It started three days ago with a “Meet the Press” gaffe(?), quickly recanted, by Obama supporter Newark Mayor Corey Booker labeling the attacks(?) as “nauseating.”
The question marks are for skepticism about Booker’s motives. Those who remember Bill Clinton’s “Sister Souljah moment” in 1992, as the Mayor surely must, can testify to the selfish value of distancing oneself from ideological “extremism” on your own side.
But when and how did Romney’s Bain Capital claims become sacrosanct? How did what the President says “this campaign is all about” become so toxic to him?
His immediate answer to the Booker uproar was: “If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about.
“It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity. But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some...Their priority is to maximize profits, and that’s not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers.”
Joe Biden followed up about Bain in his usual unvarnished way, observing that “companies go under, everybody loses their job, the community is devastated but they make money.”
Such reasonable responses to Romney’s self-puffery have now morphed into attacks on Capitalism, Motherhood and Apple Pie, putting gun-shy Democrats on the defensive. Their reaction suggests a deeper anxiety.
That’s the most troubling aspect of all this, the sense that it’s more anti-Obama than pro-Romney, as the President struggles in primaries to hold his own against “Uncommitted.”
That could be Mitt Romney’s middle name.
Meanwhile, the President’s Press Secretary is suggesting that Barack Obama is more conservative than Herbert Hoover, citing “significant fiscal restraint” and a “balanced approach” to spending. Can voters bear months more of topsy-turvy talk?