Romney: pro capitalism, anti crony capitalism

Lawrence Kudlow at NRO quotes Romney at the debate Thursday night:

You’ve got to stop the spread of crony capitalism. [Obama] gives General Motors to the UAW. He takes $500 million and sticks it into Solyndra. He stacks the labor stooges on the NLRB so they can say no to Boeing and take care of their friends in the labor movement…. He has to bow to the most extreme members of the environmental movement. He turns down the Keystone pipeline, which would bring energy and jobs to America.

My view is capitalism works. Free enterprise works…. There’s nothing wrong with profit, by the way. That profit went to pension funds, to charities. It went to a wide array of institutions…. And by the way, as enterprises become more profitable, they can hire more people. I’m someone who believes in free enterprise. I think Adam Smith was right. And I’m gonna stand and defend capitalism across this country, throughout this campaign. I know we’re going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we’re gonna stuff it down his throat and point out that it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.

Kudlow continues:

… Governor Romney capped his strong performance with a Reaganesque summation. As he has in the past, he criticized Obama for trying to “transform” America from a merit society—an opportunity society where people are free to choose—to a European-style entitlement society. Romney said, “We need to restore the values that made America the hope of the Earth… . [President Obama] has made it almost impossible for our private sector to reboot… . I will defeat Barack Obama and keep America as it’s always been, the shining [city] on a hill.”

Meanwhile, as Gingrich has shockingly adopted left-wing rhetoric, charging (as Kudlow paraphrases Gingrich’s attack) that “Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital was involved in nothing more than vulture capitalism, looting companies, and destroying jobs. Keeping class envy alive.”

Clearly Romney is a better man than Gingrich, both politically and personally. But as I’ve said in another entry today, I don’t want Romney to win the race after only three primaries.

The Kudlow article was sent by Madeline Brooks, with this comment:

I agree with what Kudlow said on his radio show this morning. He can’t forgive the attack Gingrich made on free markets with his slam of Bain Capital. Gingrich’s attack was not about details of the Bain operation, which would be legitimate if genuine wrongdoing existed. If Romney was involved in crony capitalism, as some of the commenters to this article allege, then let those details be made known. Otherwise, Gingrich’s left wing attack was just stupid and good evidence of his own lack of conservative principles.

Ironic, though, that Republicans expose everything about each other and the media makes a fuss about all of it, while yawning about Obama’s countless outrages. Gingrich got a huge bounce from protesting media bias. Can he do anything else, something that shows both conservative principles and consistency with them?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 21, 2012 02:51 PM | Send