Posted on 05/23/2012 8:22:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - President Obama's anti-capitalism attacks on Mitt Romney's long career as an investor who bankrolled businesses and created jobs isn't playing well in some Democratic circles.
Indeed, the Democratic backlash Obama's campaign has been getting about its ads attacking Bain Capital, Romney's venture capital investment firm, is the political equivalent of a "man bites dog" story.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a close ally of Obama and a rising star in the Democratic party, called Obama's ads "nauseating to the American people."
Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr., another party leader who once headed the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, said he agreed "with the core of" Booker's remarks defending Bain Capital's numerous success stories.
"Private equity's not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, private equity is a good thing in many, many instances," Ford said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Even one of Obama's own economic advisers winced at the sorry spectacle of the president's campaign trying to argue that Romney's private capital investment company has been bad for the economy.
"I don't think there's anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about," said Steven Rattner, who was the Obama administration's car czar and one of the president's economic advisers.
To the contrary, what Rattner and others seem to be suggesting is that Obama ought to be embarrassed by ads that are attacking private investment that is the mother's milk of business expansion and job creation.
"I have to just say from a very personal level, I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity [investment]," Booker said on Sunday's Meet The Press when David Gregory asked him about Obama's ad.
The TV ad singles out one of Bain Capital's investments in an Indiana steel company that ended up laying off 250 workers, but says nothing of dozens of companies Bain invested in that ended up creating thousands of jobs.
In the ad, a laid off worker at the plant calls Romney a "job destroyer."
Booker suggested this kind of sleazy distortion is both dishonest and reprehensible.
"If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses," Booker said. "And this [Obama's attack ad], to me, I'm very uncomfortable with."
"This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity," he said.
Soon after Booker condemned the ad, the president's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod must have come down on him like a ton of bricks: Shortly after that, Booker released a hastily-made You- Tube statement to "clarify" his remarks and reiterate his support for Obama, though he stood by his earlier comments.
Speaking at the end of the NATO Summit in Chicago, Obama responded with a confused statement that said private equity investing in the economy was "not always going to be a good thing for businesses or communities or workers."
His position grew even more entangled as he talked with reporters, saying, "When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private-equity firm...your job is to think about how those communities can start creating clusters so that they can attract new businesses." Huh?
In Obama's government-centered world, private venture capital is okay up to a point, as long as the investors don't make too much money and aren't too successful. Profit's okay, but only up to a point.
He wants the middle class to do well, but does not see the role that people with risk-taking capital play in building job opportunities for economic advancement at all income levels.
His anti-capitalism ad focuses on one of Bain Capital's failures as if this proves that Bain Capital's investments were not a good thing for the overall economy. But failure can be a byproduct of risk- taking which is what made our country the greatest economy in the world.
Henry Ford's first car company went out of business in 1908 before he invented the manufacturing assembly line that put automobiles with the reach of average Americans.
R. H. Macy weathered repeated failure in his retail career before he succeeded. Something on the order of half of all new businesses fail. But most try again and many succeed.
Obama should know something about failure. Several of the "clean energy" firms he invested went bankrupt. But in his case, the taxpayers had to pick up the tab. When a private equity firm's investment fails, it usually comes out of the investors' pockets.
One of Obama's biggest bankruptcies -- the solar panel company Solyndra -- cost taxpayers half a billion dollars.
This election is going to be decided by the economy and the jobs picture, both of which remain weak. The Gallup Poll has Obama and Romney tied in a dead heat, and the Washington Post poll has them on who can best fix the economy.
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a state-by- state report on the nation's high unemployment levels. The national news media ignored the story, but BLS said that "Just 16 states have seen job growth since President Obama took office," Investors Business Daily reported.
"The remaining states have lost a combined 1.4 million jobs since January 2009. Even 34 months after the recession officially ended in June 2009, there are still 11 states that have fewer people people working now than at the start of the recovery," IBD said.
Meantime, Obama really believes he can win a second term by trying to convince enough Americans that more private investment in our economy is "not always going to be good for businesss" or new job creation.
Think about that, for a moment.
Send all your money to Obama ,he will create 10 or 20 green jobs for 2 or 3 months
THIS has got to be waking some people up....people that WORK, or would LIKE to work. Not everyone believes the government is the source of jobs....
As a venture-capitalist, Romney's first major business deal involved investing in a start-up office supply company with one store in Massachusetts that sold office supplies. That company, called Staples, now has over 2,000 stores and employs over 90,000 people.
Romney or his company Bain Capital (using what became known as the "Bain Way") would go on to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino's, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, and many others
What an absolute moron the Zero is.
That is a GREAT pic
You and I said it
Except for the 50% who work for the government?
He’s NOT a moron....
He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing..................
Even some of those that work for government do NOT believe it...
YES....he is on a MISSION
Solyndra, etc.
There is always hope.
Solyndra was what? 500 Million down the crapper?<P
Obama has spent his entire life learning how to tear this economy and culture down. He is clueless on the subject of building it back up. How can he support private investment when he considers it the evil holding down the collective?
Therein lies the basis of government growth. In each government office is a bunch of level 2 bureaucrats that want to be level 3 bureaucrats. They find something else to regulate and say that because they are doing more they need more level 1 bureaucrats under them to perform their regulatory duties. When they get enough they go to their superiors and say they have enough people under them so they need to be promoted to a level 3. Then they start working on their level 4 promotion in the same way. Multiply this by the number of government employees and you see why government NEVER gets smaller.
To stop this I think we need a cap on how long someone can be employed by the government (say 2 years at a stretch followed by at least five years in the private sector.) This would break the chain and slow the blob like growth inherent in the system.
The DNC convention just might see a different nominee chosen and anointed by the Thursday night of that week...
The NBC Hillary Rodham Clinton ...
Barry could not manage a lemonade stand.
Obama hates free enterprise capitalism for the individual but he does love state-controlled capitalism!
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