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Newt’s ‘Romney & Me’ movie

  That’s the anti-Mitt Romney movie released on the web by a Super PAC affiliated with Newt Gingrich. I think Entertainment Weekly is correct in calling it a “pulverizing piece of propaganda.”  It could have been made by Oliver Stone or Michael Moore, and anybody who wondered if Newt cared more about the GOP winning this […]

 

That’s the anti-Mitt Romney movie released on the web by a Super PAC affiliated with Newt Gingrich. I think Entertainment Weekly is correct in calling it a “pulverizing piece of propaganda.”  It could have been made by Oliver Stone or Michael Moore, and anybody who wondered if Newt cared more about the GOP winning this fall than destroying Romney has their answer right here. It’s incredibly crude — right down to exploiting footage of Romney speaking French, and having contact with “Latin American investors” — but emotionally devastating. Leaving aside the fairness or unfairness of the accusations — please understand that I’m neither supporting nor contesting them, not in this post — as political rhetoric it’s highly potent stuff.

Why? Because a) it plays directly to a widespread opinion that Wall Street (that is, firms like Romney’s Bain Capital) have done a spectacular number on ordinary Americans, and have gotten very rich at the expense of the common good; b) ties Romney personally to this hated phenomenon; and c) debuts in a political culture in which there is little pro-Romney passion among the people.

Andrew Sullivan highlights the biggest reason why this ad could be effective:

But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn’t just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fuc*ing unimaginable fortune doing it. That’s the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain.

Sully cites a writer in that notable left-wing rag the New York Post, criticizing Bain’s way of doing business. Fox News host Mike Huckabee denounces such attacks on Romney, but his thrust seems pro forma GOP boilerplate, and therefore unconvincing. Andy McCarthy at The Corner goes nuclear on Newt and the ad, calling it “shameful” and “a disgrace,” and saying he’s now “embarrassed” to have stood up for Gingrich in this campaign.

The ad is useful to Romney in one way: it forces him to address right now, in January, the main thrust of what will be the Democrats’ attack on him this fall, should he be the nominee. If he can’t effectively rebut Gingrich’s assault now, he’ll be hopeless against Obama this fall.

It’s absolutely astonishing that a raw-meat populist film like this is coming from a Republican presidential candidate, because it radically calls into question the conventional right-wing (and New Democrat) wisdom about the virtues of contemporary capitalism. To be sure, I think this is a good thing in principle, though this particular instance is like sending a drunken butcher in to do the work of a surgeon. The idea that Newt Gingrich, of all people, would be making this kind of attack on Romney is risible. Since when did Newt Gingrich ever lift a fat finger to fight the kind of predatory capitalism he faults Romney for in this film?

UPDATE: Megan McArdle says the WSJ story examining the fate of companies taken over by Bain provides equal evidence for those who think Bain was predatory and harmful, and those who think it served a positive role by re-energizing dysfunctional firms. She’s suspending judgment until she sees more information. As am I.

UPDATE.2: Elias Isquith (@eliasisquith) tweets:

A little less than half-way through 2 thoughts: 1. no way a swing voter votes Romney after seeing this 2. Gingrich will never be forgiven

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