COAST very much likes the Bain Capital v. Solyndra contrast

Mitt Romney's press conference today at Soyndra provides the perfect backdrop visually and positioning-wise in the 2012 Presidential campaign.

If Romney succeeds in making this Presidential campaign a debate about the benefits of a vigorous, rough and tumble free-market economy versus a top-down command economy, free-marketeers will win hands down.

From Mitt Romney today in the NYT:

[Solyndra's] a symbol not of success but of failure.  I’m afraid the reason that the stimulus has been unsuccessful, that the turnaround has taken so long to occur, that the recovery has been tepid, is that the president fails to understand the basic nature of free enterprise in America.

I also note how damaging a decision like this is for free enterprise generally.  What you’re saying to other inventors, to other entrepreneurs, particularly in the solar space, is that the best way to get ahead is not with the best ideas, and the best technology and the best people and the best marketing, but instead with the best lobbyists. That is not the nature of how America works.

By turning the presidential contest from a tactical, marginal contest to see who can squeak by with the most electoral votes, handing out political favors along the way, into a referendum on the direction citizens want to take this Country on terms of free market economics, Romney will not only win votes, he will win back the hearts of Americans and have a solid mandate from which to govern.

That mandate in turn will inspire businessmen and entrepreneurs, existing multi-national corporations, small businesses and start ups, to believe in the value of their hard work and innovation, rather than their next government handout or their political connections.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what will re-ignite the GOP, and the American economy!