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ANDERSON, SC -- Accusing front-runner Mitt Romney of causing painful layoffs in South Carolina during his leadership at a Boston private equity firm, Texas Gov. Rick Perry mocked the former Bain Capital CEO for claiming yesterday that he once feared losing his job.
"I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out -- because his company Bain Capital and all the jobs that they killed," Perry said. "I'm sure he was worried that he would run out of pink slips."
The Texas governor was referring to a comment Romney made in New Hampshire yesterday, when he said, "There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.” But as the New York Times notes, his campaign could not cite specific examples of Romney almost getting a pink slip, although a spokesman said that “as a young person just out of college, [Romney] worked his way up the career ladder knowing that his continued employment was by no means guaranteed.”
Perry -- who named a steel manufacturer in Georgetown, SC, and a photo album company in Gaffney that he says gutted jobs as a result of Bain's actions -- said that residents of those communities would be stunned by the remarks of "the son of a multi-millionaire."
"There's something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business. I happen to think that is indefensible," he told the breakfast crowd of about 75 at Mama Penn's restaurant here in Anderson. "If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing, it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain. Because he caused it."
The Texas governor continued to blast his rivals as a whole for being "insiders" chained to the DC status quo, although he did offer some complimentary words for Texas colleague Ron Paul when he asked if the famously anti-Fed congressman would make a good Federal Reserve chair.
"Congressman Paul would be an ideal person to head up the Fed and put a little fear in their heart," he replied after chuckling that Paul would "probably scare all of those people to death."
Perry, who hopes to score momentum from evangelicals in the Palmetto State, spoke at length about his faith, and joked that his identity as a Christian is fitting given his rocky moments as a candidate.
"God gives us what we can't give ourselves, and that's the gift of redemption," he said. "If you watch my debate performances, it's good to get a little bit of redemption every now and then. Get a second chance."
*** UPDATE *** Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul responds, "It is no surprise that, having spent nearly half a century in government between them, Speaker Gingrich and Gov. Perry have resorted to desperate attacks on a subject they don’t understand. We expect attacks on free enterprise from President Obama and his allies on the left – not from so-called ‘fiscal conservatives.’"
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I can hear the champagne *corks* popping at the Obama headquarters all the way over here! lol
Willard's
gafferemark is the first honest thing he has said the entire campaign!The GNOP should substitute 'pink slips' rather than ballots!
They're big on symbolism like flag pins & bibles!
This is pretty funny coming from a guy who used federal stimulus money to hire public employees to inflate his job creation numbers, and now is forcing layoffs off all the people that were hired because there is no more federal welfare money to pay for them.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2011/08/16/how-rick-perry-created-jobs-in-texas
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/shrinking-texas-school-pa_0_n_986909.html
I love it!
Pile on Mitt, all you Republican clowns!
(I'm whispering this...don't want them to stop...)
I liked where Mitt said you shouldn't run for office if you needed the money that the office would pay. So that means only the wealthiest people should hold office.
LoL Steeler Fan -- When he gets into office, I expect his first proposal to be to abolish all federal office salaries, including President, the Cabinet, Congress, and the Supreme Court, and to replace those salaries by permitting the direct intravenous infusion of cash from corporations wishing to exercise "anonymous" free speech, without having to process it through those nasty, dirty, stinking lobbyists, with all that unnecessary red tape and regulation.
You know, like disclosure, for example.
You know, like Newt Gingrich, for example.
Just imagine how much more open and efficient this would be, kind of like the old saying ...
p.s. Sorry about yesterday's game. Next year, your boys will just have to pray harder. ;-)
Well, Ollie, I really made a mess out of that one, didn't I? Sheesh.
Should have been:
There. I feel so much more better now.
LoL and I still got it backwards. Never mind.
Rick got his (Pink Slip) on a stage in Iowa last month, he just doesn't seem to get it yet.....
RCP Average
1/3 - 1/8
--
26.3
17.7
15.7
11.7
PERRY 5.3
3.0
Romney +8.6
(beating head on desk) Thud. When will this guy ever go back to Texas. Thud. He is not going to be a factor in this race. Thud. Can't anyone tell him to go home? (head now resting on desk)
Thud. Wow! That isn't the sound of Rick's and Newt's campaigns crashing back to earth? Thud. Would you like some asprin, phine?
I now believe Perry should stay in the campaign... he doesn't realize he's campaigning for Obama. :)
devie,
Excedrin. Much Excedrin needed here. Is Perry really that, no wait, I know the answer already, yes he is that dumb.
Mr. Perry, GO HOME
Sure, let Perry stay out there (outer space).
His ego won't let him leave the quest for the nomination regardless of his polling!..but then again, the positioning for the TeaPeople in Texas may be for LtGov Dewhurst to gain momentum when Rick fails!
I wonder will he enter the fray and support his own illegal redistricting plan, or let AG Greg Abbott fight it out.
I can see why Romney might have been worried about a pink slip.
With his coloring, he'd look so much better in a white slip.
What do you mean he'd look better in a slip. I think his temple garment is some sort of short long underwear. Right? He was married in the temple and if he does real good here he'll be a little god in heaven. Isn't that how it goes?
Where is Harold Stassen when we need him?
(Yes, Marge, that's how it goes.)
Even if Mittens got a pink slip, so what? He can't live like a king on all of Daddy's millions? To even equate his getting a pink slip with the fortunes of most of the 99% is not only ridiculous, it's condescending and arrogant and insulting to everyone's intelligence (except Republicans). To think that most Americans are one paycheck away from losing their homes, being able to feed their children, etc. and that the middle and working poor families have stagnant wages, cannot save due to interest being so low you could save for 20 years and still not have a nest egg, to equate that with Mittens' situation of capital gains income (taxed at the lowest rate), multiple investments opportunities due to his wealth, etc. is laughable. Mittens is just one big joke, which I wish the Repubs would get!
I agree. Mitt may have worried about losing his job when he was a youngster, but that worry means little when you are born into vast wealth. Mitt's worries over losing his job would probably equate to my concern that I'll miss tonight's BCS game. It really isn't a big deal.
I highly doubt Mitt has ever, in his entire life, had a moment of real anxiety brought on by economic concerns. I doubt he could even conceptualize what being laid off means to average Americans.
Because of his position and wealth even if Mitt were to be laid off, unlike the rest of us, he would have a golden parachute that would carry him through.
Sure, he couldn't buy a new yacht that year or he may have to make fewer trips on his private jet but poor ol' Mitt would suffer so.
During the 2008 campaign, I got to attend a local rally at which Joe Biden was the primary speaker. He didn't insult us by pretending that he had ever been unemployed or facing the loss of his home or being unable to feed his children. At the same time, he spoke at some length about the other, non-monetary, costs of losing your job, especially for long-time workers. The shock. The confusion. The helplessness. The loss of self-esteem. The insecurity. The fear. As someone who had been pink-slipped twice in the ten years prior - first after 28 years on the job, then after almost 35 - and who had experienced every one of those feelings each time - I remember standing there and thinking "Hey, this guy really gets it!" Which is pretty much what I told him a half hour later as he came along the fence line shaking hands with everyone. I'll never forget him pausing and taking both my hands in his, looking me right in the eye, and saying simply "God bless you". The warmth and understanding were almost palpable.
Maybe if Mitt Romney ever comes here to speak, I'll have the chance to go and listen and see if I feel anything close to the same thing from him. But so far all I sense from him is condescension, arrogance, and a desperate attempt to convince people that he's just one of those "average Americans" he so obviously has no knowledge of.
JoAnne--thanks for sharing that story about VP Biden. I have never sensed that kind of empathy from Romney, who was willing to let the auto industry go bankrupt and who felt foreclosures should be accelerated to get them over with.
I must admit this latest line of Romney's fits nicely into the media pushed narrative of "presidential candidates being able to relate and/or "feel" the pain of the people they are representing".
Romney...worried about a pink slip. Whatever. The only experience he ever talks about is his time at Bain in which in was Co-founder and CEO. Who exactly was firing him?
The narrative is completely disingenuous. It's nice to know that the only person on the planet that "knows how the economy works" didn't found a think tank to influence public policy. Didn't testify at the Congressional hearings about how to deal with HC cost, Medicare, SS etc. You claim not to be a career pol, but have done nothing at the legislative level to get your alleged know how into the hands of law makers. No, the only way American and the world can find out just how much Romney knows about the economy is to elect him President. With friends like that America, who needs enemies?
x
Gee rick, you are starting to sound like the FR liberal posters here. Spinning without a clue.
Romney has a bit of a bobblehead quality. He never worried about a pink slip but he has that Daddy's good boy habit of trying to please everybody. So, yeah, he almost got laid off too. The polls probably indicated that some small possibility of being like everybody else would be helpful (now that it is clear that he was a predatory corporate cannibal using the power of big money to pillage smaller companies). Sometimes it is impossible to predict with copious polling how every word should be parsed. Somebody like Frank Luntz should have focus grouped the thing to death before he made his admission that he too had to fear the big bad bears of the economy. (A layoff would have meant he had to actually cash a few trust fund checks.)
Obama is, of course, in full support of free enterprise. He only opposes dishonest enterprise and that makes Romney and others like him nervous. They were free to bankrupt 401k's and pension funds for millions of Americans and bring down the economy in 2008. Republicans want to deregulate investments and turn the nation's solvency over to high risk again. Republicans never change their dogma, even if it leads to failure - capitalist fundamentalism leads to financial terrorism.
The safety net for the wealthy, under Republicanism, is the shrinking middle class. When they talk about lowering or zeroing out the corporate and capital gains taxes they never mention that the tax burden will shift to the middle class, or that basic human services and security will be ended. When you get close to the "shining city on the hill" you will discover yourself entering the economy of Haiti.
A vote for Romney is a vote for more of the Wall Street policies that got our nation into this mess. Make no mistake, Romney is NOT a conservative!
Romneycare = Obamacare!
Gingrich, Santorum and Paul are all Washington insiders - they are part of the problem too. Rick Perry is the only outsider who hasn't been tainted by Washington or K street. Perry has the executive experience and conservative principles that will get America working again!
"Scary Perry" has no idea of what words are, and he does not know how to use them correctly. He has no idea of how to use language, and "Scary Perry" is still the "Stumbling Spewer."
Romney is a banker, not a businessman. There is a difference. Businessmen create wealth. Bankers just shuffle money around and keep as much as they can for themselves while they do it.