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Andrew Ferguson explains the great danger if the GOP wins it all in November.
… Last week a majority of congressional Republicans joined with Democrats to renew for three years the charter of the Export-Import Bank, a New Deal relic that in theory helps American exporters by, among other things, offering loans to foreign traders to buy American products. Although the Ex-Im Bank is a quasi-private institution, its loans are guaranteed by the taxpayers, making it a prime instrument of industrial policy, or corporate statism, or state capitalism (choose your epithet). By favoring one company over another and choosing to subsidize one industry and not another—the faddish renewable energy field is a particular favorite at the moment—the bank lets the government, specifically the Congress, pick winners and losers in the marketplace. It mixes politics and capital in ways that Republicans customarily claim to abhor.
But not this time. The bank is a favorite not only of Democrats, who after all have no principled claim against industrial policy, but also of the big business lobby. The National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce strongly backed the renewal, proving again that they are less interested in free markets than in profit-making—and whether their members make money through government subsidy or market competition is of secondary importance to them. (Recall the chamber’s energetic support of the Obama stimulus.) On the other side were a few right-wing pea shooters like Heritage Action and the Club for Growth. Guess which side of the debate the press portrayed as the power-crazed bad guys.
As most of the news stories noted, the Ex-Im Bank is a totem of that fabled bipartisanship that certain kinds of partisans cherish. That’s one of the attractions of crony capitalism: It’s wonderfully bipartisan, so long as “we can spread the wealth around,” to coin a phrase, so that the most powerful interests stay happy enough to write campaign checks. It was especially disconcerting to see House majority leader Eric Cantor unite with his Democratic opposite number, Steny Hoyer, to forge a “compromise” that will keep the bank going another three years—and expand the portfolio of guaranteed loans from $100 billion to $140 billion. …
Peggy Noonan interviews Mitt.
It’s been a good week for Mitt Romney. The polls are up, he’s just off a two-day swing through Connecticut and New York, where he hauled in big donors and hard money, and he swept the GOP primaries in Kentucky and Arkansas. On Tuesday Texas will put him over the top and make him, formally and officially, the Republican nominee for president.
Not everything worked—his big education speech Wednesday was wan and pallid—but he’s having a moment. In a telephone interview, he reflected on the campaign, tracing his candidacy’s upward momentum to an increased sense among voters that the country is on the wrong path and, perhaps, a growing sense that he’s proved himself: “I can tell you that we went through those 37 or 38 contests and won the must-win states, and in some cases we started off 10 points behind. And we hustled, worked hard, and convinced the voters.” This produced “the kind of track record that people say, ‘You know, I think if Mitt can keep that up, in November we’re going to see a new president.’”
Candidates on a campaign van look out the window and see America go by. They meet with people, talk. I asked Mr. Romney the difference between the America he saw in 2008 and the one he sees now. “A much higher degree of anxiety today. People much less confident in the security of their job, less confident in the prospects for their children.” Four years ago, the economic downturn hadn’t occurred. “In my primary, the central issue was Iraq.” Now it is the economy.
Before rallies and town meetings, he always tries to have private, off-the-record meetings with voters. “I sit down with five or six couples or individuals and just go around the table, and I ask them to tell me about their life. And the stories I hear suggest a degree of anxiety which is not reflected in the statistics.” He is struck, he said, by the number of people who are employed but in legitimate fear of being let go. He is struck by the number of people who’ve made investments for their retirement—real estate, 401(k)s—and seen them go down. …
Matthew Continetti pans the performance of the Obama campaign.
We are rapidly approaching the moment at which Washington reevaluates the Obama campaign’s reputation for competence and expertise. Every week, one or several of Obama’s surrogates trip over their own words; every day, Jim Messina and David Plouffe and David Axelrod must scratch their heads in wonder at the mess they are creating. One gaffe is an isolated event. Two is an embarrassment. But three or more form a pattern, one that is damaging not only Obama’s precarious chances for reelection but also the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
The most recent trouble arrived last Sunday in the person of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who went fantastically off message when he said his fellow Democrats’ attacks on Mitt Romney’s background in private equity are “nauseating.” The Obama for America hazardous waste disposal team leapt into action, forcing Booker to record a hostage-video-like recantation of his comments by the end of the day. It was too late, though. Booker had tested the waters of intra-Democrat dissent and had found they were warm. Dianne Feinstein, Chris Coons, Steve Rattner, Ed Rendell, Artur Davis, Harold Ford Jr., Mark Warner, and Joe Manchin all followed him in.
What Obama intended as an attack on the business practices of Bain Capital transmogrified into a debate over the fairness of that attack. The press hates hypocrites, and it did not take much digging to report that Obama raised more from private equity in the 2008 cycle than any other candidate, and that the president’s negative ad buy went up on the very day he held a $35,800 per plate fundraised in New York City with the president of private equity firm Blackstone.
Not even MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell could reconcile the war on Bain with the fact that Obama has taken more than $200,000 from the likes of Bain Capital managing Director Jonathan Lavine, not to mention tens of thousands from Landmark Partners Chairman Francisco Borges. The man would not even be president without the longstanding support of Chicago’s Pritzker family, which knows something about, in the words of Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.), “raping companies and leaving them in debt.”
The hypocrisy runs to the staffing decisions Obama makes. His White House is stuffed with Wall Street types. Two corporate buyout specialists sit on the president’s job council. All three of his chiefs of staff have worked for financial houses. His small business administrator worked in private equity. …
Jim Treacher in The Daily Caller spots the next Axelrod headache.
A new book on Barack Obama reveals fresh details about the president’s youthful days as an avid smoker of marijuana — a time when he and his fellow weed smokers called themselves the “Choom Gang.”
Among the highlights:
— Obama was known for his interceptions. This is the act of joining a circle of people passing around a joint, taking a hit and yelling, “Intercepted!”
— Obama and his friends at the Punahou School in Hawaii called themselves the “Choom Gang” — choom means smoking weed — and drove around in a Volkswagen bus called the “Choomwagon.”
— Obama and his crew enjoyed what they called “roof hits,” smoking pot inside a car with all the windows rolled up to maximize the amount of smoke they inhaled. …
Salena Zito reporting for the Tribune-Review on Biden’s trip to Ohio last week.
Dave Betras is known in “The Valley” for his colorful language and his political antics and drama. Last Wednesday, however, when Vice President Joe Biden visited a local industrial park, Betras was all about numbers.
“Oh, ‘The Valley’ is going to turn out big for Barack Obama this year, big!” he said, spreading his arms wide for emphasis. The chairman of Mahoning County’s Democrats pointed to local manufacturer M7 Technologies’ shipping warehouse filled with people waiting to hear Biden speak. “Turnout like today, a full room,” said Betras, 52.
If his job is to turn out Obama supporters on Election Day, he may want to check on their allegiances before he buses them to the polls. Many Youngstown attendees at Biden’s event do not support him or the president.
Bob McClain and his wife, Myra, came to M7 Technologies to support their friends’ family business. Neither supports the Obama-Biden ticket.
“We are friends of the owners — that is why we came, to show support for the Garvey family,” said Bob. At 71, he’s retired but volunteers full-time as a counselor for Mahoning Valley small-business owners.
“Our vote is going for who is best to lead on the economy. That is Romney, for us,” said Myra as her husband nodded.
Richard Furillo stood with his son Matthew at his son’s workplace; a lifelong Democrat, he voted for Obama in 2008 but won’t again. “I don’t know why I did it but I cannot stand any more ‘change,’” he said, referring to the president’s old campaign slogan.
Father and son both said they attended the event to support the company.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a sitting vice president,” added Matthew, also a Democrat. He, too, said he will vote for Romney. …
Streetwise Professor explains some of the Facebook shenanigans.
In the aftermath of its botched IPO, Facebook may need to change its name to Fiasco Book. The recriminations are flying fast and furious, and are likely to only intensify.
The basic facts are that right in the middle of the roadshow, Facebook realized that its earnings prospects were weaker than anticipated. It released a revised S-1 disclosure that made a Delphic reference about the fact that its “daily active users” were growing faster than “ad impressions.” It also told the underwriters that earnings would be at the low end of the range as a result of this poor performance. Underwriters communicated this information to big institutional clients. They issued no written report to the broader market, and Facebook did not make any disclosures beyond that Delphic statement. Moreover, Facebook insiders decided to issue 25 percent more shares, and price the issue very successfully.
And the rest is history; the fingerpointing is the future.
The primary target of criticism has been Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter. Leading the brigade of critics is Henry Blodget, of Business Insider.
Blodget initially suggested that Morgan Stanley might have broken the law by telling only some of its clients. He has since walked that back completely, and now focuses on the unfairness of it all. Moreover, Blodget gives Facebook executives, notably its CFO David Ebersman, a pass, and places the blame entirely on Morgan Stanley and the other underwriters. …
Visiting Boston, George Will weighs in on Fauxcahontas Warren.
… This controversy has discombobulated liberalism’s crusade to restore Democratic possession of the Senate seat the party won in 1952 with John Kennedy and held until 2010, when Brown captured it after Ted Kennedy’s death. Lofty thinkers and exasperated liberals consider the focus on Warren’s fanciful ancestry a distraction from serious stuff. (Such as The Post’s nearly 5,500-word wallow in teenage Mitt Romney’s prep school comportment?) But Warren’s adult dabbling in identity politics is pertinent because it is, in all its silliness, applied liberalism.
The New York Times Magazine’s headline on its profile of her — “Heaven Is a Place Called Elizabeth Warren” — suggests the chord she strikes with liberals. They resonate to identity politics of the sort Warren’s campaign tried when, on the defensive, it resorted, of course, to claiming victimhood. Playing the gender card, it insinuated that criticism of her adventures as a minority amounts to a sexist attack on an accomplished woman. But an accomplished woman, Susan Collins of Maine, the only Republican senator rated more liberal than Brown (who last year voted with his party only 54 percent of the time on partisan issues), called this insinuation “patently absurd.” …