With Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann out of the race, the next few Republican debates will offer far fewer opportunities for drinking games: No “9-9-9,” no “23 foster children,” and now that Jon Huntsman has bowed out as well, no chance to take a shot every time the former ambassador breaks into Mandarin. There’s still Ronald Reagan, of course, whom Newt Gingrich name-checked before tonight’s debate even hit the five-minute mark; nothing will get you drunker faster than mentions of the Gipper. But since Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry launched blistering attacks on Mitt Romney’s business backgrounds, we have two new entries in the GOP’s talking-point lexicon. Both are criticisms the Republican party has long levied against the Obama administration, and neither are any more accurate when applied to fellow conservatives.
1. “Anti-capitalist”
Romney denounces Gingrich’s broadsides against his record at Bain Capital by claiming that attacks on private equity are “anti-capitalist” and seek to put “free enterprise on trial.” As it happens, I largely agree with the underlying premise of Romney’s defense: capitalism is not always pretty, and the mission of private equity companies isn’t to create jobs. (I would suggest to Romney that campaigning as a job-creator when he also destroyed a lot of jobs is perhaps not the best idea.) However, the idea that questioning the utility of one facet of capitalism is equivalent to opposing capitalism in its entirety is ridiculous. There’s a real debate to be had about the role of outfits like Bain that load companies with debt, extract fees, then cut and run. Calling such a debate “anti-capitalist” is like saying someone is anti-puppy because he doesn’t want pitbulls running loose around his kids. Dogs (and capitalists) are great, but not if they’re unrestrained or vicious.
2. “Class warfare”
Of course, according to Republicans, President Obama is still the #1 practitioner of class warfare. Rick Santorum sees something nefarious in the mere use of the term “middle class.” (He prefers “middle income,” which I assume is better because it avoids the word “class.”) Romney believes income inequality is a topic unsuited for polite conversation and should only be discussed in “quiet rooms.” Now Romney has added Gingrich and Perry, who has called him a “vulture capitalist,” to his list of class warriors. So here’s my second analogy of the day: Labeling the conversation about inequality “class warfare” is like telling Rosa Parks that refusing to give up her seat on the bus is “racial warfare.” In both cases, one group of people (whites, the super-rich) is accruing a disproportionate number of benefits (bus seats, money). No one is saying that white people or wealthy people are evil. But they shouldn’t be allowed to reap all the rewards while others have to scrimp for a meal.
Bonus:
While this one may not be a dog-whistle debate phrase, you could also play a drinking game with the number of times conservatives disparage liberals based on geography. Mitt Romney is a “Massachusetts moderate” (extra points for alliteration), Nancy Pelosi is a “San Francisco liberal,” and Elizabeth Warren is a “Harvard professor.” Though I have to give the GOP messaging gurus credit for managing to turn “moderate,” “liberal” and “professor” into synonyms for “baby-killing elitist,” what’s with all the slams against states and cities? You don’t hear Democrats snarking about “middle-of-nowhere hicks” or “Cheyenne gun lovers” — possibly because they’d have to specify “Cheynne, Wyoming,” which really takes the punch out of the insult. The closest equivalent for liberals is probably “Texas Republican,” though that conjures less an image of a Machiavellian politician than a bumbling, English-mangling governor (Bush or Perry, take your pick). Part of the discrepancy may depend on the fact that there are fewer concentrated centers of conservatism; urban areas tend to vote Democratic, and even states as red as Texas have pale blue splotches around Austin and Houston. Using “rural” or “small-town” as a pejorative is seen as bigotry, while for some reason it’s acceptable to paint all San Francisco residents or Berkley students as granola-crunching radicals. Democrats regularly get pegged as unorganized and off-message, but in this case, perhaps their inability to coin rude epithets isn’t such a bad thing.
. . . So Well Read. . . 