As always, apologies if this has already been diary'ed. But I don't see it.
For the last weeks, I have been wondering about Romney's seemingly unshakeable support in the business community. I understand that the most successful of these guys stand to do very well under a Romney administration (perish the thought.) But there are a lot of UN-most-successful business types, too - and like the rest of the middle class, the Romney-fueled economic apocalypse will hit them hard.
So I was overjoyed to see a biting, economy-centered DIS-endorsement of Romney today in The Economist.
More...
I have an intern - she's lovely, bright, wonderful. She comes from a pretty wealthy family, and she told me recently that her father is a committed Romney voter. He works in finance, he lives in lower Manhattan, he respects Romney's business experience. But in all areas other than economic issues, the guy would vote Obama (social issues liberal - fiscal conservative thingamajig).
And I started wondering how we could make the case with precisely THOSE PEOPLE that they are backing the wrong guy.
I'm talking about Romney's personal base. Not the frothing wingnuttery that he's still trying to convince, but the male, white business guys, who think of themselves as rational, "pro-growth," responsible, substantive. They're what's left, in a way, of the old Establishment base, and they have a lot to do with forming conventional wisdom, and therefore with legitimizing Romney's business record and economic proposals.
It's been a kind of fantasy of mine that a healthy chunk of the business community might abandon Romney. This would have at least three excellent consequences: first, it would drive Romney batshit crazy; second, it would weaken the Republicans in a very real and fundamental way (wither the money goes, so go the elections all the way down the line); and third, it would leave Romney stranded with the crackpots, bigots and warmongers.
In theory, this shouldn't be so hard to do: Obama's policies are genuinely better for the whole economy, including business and finance sectors. And I can imagine there's plenty of discomfort among a lot of these well-educated voters about what kind of scum they are allied with. (I'm obviously not talking about the cynical Koch-type slime-balls who are gleefully whipping up racist furor to manipulate the base, but rather about the working stiffs of the business world, who I'm going to start calling the "Jet-Blue Dads" - in honor of newly minted "Wal-Mart Moms." And there are a lot of them.)
So I was delighted this morning to have this op-ed from The Economist tweeted to me.
It starts strong on Romney's flip-flopping:
All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it.But then it gets good.
In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection.This is what I've been hoping for! A full-on, pro-business take-down! One that might even convince some of the "fiscal conservative" types that they are backing the wrong horse.
(n.b. There is some irony here in me cheering an argument that makes the case against Romney on neo-lib, pro-corporate, american imperialist grounds. But these are strange times...)
Here's few snippets from the piece:
He has threatened to label China as a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency. Even if it is unclear what would follow from that, risking a trade war with one of America’s largest trading partners when the recovery is so sickly seems especially mindless.
In theory, Mr Romney has a detailed 59-point economic plan. In practice, it ignores virtually all the difficult or interesting questions (indeed, “The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs” is like “Fifty Shades of Grey” without the sex). Mr Romney began by saying that he wanted to bring down the deficit; now he stresses lower tax rates. Both are admirable aims, but they could well be contradictory: so which is his primary objective?
And it is all very well promising to repeal Barack Obama’s health-care plan and the equally gargantuan Dodd-Frank act on financial regulation, but what exactly will Mr Romney replace them with—unless, of course, he thinks Wall Street was well-regulated before Lehman went bust?
A businessman without a credible plan to fix a problem stops being a credible businessman. So does a businessman who tells you one thing at breakfast and the opposite at supper.More than polls, this is the kind of thing that cheers me. When I can start to see a real shift in the CW, and a weakening of Romney's last remaining (undeserved) bona fide.
Full article here.
12:00 PM PT: Update: A couple of commenters suggested that the title was mis-leading. The Economist's editorial board has neither officially endorsed, nor dis-endorsed Romney. I apologize that I gave the wrong impression. I was writing a bit colloquially. But I've changed the title for clarity. And thanks to the commenters for pointing it out.