WHO'd HAVE GUESSED?

Turn the clock back two years.  Who in the white heat of 2010's Tea Party energies would have the temerity to  foresee the presumed GOP candidate would be the sine qua non of the Establishment, a man who's infinitely more a reflection of Michael Douglas' portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street than Raymond Massey's Great Emancipator in Abe Lincoln in Illinois or How the West Was Won. 


Mitt Romney's bottom line is that he is a venture capitalist.  Not a comment or opinion, just a reality.  Applaud Mr. Romney's business success, but don't act like it's rooted in manufacturing r innovation.  He is no Andrew Carnegie or Fred Smith or Steve Jobs.  (And I doubt any of those three would have made sound presidential material.)  


Since I've ballyhooed the point that a venture capitalist is a far cry from a actual job creator, it was with great interest that I read a  04/15 commentary in the LA Times that looks at how the fictional poster boy for venture capitalist - the fictitious Gordon Gekko - could prove a problem for real-life Mitt Romney.  


When I hear Mitt Romney present his success as a great & glorious thing that should be applauded, not denigrated, am reminded of Michael Douglas' impassioned "greed is good" speech.  That one speech was more instructive than any economics class I took in college on the principles underlying venture capitalism.  And it helps me realize that the men & women who advocate such business tactics DO consider themselves as principled in what they do as , many of the rest of us experience them otherwise.


What does a venture capitalist do?  The LA TImes article captures Gekko's character - and all venture capitalists who achieve his level of success - in just one sentence.  "A downsizer and a union buster who refers to his trusted assistant as the Terminator, this guy doesn't eat lunch - this carnivore devours entire companies."


It fascinated me through the years to hear Michael Douglas recount his own amazement at the high regard his portrayal made him a hero on the real Wall Street.  Many's the time I heard him say on Leno or Letterman that he never had to pay for a drink or a meal if anyone from Wall Street was nearby - as the article states, "he was high-fived in his travels through Manhattan."  Still is.


Gordon Gekko was a venture capitalist.  Not a manufacturer nor someone who worked in overalls, using his hands to make a living, as Martin Sheen, playing Gekko's dad, did in the film.  He used other people's money to make even more money for himself & his investors.  He didn't need to work outside the system to be a success - although his character did - because the system ~ was then, is now ~ set up to present countless legal opportunities at little to no risk to himself or others.  


Maybe the challenge is that most Americans aren't economists.  We don't know how even the most legit venture capitalist is a profit maker, not job creator, is all about the 1% - or even the .01% - not the 99.  This is going to be a fascinating election cycle, seeing how much people want to learn & how much they want to be spoon fed.  


Break out the popcorn!

He's GOTTA have great grassroot support

Per Huffington Post -  President Obama's re-election campaign is straining to raise the huge sums it is counting on to run against Mitt Romney, with sharp dropoffs in donations from nearly every major industry forcing it to rely more than ever on small contributions and a relative handful of major donors.

A telling report - who's Big Biz & Wall Street supporting?  Not the president, who apparently, at least in their opinion (follow the bucks), made supporting average citizens a bigger priority than heeling to special interests & Corporate America.

Collaborators

Seems a lot of people in the GOP & on the conservative airwaves have never heard of the term "collaborator" - they seem unaware of the distain felt through the millennia by ordinary folk toward people who work with the enemy without being one of them.  


That's how a lot of everyday Americans feel about a Republican Party that turns all wishy-washy when it comes to GOP-controlled state governments that limit, even eliminate health care rights women thought had been won over a generation ago.  


Forget the silence by the presumptive GOP candidate over states requiring women to undergo humiliating, painful & costly procedures before getting an abortion.  


Forget that he turns a blind eye to a state that pegs the start of a pregnancy at the last day of a woman's most recent menstrual period.  


That he supports personhood state legislation that would illegalize hormonal birth control.  


That he's stated - for the record - that he'd push as president to defund Planned Parenthood.  


What's most damning to me, what makes him & the rest of his GOP cohorts guilty of collaborating in what's clearly a war on existing women's rights, is the utter lack of rebuke to Arizona on a law awaiting its governor's signature, a law that makes it perfectly okey-dokey for an ob/gyn to intentionally withhold information from a patient any information that might indicate the pregnancy is less than perfect, info that might make the patient consider terminating a pregnancy.  The ob/gyn can lie away, knowing the state protects him or her from any resulting law suits.  


Mr. Romney et al - silence infers consent.  Your silence & the silence from the party's leaders & the multitude of paid pundits across the airwaves is what tars the entire GOP with the brush of those who are clearly, actively, with complete sense of righteousness wage war against the hard-won rights of women in America.

Lily-Livered Response to Ledbetter!

Seems that PETE HOEKSTRA, the once-congressman & (he hopes) future senator from Michigan thinks the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a pesky critter, a nuisance that should never have been passed.   

Seems he was asked at a 04/12 campaign event in Royal Oak, MI if he'd support or work to repeal the Fair Pay Act if elected.  Mr. Hoekstra is reported to have answered, "That thing is a nuisance. It shouldn't be the law." 

Equal pay for equal work - what a silly idea!  Makes life such a chore for business owners, reducing their ability to restore America to our full economic prowess.  Or at least so Mr. Hoekstra might argue.

BACKGROUND:  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was first piece of legislation signed into law by President Obama, who considers it one of the key achievements of his presidency. The law -- which was heavily opposed by Republicans -- provides women with more legal channels through which to pursue equal pay for equal work. Hoekstra, at the time a congressman, like most Republicans, voted against the measure when it came up in the House of Representatives, believing that federal legislation was not needed and it would burden small businesses.

Daring to Ask the Now Unaskable...

Daring to ask the now unaskable - do you think Ann Romney's finger is on the pulse of American moms? Does she connect with challenges typical moms face raising a family on an average family income? Can Ann relate to the economic sacrifices necessary when an average income couple opts - as my awesome niece has - for the wife to be ceo/cfo/coo of mom inc (as in INCredible!!) rather than a $$-generating career? 


Since Mitt considers Ann his #1 adviser re: "mama grizzley" issues, they are questions worth a ponder...

Off Limits!

With so many divisive volleys zinging back & forth between the various political factions, am awed & moved by the almost universal response to beittling comments made by a democratic talking head (she doesn't work for the dnc or the president's reelection campaign) about Ann Romney. 


From David Axelrod to mom-of-two Michelle Obama, dems decried the negative slam. My circle of friends includes a bevy of full-time moms, so especially loved what Ann said Mitt always tells her - "Your job is a forever job that's going to bring forever happiness." Well said!


UPDATE:  geeze - even when i post something sunny, get my hand smacked for being political! a few friends tsk-tsked me for giving legs to what they consider a non-story. i see their point - the strategist simply said that ann romney "never worked a day in her life ... never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing" which is more an observation that ann's not a typical soccer mom than the brazen slam it's been painted as. and i hope they get MY point, which is i'm happy that people from all parties praised ann's choice to be a full-time mom!!!

GOP's Female Surrogates

Amanda Terkle has a spot-on article on the problems facing Mitt Romney when it comes to some - most? - of the females his campaign has lined up as surrogates for their candidate.

To whit: the designated surrogates have often voted or spoken out against bills that benefited women (such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill President Obama signed into law) while voting for or advocating ones that undercut their best interests (such as the Blunt Amendment). Quite the challenge for the GOP's presumptive candidate!

Pointing out that the campaign has been doing barrel loops to prove he does NOT have a problem with women voters, his staff has brought out a galaxy of female supporters, from his wife, Ann, to rising Republican super stars to longtime members of Congress. Today, the campaign sent out statements from Reps. Mary Bono Mack (CA) & McMorris Rodgers (WA) that pinned women's jobs losses on the president's - oops! both ladies voted AGAINST the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act PLUS the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. Last month put WI state Sen. Alberta Darling & conservative activist Bay Buchanan in the spotlight; uh oh - Darling co-sponsored legislation repealing Wisconsin's 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, while Buchanan has famously railed AGAINST, with past statements claiming the movement for more equality hurts women (she blamed, at least in part, feminism for the high number of divorces, single-parent households & teen suicides).

And then there was SC Governor Nikki Haley, who apparently never got the campaign's update about the new tack, because there she was on Fox News two nights ago, saying, "There is no war on women. Women are doing well" while her candidate was blasting the president for the high number of jobs lost by women on his watch.

Today, Romney continued to drive home his charge that under President Obama's "failed economic policies" women account for 92% of all job losses. Interesting thing about those numbers - upon questioning, the campaign tagged the period cited as ending in 2009 - just as the president was sworn in.

Talk about chutzpah!

Of note - government figures show about 3.4 million men have lost jobs since the economy tanked (under President Geo. W. Bush) compared to 1.8 lost by women since the start of the Great Recession.

How many months until November??

Echoes Comments I Made to John Yesterday...

A job too big for a surrogate

By MAGGIE HABERMAN |

4/11/12 11:18 AM EDT

Ruth Marcus has a tough but crisp piece today about Mitt Romney's comments about his wife Ann — widely seen as one of the campaign's biggest assets — "reporting" to him about what women voters are interested in — and a declaration that there may be limits to her appeal with women voters:

Note to candidate: Women aren’t a foreign country. You don’t need an interpreter to talk to them. Even if you’re not fluent in their language, they might appreciate if you gave it a try.

As if to emphasize their candidate’s unfamiliarity with the territory of gender, the Romney campaign then released a fuzzy-wuzzy video, titled “Family” and starring, of course, Ann Romney, reminiscing over grainy film and vintage snapshots.

“I hate to say it but often I had more than five sons,” Ann recalls. “I had six sons, and he would be as mischievous and as naughty as the other boys. He’d come home and” — here Romney makes the sound of a building blowing up — “everything would just explode again.”

Somehow I doubt that Ann Romney, circa 1982, having finally managed to get her five boys under control, was all that happy about their father coming home only to “get them all riled up again.” Somehow I doubt that beleaguered moms, circa 2012, listen to her story and think, “Oh, Mitt is so much more fun than I thought.” Rather, I suspect, they wonder whether he should have been doing more to lend a hand.

Indeed, the video offers an unintentional glimpse of Ann’s own frustrations. “It was hard to maneuver,” Ann notes. “I could do okay when I had the two. Three, not so bad. Four, it got to be a little much.” On the campaign trail with her husband, Ann often talks about the old days when she would be at home dealing with her rambunctious brood and Mitt would call from the road. “His consoling words were always the same: Ann, your job is more important than mine.”

This story is supposed to buttress Mitt’s bona fides as a supportive husband, and Ann is, no doubt, a more tolerant spouse than I am. But every time I hear that patronizing line, I imagine responding, “Great. If my job is more important, then you come home and do it and I’ll check into the nice room at the Four Seasons.”...

....How many of these younger and/or better-educated women are going to identify with Ann Romney’s father-knows-best description of life in chez Romney? I understand that the candidate badly needs humanizing but, especially for general-election purposes, it would be more powerful to combine the family story with examples, assuming they exist, about Workplace Mitt promoting women or adopting family-friendly policies.

That last point by Marcus is whether Romney's personal story will appeal to working women, and those under age 44, as polling suggests her husband is struggling with those groups. She no doubt humanizes her husband, and is one of his most effective surrogates. But as Marcus notes, at a certain point, the candidate will have to bridge the gap himself.