WTF?! GOP’s Mindless Attacks

January 18, 2012 | by Lucas Witherspoon

With the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries behind us, and the South Carolina primary on the horizon (at the time of the composition of this article), the Republican presidential candidates have amped up their attacks on each other, particularly against Mitt Romney. Specifically, the candidates have launched a full-on war against Romney because of his position at Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. The core of Romney’s campaign has essentially been his supposed understanding of the economy because of his experience in the business world. While Bain Capital managed to create over 100,000 jobs (according to Romney), his opponents argue that it cost countless others their jobs, all while the corporate big wigs made enormous profits.

Because this is a capitalist country, what Romney did was obviously not illegal in any way, and actually is a model of how capitalism works. As capitalism is at the center of the Modern Republican Party’s economic beliefs, it’s confusing that Romney is actually being attacked for engaging in capitalism.

 

The problem with the Republican candidates is that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for a talking point to use against their competitors, rather than actually taking the time to think about what they’re saying, or, better yet, thoroughly explain how they plan to fix the country. “I’m a strong supporter of capitalism, unless my adversary practices it, in which case, I am outraged!” It’s absurd. All of the candidates are capitalists, not just Romney.

 

What I’ve noticed about the GOP is that the person whose politics make the least sense always seems to be the most popular, meaning they prefer charisma or someone they feel they could have a beer with, as opposed to looking at the candidate who actually makes fucking sense. That’s how Cain, Gingrich, and Romney have all found themselves as front-runners, while Huntsman lags behind. Consider the candidate who actually uses logic, and not the person with cutesy catchphrases and a folksy person who only follows party lines.