SuperPAC Schizophrenia

This is fun. For those who haven't followed this particular political mini-drama, the Newt Gingrich super PAC, "Winning Our Future," has been running a "documentary" excoriating Romney for the time he spent at Bain Capital, a company that bought businesses, fired their workers, and sold off their assets for a profit.

Repurposing the assets of failed or failing businesses is a necessary task in a free market economy, but it makes Romney look like he got rich(er) by firing people, so the Gingrich camp is using it to reinforce the anti-populist image of Romney that they (and the other candidates) have been trying to build in their attack ads.

This is where it starts to get good. Since he legally can't "coordinate" with it, Gingrich publicly called on the super PAC (which is populated with his former staffers and business associates) to stop running the ad. And....


Wait for it....


They refused.

So now Gingrich gets to have his cake and eat it, too; he can run attack ads while publicly denouncing attack ads. What can poor old Newt do if these scallywags insist on running ads he doesn't approve? The law says he can't "coordinate" with them, so he just has to sit there and watch helplessly as his good friends drag his opponents through the mud.

Poor, poor Newt.