I used to somewhat fear Romney as a relatively reasonable candidate. But nobody seems to like him much. He still seems a pretty good choice for the old line Wall St. mainstream of the Republican party. And if the Republicans can sell Wall St. as the solution, not the problem, with the current economy, well, I guess they've got a shot.
I think Romney's vaunted record as a private equity type is key. As near as I can tell, private equity is not pretty, to paraphrase Steve Martin. Romney can cherry pick a few feelgood stories like Staples, but Staples is more a startup story than a typical private equity operation. Private equity types are primarily flippers, not business builders. They can paper things over, and sometimes I suppose they successfully restructure a business to make it stronger, but in general they want to get maximum money out as fast as possible. Very often that means saddling the company they're supposed to be turning around with huge debt.
Private equity sort of looks to me like the large scale equivalent of all the scummy subprime mortgage operators who really killed the economy. If Romney can sell that as a good thing, he could win. With all the Murdoch propaganda machinery plus other associated "ideological infrastructure" on the right, plus unlimited Citizens United slush money floating around, it's certainly possible that it could be done. Maybe the dreaded MSM will stand up and push back on this . That could happen too, but for now I live somewhat in fear of the Murdoch et al operation. |
