Posted on 05/17/2012 3:53:10 AM PDT by tobyhill
Mitt Romney, who has been silent up to this point on the Obama campaign's extensive attacks on his private equity career, defended his experience in an interview with conservative blogger Ed Morissey, distancing himself from the closing of a steel factory at a Bain-owned company and accusing the president of talking out of both sides of his mouth on private equity.
Here's what he said:
"The most recent attacks are really off target and I think they know. They said, oh, gosh, Gov. Romney at Bain Capital closed down a steel factory. But the problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there. So that’s hardly something that was done on my watch. And of course they don’t mention a couple of other things. One is that we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs and secondly, on the president’s watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry, in auto dealers and auto manufacturers. So, you know, he’s hardly one to point a finger. Oh, and by the way, he has no problem going out and doing fundraisers with Bain Capital and private equity people"
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
It’s strange to me that the only person to adequately explain the position is the character played by Dannie DeVito in “Other People’s Money”.
While Romney was building (and dismantling) companies, Obama was smoking crack and sucking male genitalia.
They took over struggling companies and made money regardless whether the company survived or not but they made more money if they survived and people got to keep their jobs.
Furthermore, Romney is a proven bad governor
which is why he HIDES his insider roles
and had to flee Massachusetts (which he will lose).
"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
You have to start with the premise that companies who were in the final stages of survival....often had a few bits of pieces of something worth saving. It might have been patents, property, a series of products or just trained personnel.
One of the negative stories from this era...is Singer Sewing machines, where some Asian guy came in and tried to bundle up all the sewing machine companies in Asia, Europe and the US. The speed in which he acted....was amazing. He’d take over a company and immediately start to parcel out real estate and the pension plan...then use the assets to buy another company, and so on. At some point, he owned the majority of sewing machine companies in the world. Then he announced he was buying the biggest Russian sewing machine company. He wanted New York banks to front the deal. They were totally prepared...then for some reason...sent a guy to Moscow to view the property. The New York bank rep found this dilapidated manufacturing company out in the middle of nowhere...where the security guard even questioned how it was worth a thousand bucks....let alone the $200 million that the bank was going to finance on the deal. At that point, the deal fell apart, and this Asian gentleman disappeared....with hundreds of millions that he made ripping off companies.
I should add....neither the Clinton or Bush or Obama camps have ever gone hunting for the guy....who broke various US laws.
I don’t see what the big deal is.. That is the nature of capitalism.. The weak dies and strong survives.. Far as I know Mitt did nothing illegal..
Indeed.
- $5 trillion was not added to the national debt in 3 years,
- Weapons were not allowed to be smuggled to Mexican drug cartels and used to kill a US Border Patrol agent,
- Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were not lost or squandered on failed solar energy companies,
- and national unemployment did not exceed 8% because of Romney being at Bain.
It's quite obvious that 4 more years of Obama would be far better than a last ditch effort to save the nation with Romney.
Newt was wrong. His decision to attack Romney on one of the most conservative and Republican ideals there are, free enterprise and making profits, was wrong and wrong-headed.
Born and lived my life in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. I’m a RIGHT of Reagan Conservative. That said...
The “Power” in this state lies in the State House and Senate. Period..end of discussion. The population centers are crammed with nutty liberals and academics who lean so far LEFT that if we were on the WEST coast, this state would have truly broken off and floated away.
All a REPUBLICAN governor can do in Boston is to fight a holding action. Jobs are NOT created by a governor..they are created by and atmosphere that encourages the investment and continuing GROWTH of business. I did NOT favor Romney in the “campaign”, but will make a “blessing on his head” each and every day until he is (please) sworn in as President of the USA.
So, when will you be joining the Obama campaign?
There is no longer even one primary candidate, opposing Romney. Pick a lane.
Just a few comments on the Romney campaign. Mitt Romney was not my first choice for POTUS. In fact, he was at the bottom of my list. But....I will both support and vote for him, simply because I cannot stand Obama and the entire Democrat Party who, IMHO, are out to destroy this republic.
Having said that, I would offer some advice to the campaign of Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney directly. Telling the American people and voters that Obama is a nice guy, who is just misguided, is simply a repeat of the lost canpaign of “weak sister” John McCain, who IMHO, handed the POTUS slot to Obama on a silver platter.
Obama and his evil wife Michelle are not nice people. They are actually, evil enemies of the state. They purposely are working to weaken our country, across the board, period. My input: Attack, Attack, Attack!!! I am not advocating personal attacks. I am saying, that every response from the Romney team and Romney, himself, needs to frame Obama and the Democrat Party as they really are, destructive to the USA, and more importantly, destructive to the freedom, liberty, education and opportunities for all of us, our children, grandchildren and children yet to come.
Soft balling it with these Obama and Democrat thugs and America haters ain’t gonna cut the mustard!!! Get with it Romney, time is running out!!! Being nice will get you beaten.
I agree. Once again we are stuck with voting against instead of voting for. Someone else seems to be determining the Republican candidate instead of the voters.
With the exception of the irregularities in, (I believe it was Virginia?) putting the state GOP thumb on the scale, for the most part Romney is where he is right now fair and square.
He’s a formidable opponent. A ... dare I say it? Winner.
I don’t like him. I think he’s ruthless and got ahead by tearing down his opponents, but then again, he probably also won in dodgeball at prep school.
We had a contest. Romney had (PLENTY) of opponents. Romney even had one great opponent - perhaps the single best potential candidate the GOP has seen since Ronald Reagan, who turned the race upside down by VOLUNTARILY STEPPED ASIDE, almost handing Romney the nomination unopposed.
But the bottom line is, Romney beat all challengers.
Every. Single. One.
It is time to start focusing on the general election.
Now just 175 days away.
He’s a jerk, but he’s our jerk. I want that smug Kenyan SOB out. Once he’s out we’ll cross that bridge.
My stance on Romney was in the past driven by the belief that he couldn’t win....but I did not think that Obama would implode like he has by going overboard with the gays. A mindbogglingly stupid move, which has now made it Mitt’s to lose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.