Mike Huckabee defends Mitt Romney on Bain Capital (Updated)
Mike Huckabee, in an email to his supporters today, called for Mitt Romney's GOP rivals to stop the Bain attacks:
Romney has come under a lot of fire for Bain Capital's investments in some companies that were then scaled down with layoffs to become profitable. That's been demonized thoroughly by the media as corporate raiding, But it's surprising to see so many Republicans embrace that leftwing argument against capitalism. It's terrible for the workers who lose their jobs, and nobody likes to see viable companies looted and destroyed. But if downsizing can turn around a failing company, then at least it prevents all the jobs from being lost, and it sets up a stronger company that can grow and start rehiring. The term for this among people who aren't hostile to capitalism is “creative destruction.” Bad companies have to die to make way for stronger companies, in the same way that old trees fall over to make way for new trees. The other alternative, the Obama way, is to use vast amounts of taxpayer money to prop up companies that are failing in the marketplace. Sometimes, with a big enough cash transfusion, they survive, like GM. Other times, all the money in the world can't stop them from going belly-up and losing all their jobs, like Solyndra. But at least when a company that's bought out by investors goes bankrupt, the money that's lost was voluntarily invested, not taken from taxpayers at gunpoint.
Huckabee joins the growing chorus of Republicans telling candidates like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry that they've gone too far.
UPDATE: Media Matters points out that in January 2008, Huckabee had a different line on Bain:
You know, what Mitt Romney did is admirable in some quarters, but in some ways, there are a lot of people who lost their jobs when his company would take over, restructure a company, lay a lot of people off. Lot of times, the CEOs and the people at the top got some pretty huge bonuses and made a lot of money. A lot of people went home without a pension and a paycheck. I'm not sure that's what Michigan's looking for.