Why Some Animals Eat their Young!

We know, in the animal kingdom, that some animals do eat their young, but in politics, especially among politicians from the same party, it is self-defeating as it could tend to help the opposition in the upcoming campaign.

The situation that is occurring in the Republican primaries presently, is an exercise in self-flagellation whereby some candidates, because of pique and supposed anger at their opponent, use inflammatory language which could be used as fodder by the other political party (the Democrats) in the general election.

Politics has been defined as a “full contact sport” and participants should realize that things will be said and done that will not be flattering to a candidate. “Negative ads” are used by all candidates, when one candidate tries to put his opponent in an unfavorable light in order to create doubt in the mind of a potential voter so that the voter would think twice about voting for that opposition candidate. These ads tend to work very well.

The Republican Party infighting, as the nominating primaries have begun, is getting out of hand. Newt Gingrich was riding a tide of favorable poll numbers in Iowa when unflattering ads by Mitt Romney and Ron Paul appeared showing past positions that Gingrich took on certain issues, these ads caused a deflating of those poll numbers and the loss of eventual support for his candidacy. He has since become livid and extremely angry at the outcome and has lashed out angrily at the front runner, Mitt Romney. It seems that revenge is the motivation behind the scathing ads (by a group supporting his candidacy) that he's running against Romney, questioning his tenure at Bain Capital.

These ads by Gingrich are not comparison ads whereby one candidate compares his record on issues against the other candidate, but an indictment of Romney's business ethics and personal character in the running of his venture capital company. The rhetoric being used by this Gingrich PAC is rhetoric that would normally be used by Democrats in accusing Republicans of taking advantage of the average worker by laying them off while reaping big cash rewards or benefits. It is a blatant attack on capitalism, pure and simple, and in my estimation, is unfair to candidate Romney.

A venture capital firm is a company that invests in new start-up companies, companies needing an infusion of capital to expand its business, and companies headed for bankruptcy that needs some expertise and cash to turn it around. As with any business, there are successes and some failures. But, in the case of Bain Capital, the successes far outweighed the failures and to just magnify the failures is to do a disservice to the truth. On balance, the number of jobs created by Romney and Bain Capital far out weigh the job losses, because some company failed or went out of business.

The scorched earth policy, as being used by both Gingrich and Perry, is just what the Democrats wanted. An intramural fight between Republicans as they trash each other, is a gift the Democrats hope keeps up until November.

So Republicans, “don't eat your young”, agree to disagree without being disagreeable and let's keep our eye on the primary goal of making Obama a one-term president.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann