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BLYTHEWOOD, SC -- The vulture flies no more.
Gov. Rick Perry's address to about 40 diners at famed Southern cookin' joint Lizards Thicket Thursday offered a healthy helping of anti-Obama rhetoric with a side of swipes at the "insiders" who are running for the presidency.
But his least appetizing metaphor for Mitt Romney -- one in which he graphically compared Romney's former company Bain Capital to a vulture picking at the carcasses of damaged companies -- had vanished from his speech.
The Texas governor first unveiled the "vulture capitalism" term on Tuesday, echoing a similar line of attack to Newt Gingrich has used against the former Massachusetts governor.
Perry used the term three times in one speech yesterday but then appeared to abruptly drop it during later campaign stops.
The wave of Bain attacks has subsided as conservative commentators ripped Perry for being "anti-free-market" and providing fodder for Democratic critics of Romney, should the presumed frontrunner become the GOP's nominee.
In Blythewood, he began a sentence that sounded like a possible wind-up to a defense against those pundits.
"I'm a capitalist and I believe in the profit motive, but there is a point in time where we have to say 'Wait a minute, what is going on here?'" he began.
But instead of launching into the story of workers in Gaffney, SC laid off at the hands of Bain -- a staple for the last few days in South Carolina -- he dinged the US Treasury for its cozy relationships with Wall Street banks, a months-old critique.
Perry's tempered criticism comes against the backdrop of a defection by a top Perry backer, Barry Wynn, to Romney's campaign. Wynn told the Associated Press that the Texas governor's recent attacks on Romney's record at Bain had spurred his decision to switch sides in the primary.
Asked about the "vulture" capitalism swipe on a Fox News interview Thursday, Perry did not disavow the attack outright but implied that his examination of Bain's record could help voters determine if Romney is a "flawed candidate" before the general election.
"The fact is, this process is about winnowing out individuals and testing whether or not they're a flawed candidate or not," he said. "And I will tell you when people can point to where you made a quick profit and kicked people out of their jobs, that is an issue that has got to be addressed."
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Rickey they got to you too? Wadja get, Secretary of Defense or Ambassador to Mexico?
More like the "shoe shine boy", Rick can handle that position.
But perry did not make the word up. It's common terminology of wall streeters. Everybody knows what they do. Suck the blood out of a company, get rid of the carcass, & leave the employees to fend for themselves. Especially the money in employee retirement funds.
Marshal,
Sounds like you have been there before as have I. Only I went through it three times in the last 12 years I worked before finally retiring. Yeah, I live in the rustbelt of America.
LL
The only time the media is interested in Perry, since he got 1% of the vote in New Hampshire is when he
goes after Mitt Romney. Where was Mitt Romney when Obama was working with Acorn? and being the
Vulture politician. Wasserman and Obama are so obviously desperate. Obama, Perry need a new
campaign song by the Eagles. Desperado.
All of them are bums. Perry is for backing off.....as bad as Romney for flip flopping. Romney is nothing more than a liberal in sheep's clothing............although, as a Democrat, I would not want this guy in MY party. Rush is trying to scare them all into cow towing to him and the right wing extremists who are STILL pissed off that a black Democrat is the President. Bush caused the problems, Obama is in the process of slowly fixing the Bush Recession.
The GOP word from above:
Damn it, Newt and Rick, you know there's no truth in politics.
The question I keep asking myself is if some form of busines transaction is within the law to do, should I do it if I can make a lot of money, although it is possibly ethically or morally damaging? My answer would be no, one should not do it.
Then I ask myself if one that brags about doing transaction of this nature, do I want him in the highest office of this nation? My answer would also not only be no, it would be hell no.
Therefore if Romney is the nominee I will vote to keep what we have or not vote on the Presidental spot.
Perry is a first class dufus, but even a blind squirrel will bump into a nut every now and then.
Geez, even a stopped clock is right twice a day as Perry proved with his earlier characterization of Mitt Romney. But Perry is so stupid, he backs off about the one thing he had right!
He backed off because its capitalism.People buy and sell in the world. This is a good example of who is big government and who is not. Bye Newt! Bye perry. We know your socialists at heart! Taking money from Freddie and Fannie mae and never reforming government is a lot different than business. Forget you regulatory types, it was 25 years and no one even looked at Bernie Madoff trades and I doubt anyone is going to jail for MFG.. These socialist need to get out of the race.
so now perry and newt are socialists? gasp who is left to defend us? could it be mittens
Prick Perry cannot "unstate in a satisfactory manner the public political condemnations that he made against Mo Romney. Neither can Newt.
I think that President Obama already knows that "Mo Romney is a badly flawed candidate that his own party "defined as being bent."
Mo Romney's dissing the DREAM Act, the ads "of former American factory workers that were messed over by Mo Romney," and some book that was released today........are going to hit his flanks hard.
Obama's only worry is that Jon Huntsman won't face off against him.
LTC Rattus, USA, ret.
The invitation for another Romney campaign fundraiser -- slated for next Tuesday at New York’s Sheraton Hotel, and which a source tells NBC News is expected to bring in about $1.5 million -- lists Schwarzman and 23 others as “event co-chairs,” according to a copy the invite.
Of that total, 16 are from Wall Street private equity and venture capital firms, either as top executives, their lawyers, or lobbyists.
Among them: Wayne Berman, the Washington super-lobbyist (and Romney national finance co-chair) whose clients include Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group; Alex Navab, a top partner of KKR, another private equity powerhouse and the co-chief of its North American Private Equity portfolio; and Anthony Scaramucci, aka “The Mooch,” and chief of the Skybridge Partners hedge fund.
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Mitt gets the big $$$$$$$$.Steve Schwarzman, co-chairman of the Blackstone Group, the biggest of
all Wall Street private equity firms, is listed as the “event co-chair”
at both Romney events, including one tonight in Palm Beach, FL that is expected to bring in over $1 million.Schwarzman, whose firm has partnered with Bain Capital on deals since
the 1980s, was dubbed by Fortune in a 2007 cover story as “The New King
of Wall Street.” He also kicked off a firestorm two years ago, when he compared the
battle over President Obama’s proposal to increase the tax rate paid by
private equity partners to a “war” like “when Hitler invaded Poland in
1939.” (Schwarzman later apologized for what he called “an inappropriate
analogy.” )
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/01/12/obama-campaign-raises-68-million-fourth-quarter#ixzz1jIR7gEts
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/01/12/obama-campaign-raises-68-million-fourth-quarter#ixzz1jIQwgNwN
The invite also lists another 125 “event co-hosts” -- many of them also from Wall Street, including one notable name: Ed Conard, the former Bain Capital partner of Romney’s who attracted attention last summer after NBC News revealed a mysterious one million dollar donation to the Romney Super PAC that came from a Delaware limited partnership that was set up shortly before the donation was made -- and then shut down.
I watched some of the interview of Perry on Fauxnews and couldn't help laughing of how the beauty queen asking the questions tried to get Perry to back off the Bain Blame Game. Perry stood his ground and made several good points despite her trying to cut him off...
Vulture capitalists with photos in the latest business week. That's what they called it. Vulture capitalists. Long before perry used it. They get the money out of the company & employee retirement funds. Millions. Then sell the company & pocket the funds. Employees get nothing.
or you let some puke government official run the company into the ground and let the taxpayers pay for it. Its nicer that way
This is not all that difficult to understand. Romney is the only candidate among the Magnificent Seven who has a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected. Party movers and shakers ~ read = big money and old money ~ see the difficulty in resurrecting a nominee that has been literally eviscerated by his own party on the way to the coronation. I'd imagine Gingrich will be the last (and most difficult) to muzzle as efforts to "unify" the party unfold. In all likelihood, this effort is about three weeks too late to put the genie back in the bottle. The party is too fractured to heal easily and some within it have no interest in doing so.
Thanks for the help and hope that the "vulture capitalism" term is used often this year.
wow, how craven can you get, perry? for a long time i thought that the republican party was made up of know-nothings (at least with regard to jobs, the economy and foreign policy) - now they can add bed-wetters to their list of achievements.
Perhaps Cowboy Rick wants to be the Energy Czar in a Romney administration.
But look again at enron. The company was a wealthy company with many years of retirement funding. Plus the company created rolling blackouts and bilked electricity users another $15B extra. Then the gao audit. Employees got nothing. It's like adding 2 plus 1 = zero.
Dickless Rick if you are not going to attack Romney than quit kissing Romney's ass and get out of the primaries.
So f****d-up on so many levels .... while America is in a Bush Great Depression (identical to the 1929 Great Depression brought-on by gilded-age *vulture* Robber Baron Republicans) .... Romney with the help of all of the 2012 GOP / Tea Bag candidates have only managed to unite the world in hating wealthy-people ... again ...
Man O Man ...
Perry doesn't have a clue... Just doing' what the Boss tells 'em... Pathetic putz!
The guy is right, but Romney had to make money. Would anyone really blame the guy for wanting to make a few million? Even as a person who favors some socialism-social security,medicare/medicaid, sees that he was making money for a firm. It's not easy to turn down.
Grow a pair, Rick and keep getting the truth out about Bain and Romney's involvement destroying companies and sending American jobs overseas.
I saw this swayback horse with a rider wearing a 10 gallon hat on his 2 gallon head clippity clopping by the house yesterday. I assumed it was Perry going to South Carolina for the next caucus. He was singing "OHHHHHHHHH LONESOME MEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeee".
Sounds like grover is in full control.......The devil is driving the clown car people.