Tell me something I don’t understand: does the Romney campaign honestly believe it can ix nay the ulture vay apitalism cay by strong-arming journalists? There are those who care what Corey Booker and Glenn Kessler say, but here in fly-over country, four Pinocchios, one Rhodes Scholar, and 270 electoral votes will win you an election.
I’m sure restructuring, off-shoring, outsourcing means we can buy cheaper shit. But it’s also decimated the middle-class. What voters think about the balance here is not frivolous, it gets at one of the central economic issues of our time.
Randroids believe that all wealth-making economic activity is teh awesome and reveals the genius of the invisible hand. Most voters disagree. Joe Scarborough and Bobo might have us believe that on the other side, we have dirty hippies who believe that all business is evil, that money is the root of all that kills. But that’s not true. That’s maybe the straw that the wind blows onto the tops of strawmen.
This election is a choice between unfettered corporatism and traditional right-center (today’s Democrats are no farther left that that, by any reasonable standard) moderately-regulated capitalism. I’m sure Tyler Cowen (and maybe Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum) would tell us that at Bain, Romney had a fiduciary responsibility to avoid tax incidence, or however the fuck they would say it, but voters have a right to know that fiduciary responsibility to avoid tax incidence may mean their ass is jobless.