Monday, December 19, 2011

THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE

A lot of you took issue with my prediction that a Ron Paul victory in Iowa will sew up the nomination (and quite possibly the presidency) for Mitt Romney -- and while you may have doubts about the likelihood of that chain reaction, it's looking more and more as if the Ron Paul victory is going to happen, with Romney the runner-up and Newt Gingrich and the rest of the field as also-rans. Public Policy Polling:

Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.

Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row. His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%. And there's been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47)....


But Paul isn't exactly following a formula for victory in the rest of the GOP contests:

Paul's base of support continues to rely on some unusual groups for a Republican contest. Among voters under 45 he's at 33% to 16% for Romney and 11% for Gingrich. He's really going to need that younger than normal electorate because with seniors Romney's blowing him out 31-15 with Gingrich coming in 2nd at 18%. Paul is also cleaning up 35-14 with the 24% of voters who identify as either Democrats or independents. Romney is actually ahead 22-19 with GOP voters. Young people and non-Republicans are an unusual coalition to hang your hat on in Iowa, and it will be interesting to see if Paul can actually pull it off.

Republican voters have been ordered to hate Gingrich and they're falling in line. I'd say that the only thing that can slow down Romney now is a late surge by one of the God-botherers tied for fourth place (Santorum, Bachmann, Perry) -- but even if that happens, it's clear that the Republican establishment can order the voters to abandon a non-Romney candidate and the electorate will obey.

****

And Romney, according to this New York Times story, really is the president we deserve:

Almost 13 years ago, Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, the successful private equity firm he had helped start....

Yet when it came to his considerable personal wealth, Mr. Romney never really left Bain.

In what would be the final deal of his private equity career, he negotiated a retirement agreement with his former partners that has paid him a share of Bain's profits ever since....

In the process, Bain continued to buy and restructure companies, potentially leaving Mr. Romney exposed to further criticism that he has grown wealthier over the last decade partly as a result of layoffs. Moreover, much of his income from the arrangement has probably qualified for a lower tax rate than ordinary income under a tax provision favorable to hedge fund and private equity managers, which has become a point of contention in the battle over economic inequality....


"Exposed to further criticism"? It won't matter because, as Charles Blow noted on Saturday, we as a nation are really living in a state of denial about the fairness of our economic system:

Is income inequality becoming the new global warming? In other words, is this another case where the facts of an existential threat lose traction among a weary American public as deniers attempt to reduce them to partisan opinions?

It's beginning to seem so.

A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that, after rising rather steadily for the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who said that the country is divided into "haves" and "have-nots" took the largest drop since the question was asked....

This is the new American delusion....


Here's the chart, via Gallup (click to enlarge):




The moment when the financial system was on the verge of imploding (and was beginning to be bailed out using our tax dollars) was the moment when belief that the country is divided into haves and have-nots reached parity with the belief that it isn't. Since then, things have gotten worse for the non-wealthy, but the percentage of people who see the country as divided into haves and have-nots has decreased.

We're content with this system. We're content with a system in which a Mitt Romney can make money passively from this kind of activity, and pay a lower tax rate on that money than we do on money we earn by actually working:

The 2000 [Bain Capital] purchase of KB Toys, then one of the country's largest toy retailers, became one of the most contentious.

As in most Bain deals, the partnership put up a small fraction of the money -- in this case $18 million -- and borrowed the rest of the $302 million purchase price. Just 16 months later, the toy company borrowed more to pay Bain and its investors an $85 million dividend.

That gave Mr. Romney and the other partners a quick 370 percent return on their money. But it also left the toy company with a heavy debt burden. Before long, the company began closing stores around the country and laid off 3,400 workers. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004.

Two more recent deals have also led to spiraling debt loads and layoffs. Since Bain and another private equity firm led a buyout in 2008 of Clear Channel Communications, the company has struggled under nearly $20 billion in debt and has cut 2,500 jobs.

Sensata Technologies, a European company that makes sensors and controls used by the auto and aerospace industries, prospered after a Bain-led buyout in 2006, but the firm also laid off several hundred American workers. Most of the jobs were moved overseas, and the federal Labor Department spent at least $780,000 to retrain some people who lost their jobs.


We're Americans. We don't care. We think the rich get richer and we get poorer, but we don't really believe that the system is unfairly rigged. We think it's our fault if we aren't rich, even now. That's why Romney's probably going to be our next president.

18 comments:

  1. Steve,
    Before you get too enamored of Mitt, read this and weep:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203893404577100330414585006.html

    It's an Op-ed by none other than Jeb Bush.

    Here's his opening sentence, and see if you don't think it sounds like a campaign slogan:
    "Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: "The right to rise.""

    The "right to rise."
    It's perfect!
    It fits their myth that everyone's a potential Horatio Alger.

    Plus, it hits a Conservative note with promised the promise of the right-wing rising (ascension), AND, it hits the Christian note of "ascension to Heaven" perfectly.

    I think I smell Jeb starting to throw his hat in the 3-ring circus!

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  2. Nahhh. This was in the pipeline before Gingrich's campaign imploded, which will be followed up by the implosion of Ron Paul's once we get to South Carolina. They decide to warm Jeb up on the sidelines, but he won't need to take the field now.

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  3. Yeah, I read your comment over at maha's.

    Hey, Steve, I thought you might get a kick out of this - it's a YouTube of some of the great things "Calvin and Hobbes" used to do to snowmen.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq8iyhMFLYE&feature=player_embedded

    I also put this up at maha's.
    It's too good not to share.

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  4. Hey, why aren't these coming off as links?

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  5. Isn't it possible you're reading a little too much into that poll? I've seen multiple polls suggesting that people are overwhelmingly in favor of raising taxes on the rich -- not only Democrats; Republicans too! Those kind of sentiments seem at odds with the extrapolations you're making from this poll.

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  6. They say it when asked, but there just isn't any passion behind it. Really, when was the last time voters punished a politician at the polls for being pro-plutocrat?

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  7. I hope never to live in a world when you have the power to control what sorts of deals free people make over the results of their own hard work. Romney built a company, retired from it to work in a public capacity, and had the right to make whatever sort of deal he wants. Who the heck do you think you are to question what his value is or what he is worth according to the executives at Bain? They freely made the decision to pay him a retirement package- there was no government agent holding a gun to anyone's head (which I know to you is the ideal world to live in).

    You are a petty tyrant who wants to control other people's property and decisions, even though you have no right to do so. I hope you are not a voter.

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  8. I hope never to live in a world when you have the power to control what sorts of deals free people make over the results of their own hard work.

    In other words, unions rule!

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  9. Steve, I think it could be argued that Wisconsin voters are punishing a politician for being pro-plutocracy right now. We shall see, I guess.

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  10. I hope you are not a voter.

    And I hope you're not really a teacher since you're a raving twit.

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  11. You are a petty tyrant who wants to control other people's property and decisions, even though you have no right to do so.

    What -- as a citizen I don't even have the right to point out Mitt Romney's history, so that free people can freely decide whether they want to vote for a person with such a history? Do they have the right to know his history? Do they have the right not to vote for him if they don't like his history?

    And do we have the right to decide what rate of taxation is applied to different kinds of income? Or do we need your permission before we make such decisions?

    Who's talking like a tyrant here?

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  12. The only thing "Conservative Teacher" has ever taught anyone is that if you're an ignorant motherfucking douchebag, maybe you ought to keep your motherfucking ignorant douchebag yap shut and let people think you're a motherfucking ignorant douchebag, rather than open your yap and remove all doubt that you're a motherfucking ignorant douchebag.

    If he is a teacher, I'm sure his students thank him for the lesson every day - because, frankly, I'm sure he opens up his motherfucking ignorant douchebag yap up in class every day, and there's nothing else he knows that would possible be worth learning from this Conservative motherfucking ignorant douchebag except that.

    And my apologies to real douchebags, which are useful tools, unlike this motherfucking ignorant douchebag of a tool.

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  13. Don't hold back -- tell us how you really feel.

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  14. cund gulag
    ...if you're an ignorant motherfucking douchebag, maybe you ought to keep your motherfucking ignorant douchebag yap shut and let people think you're a motherfucking ignorant douchebag, rather than open your yap and remove all doubt that you're a motherfucking ignorant douchebag.
    Did Abraham Lincoln say that?

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  15. Yes, I believe it was to McClellan.

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  16. I think it was Christopher Hitchens in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute. Or maybe it was at the bar after the speech. Or at the bar the next morning, when he asked for gin for breakfast and was turned down. I forget.

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  17. Actually it was in response to a question from Christopher Hitchens during the Lincoln/Douglas debates. (I think.)

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  18. Actually, upon further reflection, I think that was one of Hitch's favorite pick-up lines in a bar after tipping back a few dozen martini's.

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