Romney's campaign money

Well, most of it comes from perhaps the best-known financial business occupying Wall Street:  Goldman Sachs -- Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September.  Romney's blind trust was put into their hands; Goldman employees are grateful.  The ties to Romney have been good business for Goldman, perhaps not so useful to the candidate.

As many Americans have come to realize, the argument isn't so much about capitalism -- a useful system when used well.  The argument is about good capitalists vs. bad capitalists.  And as we've learned to our cost over the past several years, bad capitalists have a firm grip on America and, in particular, on the Republican party.  For the right, capitalism is a theology, not an economic tool. But it's only a tool, and when it slips from the hands of those trying to manipulate it, it gouges us, not them.

Goldman Sachs is just one of the Wall Street firms suffering from a reputation for sleaze.  Mitt Romney's personal and Bain Capital's financial ties Goldman are no help to his political ambitions.

No other company is so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days, Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another lightning rod to a campaign already fending off withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist, thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the forefront of the Republican nominating battle.

Newt Gingrich, whose allies have spent millions of dollars on advertisements painting Mr. Romney as a heartless “vulture capitalist,” seized on Mr. Romney’s Goldman ties at Thursday’s Republican debate in Florida, suggesting that he had profited through Goldman on banks that had foreclosed on Floridians. And as the fight over regulation of financial firms spills onto the campaign trail, Mr. Romney’s support for the industry — he has called for repeal of the Dodd-Frank legislation tightening oversight of Wall Street — may draw more fire. ...NYT

And that's just the beginning.  The more the candidate's background is examined, the closer he gets to the very system that pulled down the financial industry and the nation's homes and jobs with it.  A sample:

Bain’s mid-1990s acquisition of Dade Behring, a medical device maker with factories in Florida, has become a totem of the economic upheaval that private equity can inflict. Goldman invested in the acquisition, which brought the bank $120 million and Bain $242 million — but led to the layoffs of hundreds of workers in Miami. Democrats hammered Mr. Romney over the deal this week. ...NYT

Romney isn't much different from most mega-millionaires professionally or personally.  But that's the problem.  He's a member of the one-percenters in America, the group that had a good ride for thirty years at significant cost to the rest of us and to the reputation of our financial sector.  Now a presidential campaign is at stake and at least one candidate finds himself in trouble with voters who paid for his success with lost homes and jobs. Doesn't Romney represent the antithesis of what America needs?

Romney at home in New Hampshire

From an NYRB article on the candidate by Christopher Benfey. Photo credit:  Ben Baker/Redux