Rick Perry backer bails over Bain attacks

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Rick Perry has been campaigning in South Carolina since the Iowa caucuses, looking for a game-changer. He may have found one, but not in the nature he was seeking. As a consequence of joining Newt Gingrich’s attack on Mitt Romney over his private-equity experience, one of Perry’s big donors has quit — and switched to Romney:

One of Rick Perry’s leading financial supporters in South Carolina is defecting to Mitt Romney – and he told CNN Thursday that Perry’s sharp criticisms of Romney as a “vulture capitalist” were the main factor in his decision. …

Barry Wynn, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a financial adviser in Spartanburg, said the escalating rhetoric about Romney’s business background is “destructive.”

“It’s just a dance I didn’t want to be a part of,” Wynn said in an interview, explaining his decision to leave Perry’s campaign.

Wynn, along with a handful of other previously neutral South Carolina moneymen, will publicly endorse Romney on Thursday.

“This latest attack, it’s so foreign to me, I couldn’t see myself being a part of that,” he explained. “I don’t think you can be on both sides of free market capitalism. A big part of me being a Republican for the last 40 years is that I think it’s the best hope to protect free market capitalism, the growth engine of our economy.”