Ruthless vulture capitalism as Romney's ultimate conservative cred

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter: 

Attacks on Bain do ultimately seem like a deadend in GOP primary. Bain is Rom's most authentic credential as a (contemporary) conservative.

-- Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber)

A good point, but one that highlights Romney's potential problems down the road with independent voters and the new generation of "Reagan Democrats" in the general election.

For all his shameless efforts to pander to the right-wing GOP base to secure three nomination, on any number of issues including health care, abortion, and Iran, his great appeal to conservatives is that he made himself sinking rich as an unethical and unregulated capitalist. But it's precisely his proud record of destroying jobs and ruining lives that could turn out to be his ultimate undoing, even more than the flip-flopping and seeming lack of authenticity -- and even more than the fact that non-elite conservatives generally loathe him.

But what Scheiber misses here, at least in this one tweet, is that his plutocratic vulture capitalism, his looting, is unpopular with many on the right as well, and Gingrich and Perry have been trying to exploit that populist opposition on the right.

In the end, other than party and media elites connected to the GOP, it's hard tho imagine anyone liking Romney at all.