Mitt Romney Assures Businessman That He'll Be Lucky Enough To Fail One Day

Oh, how the businessmen rib each other! The businessmen in this case being Mitt Romney, whose "business" career was mostly as a hand-shaking middle man who was always insulated from taking the downside on a financial venture that went to hell, and some fellow with whom he was chit-chatting at an event yesterday. My how they ribbed each other with the language of Capitalists! The one guy calls Mitt Romney a failure, Romney tells him he'll fail one day -- again, this is Mitt Romney telling a potential voter he'll fail at business one day -- and then they all go out for a spot of kip, perhaps, just as Saints Ronny and Tip would.

From Molly Ball at the Atlantic , here's the report of this fine exchange, handled with typical Romneyan grace.

On a day Romney ought to have been doing a victory lap, his status as the nominee all but assured, it's safe to say things didn't go as planned.

Even an attempt at a joke with a sympathetic questioner fell a little flat. The man said he was a businessman too, with the only difference being that Romney talks about having failed, and "I haven't failed yet."

"You will," Romney assured him. "It's the nature of the private sector."

Everyone had a laugh, sure, but Mitt Romney has gone out and bought his company and looted it of everything already. It's the nature of the private sector, this financial intermediary role of leveraged buyouts that came to prominence in the last ~20 years is! It is simply the nature of the private sector, of the Market.

[ Atlantic ]