What Mitt Should Have Said

The only thing worse than Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry's attacks on Mitt Romney's stint at Bain Capital was Romney's response.

In an interview with CBS This Morning, he responded to charges of "vulture capitalism" by comparing his actions at Bain with the Obama administration's bailouts of GM and Chrysler.  His exact words:

"In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business."

Pass me the Listerine, please.  I just threw up in my mouth a little.

This should have been an easy one, Mitt.  You're a fairly liberal Republican, you're in a primary election, and - let's face it - the party's base isn't exactly rallying around you.  You've got extensive business experience, and when that experience is the subject of an anti-capitalist, class-envy style attack from opponents ostensibly much more Conservative than you, your response is to compare yourself to the most liberal president in this nation's history?

This was a TV interview; it's not like you didn't have a chance to think about it beforehand.  This was really the best you could come up with?

Just in case there's an alternate universe where you get a do-over on this, here's what you should have said:

In my time at Bain Capital, we were involved with a lot of companies.  We helped a lot of small companies become bigger, and we helped a lot of floundering companies flourish.  Overall, we created tens of thousands of jobs.  But in some cases, we came into a company that was bloated, inefficient, and overstaffed.  When a company is bloated and overstaffed, setting things right means some people are going to be let go.  And in come cases, we came into a company and found that it just didn't work.  Sometimes it was a company that just couldn't compete in its market, sometimes it was a company without a market at all.  These were companies that just couldn't stay open, so we shut them down in as orderly a manner as possible.

Under this administration, the private sector workforce lost over 2.9 million jobs, while the Federal Government has added nearly 160,000.  When I look at our government, I see a lot of agencies and departments that are bloated, inefficient, and overstaffed.  And I see a lot of agencies and departments that simply don't work and should be eliminated.  I think America is in dire need of a President who not only understands what business needs to grow and flourish, but who also has an eye to recognize where we have two people doing a job that should be done by one, and where we have fifty people doing a job that shouldn't be done at all.

Mitt, this should have been a softball.  You had a chance to defend yourself, capitalism, and smaller government all at once, and you blew it.