Newt and Co. abandon their principles to pile on Romney

Mitt's GOP rivals are pouncing on his record at leveraged-buyout firm Bain. But Bain's creative destruction is a key tenet of conservative economics

Edward Morrissey

Over the last few months, we've grown accustomed to people on the Left attacking capitalism in Occupy camps across the nation. Proclaiming themselves "the 99 percent," these protesters seize public land — and in some cases, private land — to pitch tents and shout about the inequities of government bailouts and Wall Street "fat cats." For a while, Occupiers became quite a fad.

Who knew that Republican presidential candidates would be joining them? In New Hampshire this week, Newt Gingrich led fresh attacks on Mitt Romney's past Wall Street experience with Bain Capital, a firm that used leveraged buyouts to take control of struggling companies. Gingrich was soon joined by fellow GOP presidential aspirants Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry, all of whom accused Romney of being a Gordon Gekko-style corporate raider that profited by destroying jobs, rolling in dough while average Americans suffered.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Edward Morrissey

Edward Morrissey has been writing about politics since 2003 in his blog, Captain's Quarters, and now writes for HotAir.com. His columns have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Post, The New York Sun, the Washington Times, and other newspapers. Morrissey has a daily Internet talk show on politics and culture at Hot Air. Since 2004, Morrissey has had a weekend talk radio show in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and often fills in as a guest on Salem Radio Network's nationally-syndicated shows. He lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, and his two granddaughters. Morrissey's new book, GOING RED, will be published by Crown Forum on April 5, 2016.