What’s worse, a private equity firm that invests millions of dollars for sophisticated private investors in a company that ultimately fails, or a government program that allocates tax payer dollars along with investors who are also major campaign donors to a company that eventually goes bankrupt?
The answer is fairly obvious, but until today, the media has focused almost exclusively on the “horrors” of Mitt Romney’s “insidious” brand of “vulture capitalism,” rather than on Obama’s own bureaucratic brand of private equity, which awards campaign donors with money from the public treasury.
Today, Mitt Romney overturned the media narrative by attacking the administration’s own private equity record with a surprise visit to Solyndra’s Fremont, California headquarters. Whether or not Romney’s publicity stunt is ultimately successful remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the point was one that he had to make, and he made it in a big way.
As I noted in previous posts, the Romney campaign’s best and probably only profitable line of attack is on the President’s mismanagement of the American economy. While it is often difficult and unfair to blame America’s economic stagnation solely on President Obama’s policies, Solyndra presents a clear-cut case of managerial incompetence and bureaucratic cronyism.
Well done, Mr. Romney. Well done.
Reflections of a Rational Republican 