Populist rhetoric from Gingrich

[NOTE: as you'll see in the syllabus, each week I'll post articles that you might be interested in commenting on.  Comments are completely optional, but will accumulate points for the class, as will be explained in the syllabus.]

 After his slide in the polls, Newt Gringrich attacked poll-leading Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, an investment firm that bought ailing companies, and broke them apart to sell individual pieces to other firms.  Gingrich said:

“Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that in fact the whole goal of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation, we find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job."

“We want everyday normal people to run for office, not just millionaires.”

 It seems to me this criticism deserves a little more thought than some of the more silly things we've heard this primary season.

• Romney's supporters accuse Gingrich of joining the Occupy Wall Street movement, saying that conservatives need an unabashed defense of capitalism.
• On the other hand, as the Obama campaign appears to be abandoning working-class whites, Gingrich's economic populism may be a winning electoral strategy.

What do (should) conservatives think about contemporary American capitalism?  And how should that factor into their electoral strategies?  If the candidates plan to make the Economy a major issue against Obama this summer and fall, they need to answer these questions first.