Conor Friedersdorf thinks Herman Cain’s blanket defense of Wall Street in the face of the Occupy Wall Street protests was really stupid, politically. Excerpt:

As a fan of the free market who shares the right’s notion that it is sometimes unfairly pilloried by the left, I insist that it is an idiotic rhetorical mistake for my fellow fans of capitalism to hold up Wall Street, as it currently exists, as an example of what we want at the center of the American economy. If it must become a symbol of anything, crony capitalism is a more likely fit, but the real mistake that Cain and so many others make is to see Wall Street, the protestors there, and resentment of financial elites as a matter to be grappled with in general terms, through the lens of ideology. There are honest and dishonest people on Wall Street, sensible and absurd people in the Occupy Wall Street, accurate and inaccurate critiques of American finance.

Conor lays out a pretty obvious (to anyone but a Republican ideologue) way for a conservative candidate to take what’s worthwhile from the Occupy Wall Street protests and make it work for him. GOP candidate Buddy Roemer takes this good idea even further.  After three years of economic pain, why is Roemer the only Republican who even talks sense about the crony capitalism within our system?