Mitt Romney last week got me excited when he said “big business is doing fine” under Obama because large corporations can “get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code.”

I figured he was channelling Paul Ryan, who after posting a very corporatist voting record for years has recently become one of the most eloquent critics of corporatism and cronyism. Marco Rubio went on The Daily Show this week and said “The biggest beneficiaries of big government are big corporations, and I’ll tell you why, because they can afford to hire the best lawyers in America to figure out the loopholes.”

But from the podium, top Republican speakers haven’t been talking much about corporatism and cronyism. Ryan through a barb at the stimulus, but for the most part, the theme has been invisible. The closest they are getting is a string of paeans to small business.

Is the GOP’s whole anti-cronyism thing over? Or will Romney or Rubio talk about it tonight?

Romney understands decently well how business and government interact. Having worked in both worlds, he would be well positioned to explain how Obama’s expansion of government benefits the biggest and best connected businesses while hurting the smallest. Of course, Romney would have to run from his own record to run against Obama’s cronyism and corporatism — but Romney’s used to that.