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Inoculating Romney

By: razor (Diary)  |  January 13th, 2012 at 09:27 AM  | 

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A recent satirical post wrote the GOP should vet Mitt Romney’s past dealings with Bain. Romney’s opponents shouldn’t do this because they hate capitalism (does anyone really believe that they do?). No, his foes should do it because if there are skeletons in that closet, we need to know about it now, before Mitt’s sealed the nomination.

Was the Occupy Wall Street movement just a ragtag bunch of dropouts looking for a party? Well, ok. Maybe some. But considering that Mitt Romney was the frontrunner at the time, it doesn’t take a black-helicopter conspiracy nut to believe that the Democratic National Committee could be behind the whole thing. Why? To lay the groundwork for attacks on Romney once it’s official. The backdrop is set: the so-called 99% against the rich, corporate-jet flying, elitist business owners. Once the winter thaws, these protests will be back.

If you know your opponent is going to use a charge against you, you defend against it, you prepare for it. So, while Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich attacks — including the release of a 30-minute propaganda video — are very negative, they are very useful for Romney, and not just because it helps Newt flame out in a glorious pyre of pomposity.

Mitt Romney, having already won Iowa and New Hampshire, is still leading in South Carolina. If he’s the inevitable nominee, we need to be prepared to defend this image all summer long.

Mitt Romney as Gordon Gekko

Unlike 2004, Dan Rather doesn’t need to fake it; it’s already out there.

Given all this, with the constant drum circles beating anti-capitalism chants all summer long, this image will be leading newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS every night. Add to this the sorry tales of woe pouring out about Bain Capital and how Mitt Romney, captain of industry, dragged workers into the gutter on Christmas Eve, and he’ll be Bill Murray as Frank Cross firing Eliot Loudermilk.

So, as ugly as today’s attacks are, they inoculate Romney. They strengthen his immune system, like getting a strain of the flu. And, it gives him the chance to say next September, “this is old news that was already hashed out months ago.”

So, thank Newt Gingrich: he’s de-fanging one of Obama’s major attacks against our likely guy. It’s not certain it’ll work or be enough, but it’s better than doing nothing now.

It looks like we’re stuck with Mitt. We may as well give him a chance of beating Obama.

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  • Juggernaut

    so yes Romney must be tested now if he is too succeed. I prefer other over this moderate but clearly he’s going to face the ring of liberal fire and it will be worse than 2008 with McCain. Obama has nothing to lose and all the loot he needs to buy an evil amount of support.

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  • Addison

    It doesn’t “defang” the attacks from Obama if Romney gets out of the issue because he’s explained it to the GOP’s satisfaction in terms the GOP understands. Having Romney formulate and crystalize the GOP-oriented explanation of Bain’s business plan is exactly what Obama wants. If Mitt didn’t have to deal with this now, he might have been able to talk about Bain in a way that was less defensive and more centrist, he might have to make a universal explanation rather than a “everything we did was right” one which is less palatable to many voters. As it is he’s able to defend Bain in terms that play well with the GOP base but not as well with swing state voters bleeding jobs.

    Time will tell how Bain plays out, but if we’re using medical analogies this isn’t an innoculation. It’s a bad set of a broken bone. That said I don’t think it’ll matter much.

  • razor

    If these attacks are broken bones that cripple Romney in the general, two points:

    1) isn’t it better to know how vulnerable Mitt is now, rather than discovering the damaged-goods candidate we’re stuck with after it’s too late to change? We don’t need another weak-horse McCain. Let’s find out now.

    2) whatever the attacks now, Obama and the MSM will do a hundred times worse in intensity, frequency, and severity. There is no way to simulate the attack on capitalism we’d see if there was one point person to accept all the blows. Instead of a row of faceless “corporate-jet” CEO’s being sworn in in Congress, there will be one man accepting the full brunt of OWS, MSM and the “share-the-wealth” folks in the WH. Today’s attacks are a tickle compared to what would come.

    We should find out whether they’re debilitating. As they saying goes, “that which doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.”

  • Addison

    Where did I say it would be crippling? I said, plain as day, “I don

  • razor

    The title of this post was “inoculating” which is good.

    The title of your reply was “bone” and then concluded with “bad set of a broken bone.”

    This implies a disagreement with my post on both the severity and duration of Newt’s attacks.

    Where I come from, a a badly set bone leaves someone permanently disabled in some way. And so, my response was completely apt. If you want to backtrack and say that a badly set bone is just a passing injury now, I suppose that’s your prerogative.

    I believe it’s a temporary setback that should strengthen Romney going forward. And hence, “inoculate.”

    Thank you for writing.