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NNN0LHI

(67,190 posts) Tue May 22, 2012, 12:12 PM May 2012

Bain is just chapter one in the Book of Romney

http://news.yahoo.com/bain-just-chapter-one-book-romney-120000161.html

By Robert Shrum | The Week – Mon, May 21, 2012

Republicans are desperate to declare Obama's attacks on Mitt's business background off-limits. But in the life of Romney, vulture capitalism is an inescapable theme

The real Mitt Romney is finally running for president — but not in his own first television spot, a superficial checklist of issues which provides no insight into who he is or what makes him tick. It's the Obama commercial on Bain and the destruction of GST Steel that starkly reveals the real Romney as a vulture capitalist. And this is just the beginning of what we will hear about Bain, and of a narrative arc that will position Romney as the candidate of the few, by the few, and for the few.

The Obama ad is so powerful because, like the Ted Kennedy ads in Romney's losing 1994 Senate race, the story is told not by a smoothly modulated professional narrator, but by working people whose jobs and lives were shredded so Mitt and his men could amass their millions. One of the workers voted for John McCain in 2008 and for George W. Bush before that. Now these authentic blue-collar voices, these Reagan Democrats, are talking directly to swing voters — to folks who could be brothers or sisters, friends or cousins — in the battleground industrial states. It's a different kind of political media — gritty, unslick, and therefore quite convincing.

My then-partner Tad Devine and I conceived and produced the Kennedy spots in 1994. They hit the Massachusetts airwaves with devastating force. In that landmark Republican year, Romney had a slight lead in September, but he swiftly fell in the polls and then melted down in a televised debate that outdrew the statewide audience for most Super Bowls. On Election Day, the boy from Bain lost in a landslide — by 18 points.

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Bain is just chapter one in the Book of Romney (Original Post) NNN0LHI May 2012 OP

His record as governor is more damning because it is the only elected post he has held... rfranklin May 2012 #1

The peripheral info on his time as Gov seems to be more devistating than stealing pensions? uponit7771 May 2012 #4

And before ... 1StrongBlackMan May 2012 #7

I do not understand this at all Angry Dragon May 2012 #2

If they say it is off limits . . . it is what Obama go after siligut May 2012 #3

I think we can safely leave the religion issue to the rw - many of them are very upset about his jwirr May 2012 #6

Former Mormons are very happy that the cult is being exposed to the general public siligut May 2012 #8

It will become a Bain in the Ass to Romney, especially when Obama corners him in a debate aint_no_life_nowhere May 2012 #5

rfranklin

(13,200 posts)

1. His record as governor is more damning because it is the only elected post he has held...

Reply to NNN0LHI (Original post)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:28 PM

May 2012

and he was a miserable failure at supporting job creation during that episode of his life--

Romney’s campaign says he curbed the state’s unemployment problem.

“As governor he confronted an economy very similar to Obama’s economy: high unemployment and no job creation,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement. “Under his leadership and economic reforms the Massachusetts unemployment rate went from 5.6 percent to 4.7 percent and the state had a positive record of nearly 50,000 new jobs created.”

But Andrew Sum, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, says the unemployment rate fell only because people were leaving the workforce in droves during Romney’s term. Just one state had a bigger drop in its labor force during the same period, according to Sum — that was Louisiana, which was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“There was not one measure where the state did well under his term in office. We were below average and often near the bottom,” said Sum, who is also the director of Northeastern’s Center for Labor Market Studies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/as-massachusetts-governor-romneys-record-on-jobs-was-unremarkable/2012/02/06/gIQABzEfxQ_story.html

uponit7771

(90,364 posts)

4. The peripheral info on his time as Gov seems to be more devistating than stealing pensions?

Reply to rfranklin (Reply #1)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:46 PM

May 2012

WOW

WTF did they run this guy?!

1StrongBlackMan

(31,849 posts)

7. And before ...

Reply to rfranklin (Reply #1)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:52 PM

May 2012

But Andrew Sum, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, says the unemployment rate fell only because people were leaving the workforce in droves during Romney’s term. Just one state had a bigger drop in its labor force during the same period, according to Sum — that was Louisiana, which was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

someone promotes the, "Well, the labor market participation rate is dropping in President Obama's economy, too" narrative, I would like to point out a major difference.

We are facing a unique demographic fact, that romney never experienced ... the aging and dropping out of the work-force of the Baby-boomer generation.

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1150

Angry Dragon

(36,693 posts)

2. I do not understand this at all

Reply to NNN0LHI (Original post)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:37 PM

May 2012

Willard has voiced that his time at Bain proves how he is qualified to be president and lead this country forward. He can not use it as proof and then demand no one check the facts.

Willard is a predator .......... throughout his life

siligut

(12,272 posts)

3. If they say it is off limits . . . it is what Obama go after

Reply to NNN0LHI (Original post)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:44 PM

May 2012

Rmoney has so many weaknesses, it is easy, but the ones he wants off limits: religion/cult, Bain, his beliefs, are where he is the weakest and that is where Obama's team needs to pound him.

jwirr

(39,215 posts)

6. I think we can safely leave the religion issue to the rw - many of them are very upset about his

Reply to siligut (Reply #3)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:52 PM

May 2012

religion. We need to focus on his MA term as governor and his business practices.

siligut

(12,272 posts)

8. Former Mormons are very happy that the cult is being exposed to the general public

Reply to jwirr (Reply #6)

Tue May 22, 2012, 01:37 PM

May 2012

I think exposing cults is always a good practice in general. But you are correct, Obama can stay with his misguided desire to leave religion out of it and instead focus on Mitt's lopsided business experience and governing skills, there is plenty to expose in those areas.

aint_no_life_nowhere

(21,925 posts)

5. It will become a Bain in the Ass to Romney, especially when Obama corners him in a debate

Reply to NNN0LHI (Original post)

Tue May 22, 2012, 12:46 PM

May 2012

Maybe he can start boasting of the two people he converted to9 Mormonism in his two years in France to get off the subject.

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