Writing at the Atlantic Magazine's site, Ross Douthat points out that Romney won in Michigan at least in part by foregoing the platitudes and generalities that have been the candidates' bread and butter this season, and addressing the state's industrial problems in very specific terms.
"If I’m president of this country, I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I’m in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, Congressional and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America’s automotive leadership,” Romney said.
Douthat comments, "This is what people like to call 'industrial policy,' and what Jonah Goldberg likes to call liberal fascism - big business and big government working hand-in-glove for the purposes of economic nationalism."
It's also why the Europeans are kicking our asses, economically speaking.
If this doesn't run counter to the unimpeded free-markets principle I don't know what would. And it appealed to Michigan voters precisely because it's to the left of what Huckabee and McCain were saying. McCain, in particular, was going around saying Michiganers can't expect the Feds to bail them out and return Detroit and Flint to what they once were.
Good old Karl (Marx, not Rove), he just refuses to die. But I never expected to see his shadow falling on the likes of the Mittster. It's funny, the way economic necessity savages people's most sacred ideologies.
Spencer Ackerman, as usual, has the best comment of all: "This makes National Review, which endorsed Romney, objectively pro-liberal fascism. The horror! Clearly, when liberal fascism comes to America, it will come wearing a bow tie and freighted with repressed homosexuality."
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