Daily Archives: May 21, 2012

05/21/12

Bain Capital attack ads against Romney backfiring on Obama

By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

It now seems likely that President Barack Obama is quickly running out of ammunition in what appears to be his only defensive weapon against presumptive Republican nominee, Gov. Mitt Romney–attack ads against Bain Capital, the equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984, but left in 1999 to successfully rescue the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

President Obama’s re-election campaign is using the ads to frame Mitt Romney as a “job-destroying corporate raider,” according to an Associated Press article today.

The latest ad, coming out in five swing states beginning today, focuses on American Pad & Paper, which was located in Marion, Indiana. The ad “charges” that Ampad bought and closed the SCM office products plant, immediately costing 250 workers their jobs.

The objective of these ads is to challenge Romney’s arguments that he’s more qualified than Obama to handle the country’s shaky economy.

However, Mayor Corey Booker of Newark, New Jersey, a top Obama surrogate, could not condone the attack ads against Bain Capital, while being interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, according to reporting by The Associated Press today.

“I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity,” Booker said, referring to a prior ad about Kansas City steel company [GS Technologies] that went bankrupt in 2001, after Bain Capital’s involvement–but 2 years after Romney had left Bain–a fatal (or calculated) technical oversight by the Obama campaign team in Chicago.

“If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses,” he added. “And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.”

Booker tied the choices he faced as mayor to those faced by companies Bain dealt with.

“This is not about what happened at Bain Capital. Heck, I’ve reduced the employees in my city 25 percent because it’s the only way my government would survive. Call me a job-cutter, if you want,” he said.

“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides,” Booker said. “It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It’s a distraction from the real issues.”

“It’s either gonna be a small campaign about this crap, or it’s gonna be a big campaign in my opinion about the issues the American public cares about,” he said.

Mayor Booker could not be more correct on all counts, with the most important issues of this election cycle being, in order, the economy, jobs and the budget deficit, according to 73% of respondents in the recent CBS News/New York Times poll results we reported on.

The facts are clear, Bain Capital has done over 250 equity deals over the past 28 years, with $60 billion worth currently active in its portfolios all over the world, and many well known past successes under their belt, such as AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino’s Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin’ Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys “R” Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel.

When you compare the known [factual] resumes of the two candidates, by every measure, Barack H. Obama’s, Chicago Community Organizer (CCO), little known law school teacher, unremarkable Congressman and narcissistic autobiography author, does not even move the dial in the contest against Gov. Mitt Romney, be America’s new Chief Executive Officer.

And polls regarding the top three issues above are conclusive, showing the American people have already evaluated Barack H. Obama’s effectiveness as President of the United States, and in the immortal words of Donald Trump–they say…

“Barack–you’re fired!”