Politics: He?d Like To Change the Subject

Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Politics He'd Like To Change the Subject What's keeping Romney from turning his Bain experience to his advantage? By David Weigel Posted Tuesday, Jul 17, 2012, at 10:21 PM ET Toward the end of the 2011 movie Margin Call, a thinly fictionalized drama about the subprime mortgage apocaylypse, a senior trader at a large bank drives past some classy new homes, and it sets him off.  He tells a young associate People want to live like this in their cars and their big fucking houses that they can't even pay for?" he rants. "Then you're necessary. The only reason they all get to continue living like kings is because we've got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and the whole world gets really fucking fair really fucking quickly and nobody actually wants that. Replace one of the key words in there with "gosh-darn," and I think you've got the tone conservatives want Mitt Romney to strike. Why, when Bain Capital comes up, does the candidate go into a crouch? When he miked up for a media tour to clean up the story last week, why didn't he defend the private equity group he'd founded? The closest he came, in an interview with Jan Crawford, was "I'm happy that Bain went on, on its own, and did a number of terrific things." What kind of terrific things? The Obama campaign's multi-pronged attack against Bain criticizes the company, and Romney, for profiting from outsourcing by investing in companies like Global-Tech Appliances, and for making money from the failure of companies like AmPad. Angry laid-off workers have been ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Bachmann Hunts for Traitorous Muslims; McCain Shames Her The New Public Ivies Get High for Free	Advertisement
Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information
Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com. Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036