Mitt Romney

The Strengthen Social Security Campaign has created a guide evaluating the “friendliness” of six Republican candidates, “Among Republican Candidates, Not a Single Friend of Social Security.” The Campaign has also produced longer individual profiles of more »

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It's great when we can disagree in a civilized way, but it's getting pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that the phrase "right-wing logic," as delivered by the GOP and mimicked by Mitt Romney, has become the mother of all oxymorons. They tell us corporations are people. But people? Not so much. more »

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Some people's only exposure to nihilism comes from the German gang in The Big Lebowski who said things like "We are nihilists, we believe in nothing" and "Tell us where the girl is or we cut off your johnson, Lebowski." Or the nihilist humor of comedian Brother Theodore, who liked to say things like "I looked at the void, the void looked back - and neither of us liked what we saw."

That's exactly how I feel when I watch the Republican Presidential debates.

The void that looks out through their eyes is the absence of any underlying principle, ideology, or ideas, especially on economic issues. It's not that their beliefs are different than yours or mine. It's that, as now seems clear, they don't actually believe in anything - anything, that is, except greater power for themselves and greater wealth for their financial backers.

Nothing in nihilism's long intellectual history has prepared the world for its latest incarnation as the 21st century Republican party, or in its ultimate flowering in the likes of Mitt Romney and Herman Cain.

Void, Meet Void

ni*hi*lism a: a viewpoint that traditional beliefs and values are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.
- Merriam-Webster Online

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Red's the designated Republican color, but the shades used for Wednesday’s GOP debate have never been glimpsed in nature. Ranging from scarlet to carnelian to a kind of raspberry-magenta blend, they would have induced psychosis in any self-respecting interior designer. They made the set look like a cross between Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and a Betsy Johnson dress catalog from the 1990s. And when the camera pulled back to reveal a stars-and-stripes pattern my first thought was, What have you done to my flag?

Come to think of it, that was my last thought, too.

The unearthly tones were appropriate, since the candidates seemed to be speaking from another planet. They certainly weren't on this one, where tax breaks have produced no jobs and deregulation's destroyed both the economy and the Gulf of Mexico.. But then, they weren't selling reality. They were offering a free-market science-fiction story, with special-effects economics that could have been designed by Industrial Light and Magic. Their reality is not yours, or mine, or that of most Americans.

But you know what? It may not matter. Sure, they were pushing economic hocus-pocus. But that hocus-pocus has cast its spell before. If aggressive steps aren’t taken to fix this economy soon, one of those candidates may be our next President.

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Mitt Romney has very serious ideas for fixing the economy. How do we know? By the typeface.

Romney's released a 59-page plan in one of those very, very serious typefaces - Garamond, or Cambria, or Times New Roman - Well, to be honest, I'm not sure which. But trust me. It's a serious typeface. And get this:

There are graphs.

The graphs and layout and typography in this "jobs plan" remind us that Romney's crowning career achievement was running the massive consulting company Bain. He's clearly taken the chief maxim of the consulting profession to heart: If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullsh*t.

That's exactly what this "plan" is. It's a slickly packaged re-presentation of the same agenda that's killed millions of American jobs and will kill millions more if enacted again. more »

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has unveiled a "Jobs Plan." CAF's Bill Scher celebrates with his post, Romney "Jobs" Plan Latest Attempt To Copy Bush, The Worst Jobs President Since Hoover, more »

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Mitt Romney got a lot of press for telling a heckler at the Iowa State Fair that "corporations are people." He did not go on to sing that Patti Smith song, People Have the Power.

But corporate "people" certainly do. Their power was on display this week, both in Washington and among the Republicans campaigning for the nomination.

Ordinary People

Here's Romney's quote in context:

"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings my friend."

There's an interesting parsing of language going on here. Corporate money does eventually go into some people's pockets, of course, but Romney said "everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people." "The people" is a phrase that refers to everyone -- the citizenry, the polis, the masses ... Romney's implying that corporate earnings go to all of us. The truth is that executive compensation has never been greater when it's compared to worker pay or average family incomes. That's one reason why we've been experiencing a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.

But that's not the sort of thing you want to say at a State Fair, is it? In that setting it's better to speak of corporations as "people" - or, if you prefer, as "jes' folks."

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