The Long Goodbye

Of his tenure at Bain said Mitt Romney,
The presumptive Republican nom'nee:
"I was much too engrossed
To give up my post
While Olympian tasks were upon me."

In the American political world right now, the one question that obsesses the Presidential campaigns is: when did Mitt Romney leave Bain Capital, the private equity firm of which he was founder, sole owner and CEO? The answer appears not to be as simple as either Mr. Romney's campaign or that of President Barack Obama would have you believe. That is to say, Mr. Romney did not execute a clean break from his firm before it was involved in politically inconvenient outsourcing transactions, though he was clearly preoccupied with the turnaround of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics from Febuary 1999 onwards. While the management of the firm was certainly left to his colleagues during the 3-year long winter of discontent, it remains an awkward task to disavow the actions of a firm of which one was the officially registered chief executive.

Overheard in the Gingrich Campaign

"When desp'rate for polling improvement,
Out the window the positive groove went,
And Republican hacks
Were armed with the facts
From attacks by the Occupy Movement."

Observers from across the US political spectrum have marveled at the rhetorical turn taken in the Republican Presidential primaries. Opponents of front-runner Mitt Romney, notably former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry, are decrying Mr. Romney's erstwhile management of the private equity firm Bain Capital as "more ruthless than Wall Street" (in Mr. Gingrich's words) and "vulture capitalism" (in Mr. Perry's). Prominent Republicans, even those not affiliated with Mr. Romney's campaign, have voiced alarm at the seeming attack on free-market capitalism coming from within the GOP. The conservative Club for Growth think tank took Mr. Gingrich to task for his "downright Obamaesque... economically ignorant class warfare rhetoric."

President Obama's campaign of course enjoyed having its arguments advanced by the opposition before the general campaign even begins. "I guess the only downside is that Mitt Romney might not be the nominee," said Obama strategist David Axelrod. For its part, the PE industry's "Private Equity Growth Capital Council" is set to push back with a big PR and lobbying campaign. Finally, the Occupy Movement is left to ask: does this Republican "99%" rhetoric reflect the strength of our ideas, or only the political weakness of certain desperate Presidential candidates?