I'm amused to see Ben Howe at RedState talking about the failure of Mitt Romney's get-out-the-vote operation this way:
Campaign Sources: The Romney Campaign was a Consultant Con JobWhat did we see in the financial crisis? Mortgages being sold to people who clearly couldn't afford them. Terrible mortgages sliced and diced and repackaged as top-quality securities, sold by firms that new how awful those securities were and were betting against them.
...So what caused the breakdown and why didn't it get fixed in time? Well according to sources who worked closely with the program, the blame is at the feet of consultants.
Specifically Targeted Victory, FLS Connect, and The Stevens and Schriefer Group....
They say that the truth is the consultants essentially used the Romney campaign as a money making scheme, forcing employees to spin false data as truth in order to paint a rosy picture of a successful campaign as a form of job security.
Zac Moffatt, Digital Director for the Romney campaign, was specifically named as having "built a nest egg for himself and co-founder of Targeted Victory, Mike Beach" ...
In modern America, this is the spirit of capitalism. It's not Randian-heroic. It's not "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Nobody gives a crap about the mousetrap's ability to catch mice. Nobody takes pride in the quality of the product, even if a well-made product would have been profitable. Pride is derived only from pulling a fast one and cashing in. Capitalism is a zero-sum war.
If you think that way, eventually you're going to screw your own kind, because you can't imagine bothering to make a better product, even when your kind are the clients.
So bravo, American capitalists -- I hope you like the world you've made.