Newt Gingrich’s 27 minute film beating up the free-enterprise system and Mitt Romney, which is airing in South Carolina, continues to land him in hot water. As conservative criticism against him begins to boil, Rick Perry is occupying splashing in the bath with him. Climbing out of the suds, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum keep trying to mop up their footprints.
While Romney releases his *counterattack, here’s more conservative reaction to attacks on Romney and capitalism:
Perry donor defects to Romney, citing Bain attacks
CNN Politics
Jan 12, 2012
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) – One of Rick Perry’s leading financial supporters in South Carolina is defecting to Mitt Romney – and he told CNN Thursday that Perry’s sharp criticisms of Romney as a “vulture capitalist” were the main factor in his decision.
Both Perry and Newt Gingrich recently began hammering Romney as a predatory capitalist who looted companies and fired workers when he was running the private equity firm Bain Capital in the 1980s and 1990s.
Barry Wynn, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a financial adviser in Spartanburg, said the escalating rhetoric about Romney’s business background is “destructive.”
“It’s just a dance I didn’t want to be a part of,” Wynn said in an interview, explaining his decision to leave Perry’s campaign.
Wynn, along with a handful of other previously neutral South Carolina moneymen, will publicly endorse Romney on Thursday.
“This latest attack, it’s so foreign to me, I couldn’t see myself being a part of that,” he explained. “I don’t think you can be on both sides of free market capitalism. A big part of me being a Republican for the last 40 years is that I think it’s the best hope to protect free market capitalism, the growth engine of our economy.”
Read more here.
Associated Press: “Presidential candidate Rick Perry’s criticism of Mitt Romney’s business past has cost him the support of a prominent South Carolina Republican. Investment fund executive and top GOP donor Barry Wynn told The Associated Press Thursday that he’s leaving the Perry fold to endorse Romney. Wynn says he was irritated by Perry’s attacks on Romney’s time at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital. As Wynn put it, ‘It’s like fingernails on the chalkboard.’” (The Associated Press, 1/12/12)
The Wall Street Journal: “About the best that can be said about the Republican attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is that President Obama is going to do the same thing eventually … Yet that hardly absolves Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and others for their crude and damaging caricatures of modern business and capitalism. Politics isn’t subtle, and these candidates are desperate, but do they have to sound like Michael Moore?” (Editorial, “The Bain Capital Bonfire,” The Wall Street Journal, 1/11/12)
National Review: “[T]o abominate Mitt Romney for having been a success at the business of investing in struggling American companies, connecting entrepreneurs with capital and producers with markets, is foolish and destructive. Republicans ought to know better, and the fact that Gingrich et al. apparently do not is the most disturbing commentary on the state of the primary field so far.” (Editorial, “Romney’s Profitable Past,” National Review, 1/10/12)
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin: “Regardless of his intentions, Gingrich … has embarked in an anti-Bain, anti-Romney vendetta that is widely scorned in his own party.” (Jennifer Rubin, “Gingrich And His Backer Are Bruised By The Anti-Bain Attacks,” The Washington Post, 1/12/12)
Rush Limbaugh: “You have to say that Newt and Perry blew it the last two days. I don’t care what you think, folks, the attacks that they mounted on Romney are not defensible. … I’m sorry, folks, that is indefensible. There’s no way you can try to dress that up. I don’t understand it. Well, politically I understand it, but that’s just absurd. It’s sad. … This is the language of leftists like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. … This is not conservatism. It’s the polar opposite of conservatism. It’s the language used to take away economic freedom.” (RushLimbaugh.com, 1/11/12)
Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips: [W]e are disappointed to see attacks from some Republican presidential candidates on Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, which sink to the level of some of the worst anti-free market, class envy politics constantly pushed by the Obama Administration and those in the Occupy camps.” (Americans For Prosperity, Press Release, 1/11/12)
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: “I’m outraged … I’m shocked what they’re doing. It’s ignorant, dumb. It’s building something we should be fighting in America, ignorance of the economic system, playing on the dumbest, most ridiculous ideas about how you grow jobs. … What they’re doing to Mitt right now is totally unfair and bad for the Republican Party. … What the hell are you doing, Newt? I expect this from Saul Alinsky. This is what Saul Alinsky taught Barack Obama, and what you’re saying is part of the reason we’re in so much trouble right now.” (Tim Mak, “Rudy Giuliani: Newt Gingrich Acting Like Saul Alinsky,” Politico, 1/12/12)
Senator John McCain: “To go after [Romney] on really what is the essence of what we Republicans believe in about [the] economy, I think is a serious mistake and frankly I think it’s the last resort of a very desperate campaign.” (Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” 1/12/12)
Governor Nikki Haley: “I am baffled by the fact that we are putting the free market on trial here. I’m concerned for my party. The free market’s what we fight for.” (Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, “Republican Rivals Batter Romney in South Carolina,” The New York Times, 1/11/12)
The day after the NH primary election, Romney Campaign Policy Director Lanhee Chen spoke with Eric Bolling (FOX Business) on Romney’s career at Bain Capital. (Bolling continues to defend Romney’s free-enterprise record on FOX News program The Five: “This is gonna kill Perry and it’s gonna hurt Newt, too.”):
What do business owners in South Carolina think of the Occupy-Wall-Street anti-capitalism rhetoric coming from Gingrich and Perry?
Here’s your answer:
Boston, MA – Mitt Romney today announced the support of business leaders in South Carolina.
“Mitt Romney will be able to fix our economy and create jobs – because he has had one,” said Barry Wynn. “When Mitt Romney becomes president, job creators across the country will be able to have the confidence that their president is supporting them, not trying to demonize them and regulate them out of business. Along with these other South Carolina business leaders, I am proud to endorse Mitt Romney because we know he will reinvigorate South Carolina’s economy and the American entrepreneurial spirit.”
“These business leaders in South Carolina are an important part of our country’s economic engine,” said Mitt Romney. “But they can’t afford four more years of an over-taxing, over-spending, over-regulating Obama Administration. As President, I will put in place policies that free the private sector to do what it does best: create jobs. With the help of leaders like these, we will get our economy back on the right track.”
South Carolina business leaders supporting Mitt Romney:
William Biggs, Anderson
Dr. William Bogache, Grand Strand Urology, Myrtle Beach
William Bradshaw, Bradshaw Automotive, Greer
Terry S. Brown, CEO of EDENS, Columbia
Peter M. Brown, President of Colite International, Columbia
Richard E. Coen, President of Coen & Densmore, Charleston
E. Bart Daniel, Charleston
Henry B. Fishburne, Jr., Charleston
Joseph P. Griffith, Jr., Charleston
Kevin Hall, Partner at Hall & Bowers, Columbia
Lynn Harton, Greenville
Henry Horowitz, Chairman of Oxford Capital Partners LLC, Greenville
Matthew R. Hubbell, Charleston
Phil Hughes, President of Hughes Investments, Greenville
Sharon and Rus Kingman, President of J.R. Kingman Inc., Greer
E. Smyth McKissick, III, President of Alice Manufacturing Company, Easley
Jodie W. McLean, President & CIO of EDENS, Columbia
Charlie Mickel, Capital Deployment LLC, Greenville
David Posek, Former Chairman & Current Board Member of the SC Ports Authority, Pawleys Island
Henry C. Scott, CEO of Collum’s Lumber Products LLC, Allendale
Greg A. Thompson, President & CEO of Thompson Construction Group, Sumter
John von Lehe, Charleston
Barry Wynn, President of Colonial Trust Company, Spartanburg
Anita G. Zucker, Chairman and CEO, The InterTech Group, Charleston
*Company/business names are provided for identification purposes only.
Stuart Varney, FOX News/FOX Business economic journalist, appeared today on Megyn Kelly’s TV program. He neatly, cleanly, specifically refuted the false claims in Newt’s Super PAC film. Excellent segment. So far, I can’t find video of that exchange. Shortly afterward on FOX, Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, spoke with Neil Cavuto and criticized ‘NewtPerry’ (my moniker). He said we should unite on the merits of the free-market system and didn’t hesitate to say that NewtPerry are muddying the conservative message.
January 10, 2012, Senator Jim DeMint spoke with Mark Levin (radio talking head who is not a Romney fan). He predicted a win for Mitt in SC:
“I was just sitting here listening to the Romney acceptance speech, and he’s hitting a lot of the hot buttons for me about balancing the budget, and frankly I’m a little concerned about the few Republicans who have criticized some of what I consider free market principles here.”~ Sen Jim DeMint
*More on Romney’s counterattack:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Mitt Romney’s done defending his Bain Capital record. He’s going on offense.
The former Massachusetts governor arrived here Wednesday fresh off his New Hampshire primary win armed with a new plan for a multi-pronged response to the Republican rivals who’ve been bashing his private equity past. Campaign advisers are polishing new messaging, tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately. They’re cueing up new commercials.
And they’re rolling out a more aggressive approach from the candidate himself, even as the candidates who’d been waging the Bain battle appeared to be retreating from the rhetoric on Wednesday.
[...]
They’ll start with advertisements featuring employees of companies started and rescued by Bain telling their stories — a direct response to the documentary released by the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC that features employees of four companies closed by Bain that brutally slams Romney as a job killer. That documentary is set to be parceled out into shorter commercials that will air in South Carolina with a $3.4 million ad buy.Romney adviser Kevin Madden said they’re confident they’ll quash those attacks with their new rebuttal.
“For every scare story that they try to present related to the governor’s experience in the private sector and free enterprise,” Madden said, “we can point to a whole host of successful enterprises that have resulted in job creation and wealth and prosperity.”
Continue reading here.
NewtPerry may find themselves gurgling down the drain…
Additional reading:
Mitt Romney and Bain: How to Unite the Conservative Base with One Easy Attack
Head of U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Attacks on Romney ‘foolish’
Bloomberg: Romney Film Stretches Truth While Taking Comments Out of Context
(emphasis added to articles)
► Jayde Wyatt
Farewell Mr. Gingrich…we hardly newt thee.
Sometimes triage has to be performed on a company in order to save the company. Like triage, no one likes having to do it, but it has to be done. If you do it with honesty and integrity, then you’ve got moral standing because you were trying to do good when all is said and done. Saving companies after bad management has ran them into the ground is actually rather noble, or can be. I don’t see Mitt as a “corporate raider”, not at all. Don’t get me wrong, I do not like being laid off any more than the next person, and I’ve been laid off a lot because I work contract to contract since there’s no permanent work to be found in IT any more.
Too bad! These two lost a nice position in Romney Adminstration :-) I think Perry totally forgot he’s running for US Prez. He acts like he’s running for T party/Occupy organizer. No doubt, Perry & “Grinch” are lost.
Romney/Candi Rice 2012 ticket!!
Saw Stuart Varney on America Live today as well and have also been looking for video to forward to the anti-Romney types who’ve suddenly become anti-capitalists.
He laid out Bain Capital plainly and succinctly.
Forget “NewtPerry”–I think you should just call them “Pewty” (pronounced “pooty”)