price?
Whether Romney was rainmaker or the one who shopped for companies to salvage does not preclude him from an integral role in turning around the companies ultimately chosen to salvage. Really are you suggesting he was relegated to rainmaker because he was clueless on the other aspects of the business he built? Moreover, there is no need to shop for the "entity" Romney hopes to salvage now - it's the one buried and debt and economic despair just south of Canada. Perhaps the flying monkeys should stop and think before jumping out the window when Axelrod bids them to fly.
#1 Posted by Mary, CJR on Sat 21 Jul 2012 at 04:02 AM
There is a big difference between Democratic and Republican approaches to economics in general which is why you have situations under democrats where the economy does better for the middle class and the poor and the economy does better for the top .01% and stagnates, if not collapses, under republicans.
Yes, there is a case to be made for DLC democrats have supported free trade at the cost of national sovereignty over economic policy and sector erosion. There are too many democrats who have stepped out of bed with Richard Trumka and into bed with Jeffery Immelt to deny this, but the difference is that even the most conservative democrats don't give away the store. Republicans do, they believe it is the right of the market masters to have dominion of he store, which was why you had industry lobbyists and former corporate officers appointed to head the regulatory bodies of their respective industries. It's an unfortunate distinction, but it's true - America is a two party system and Corporate America owns one and a half of it, but that unowned half makes a difference in the social policies which soften the blow of offshoring and outsourcing and provide the investment required to fashion new ladders of social mobility when the old ladders have been sold off to India.
This is the reality: under democrats you have support for social programs that protect citizens from the instabilities that arise in life and for the investments required to build the 21st century economy, funded by tax revenue.
under republicans, you have none of that. Unfortunately people refuse to believe Republicans are that bad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/can-the-democrats-catch-up-in-the-super-pac-game.html
"Burton and his colleagues spent the early months of 2012 trying out the pitch that Romney was the most far-right presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater. It fell flat. The public did not view Romney as an extremist. For example, when Priorities informed a focus group that Romney supported the Ryan budget plan — and thus championed “ending Medicare as we know it” — while also advocating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing. What became clear was that voters had almost no sense of Obama’s opponent."
And why don't people believe that Republicans are that bad? Because we have an equally bad political press:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/scarborough-and-halperin-accuse-obama-usin
These are horrible banal people.
If you want to look at who favors the American worker more, look at the direction of tax cuts and bailouts, of jobs under democratic and republican administrations, of laws vetoed and filibustered, at the business model of the candidate.
Yeah, Obama supports the market and free trade, since even in spite of his drastic support of banks, the wealthy, free trade, etc. he's considered an anti-american Muslim socialist.
But that is different from Mitt Romney's actual profiting from the actual liquidation of American labor. Mitt Romney and the teahadists are not the same as democrats when it comes to these issues - in fact you are going to see large pushes from the right to further dismantle the state so that the exploitation of work, environment, tax law, tax rates, and trade can be more efficiently realized.
They believe they are the job creators, and that the economic world revolves around the sun they generously provide. If you let that go unchallenged and just equate everybody as being the same, you will be doing great harm to the public.
As you did with your weak coverage during the GW Bush presidency.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 22 Jul 2012 at 04:48 PM