Romney’s Bane
Now on our home page, E.J. Dionne Jr. on how Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain is wounding him in swing states.
In this year’s 12 battleground states, many of which have gotten a heavy run of the anti-Bain ads, only 18 percent viewed Romney’s business experience positively; 33 percent viewed it negatively. Obama led Romney by three points nationally but by eight in the battlegrounds.
This is disturbing news for Romney, who hoped his business experience would be an unalloyed asset. The numbers also underscore voter resistance to the core conservative claim that job creation is primarily about rewarding wealthy investors and companies through further tax cuts and less regulation. …
The Bain ads have done double-duty, specifically undermining Romney but also serving as a parable for how aspects of the current financial system hurt workers and local communities.
Read the whole thing right here.
Romney is being swiftboated by the pro-Obama SuperPAC.
@Jim Pauwels: yep.
I’m sure he has nothing to worry about (unless the charges are true).
It’s about time the President’s campaign has started to use some of the money that supporters have lavished on it to really nail this “casino capitalist,” Mitt Romney especially for his twisted sense of what is the common good.
Democratic St. Ted Kennedy is smiling down on his brothers and sisters: In the same week corporate crony jurist John Roberts hands the middle class their greatest victory in decades on SCOTUS ruling where ACA passes constitutional muster. And, the Obama reelection campaign begins to mimic Ted’s own 1994 political evisceration of corporate vulture capitalist Romney, working peoples’ [Bain] (pun intended!).
Alas, there is a God! And She is in a vengeful mood!
JP – the difference between how Romney is being treated and how Kerry was treated is that the stroy about Romney is true.
It is Swiftboating. Romney actually never worked at Bain, and never sent US jobs overseas and never owned all the shares in a company that disposes of aborted fetuses:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/07/romney-invested-in-a-fetus-disposal-company.html
That’s all just lies of the MSM and the evil SuperPACS (which Romney and the GOP would NEVER use) controlled by the foreign-born Muslim in the White House whose pastor trained him in liberation theology to impose a socialist dictatorship on America that will send bishops to the gallows if he wins a second term.
Seriously. You can look it up. It’s on something called the Internet.
Romney very successfully did what venture capitalists do: buy companies and figure out a way to sell them for a profit. Sometimes the company has assets that can be sold off for a profit, sometimes better management can take a company that is floundering and make it grow and profit. It’s best when you can finance the purchase of a company by mortgaging property within the company itself, and pay yourself first. That way you profit whether the company ‘makes it’ or not. It’s all about buying bargains. While it is a nice thing if the companies can grow and keep people employed, but it is basically irrelevant. There’s nothing wrong or evil about what Bain did. They didn’t set out to lay people off as an objective, but often it was a means to an end: generating profit.
unagidon and David G – at least one of the ads that has been running in Ohio, featuring steelworkers who lost their jobs in the wake of Bain acquiring their company, is untruthful. The untruthful part is that Romney had already left Bain when Bain acquired their company. The ad attributes to Romney something that Romney had no part in. That’s swiftboating.
FWIW, and if anyone cares: I don’t get too upset that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on presidential races – although as I remarked in another thread recently, it makes it painful to watch commercial television or listen to commercial radio. But what does seem pernicious to me is the firewall between the official campaigns and the SuperPACs. My supposition is that President Obama is a decent and honorable person, and if he and his campaign could exercise editorial control over the content of campaign ads on his behalf, those ads wouldn’t make defamatory charges. We need a mechanism that ensures that candidates are accountable for the ads run on their behalf.
“That’s swiftboating.”
I have to quibble slightly: at least Kerry was IN Vietnam.
@Jeff: Yes, while Romney was getting deferments.
I actually DO care about whether a politician was ever involved with a private equity firm. Every single day, when I get on and off the El to go to work, I walk by the abandoned Stella D’Oro cookie factory. (Actually I now walk by the rubble of the Stella D’Oro factory, it’s just been demolished to build a BJ store,)
Stella D’Oro was an 80 year old Bronx family business providing a living wage to 138 neighborhood people. When the family died off, the heirs sold it to Nabisco who flipped it to a private equity firm, Brynwood. Brynwood milked the company and, and after unsuccessfully trying to impose massive wage and benefit cuts on the longtime employees, shut down the Bronx flagship factory and sold the shell of the business to Lance.
I’m sure there are folks who will defend Brynwood as being good business men, or will minimze the harm they did, but people in my neighborhood know that Brynwood took a stable, flourishing business, gutted it and put a lot of hardworking people out of work.
Mr. Romney had nothing to do with Brynwood, but I will never knowingly vote for anybody who ever worked for a private equity firm.
Private equity making money is ultimate good?
To run a big capitalistic business without taking moral short cuts is possible but difficult. To run multiple diverse businesses without taking moral shortcuts is close to impossible. Romney’s Bain invested big time in a medical waste company that also disposed of aborted fetuses ** is another albatross to be hung around his ‘I’m the business executive that can run the country’ [with a lot of flipflop experience and a Trump for an ally]
** Huffington Post today
Alert to Mary Ann Glendon whose radio spot I heard in Florida in January:
Quote: “Romney is the most pro-life candidate in the Republican Party.”
Mergers and acquisitons started in the late 80s and made upper middle class brokers into millionaires. Today billionaires. This really started the decline in values and butchered the middle class. Basically the Merger and hedgefund people make big profits by eliminating jobs and therefore raising the stock price. It is fratricide if a person is a Christian and downright plunder for those who have no values. Stock prices have really been stagnant since 2000. The system is bad and both parties tolerate it. Bain is by far not the only company. Obama will have to do more than to show Romney is bad. Unless an incumbent president can better the lot of the people, we should change the incumbent every election. The same goes for Congress.
“Basically the Merger and hedgefund people make big profits by eliminating jobs and therefore raising the stock price.”
As a M&A attorney, I say with full confidence, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Ever think that mergers actually SAVE jobs?
@Irene: “Mr. Romney had nothing to do with Brynwood, but I will never knowingly vote for anybody who ever worked for a private equity firm.”
- But you have no problem voting for someone who goes into their homes and takes their money?
“But you have no problem voting for someone who goes into their homes and takes their money?”
Huh??????
Swiftboating is a complementary kind of lying, isn’t it? An ordinary liar says bad things about an opponent that are false. A swiftboater denies good things that are true. It’s like stripping a person before applying the tar and feathers. But it’s unnecessary to deny (or for that matter, to affirm) anything about Romney. Just be patient and he’ll do it himself.
David G.: “…send bishops to the gallows…”
Gallows? Are we going soft on iniquity? What’s become of the good ol’ burnin’ stake for heretics? It was great entertainment, and afterwards the spectators could roast their sausages in the embers.
The untruthful part is that Romney had already left Bain when Bain acquired their company. The ad attributes to Romney something that Romney had no part in. That’s swiftboating.
Jim,
I disagree. Mitt Romney is one of the founders of Bain Capital. Romney is trying to sell himself as a businessman who knows how to create jobs, as opposed to Obama who never was a businessman. I think Romney’s own personal record and the kind of business Bain Captial engaged in when Romney was there and after he has left is relevant. It is not important whether a particular steelworker who was laid off as a result of Bain Capital’s actions was laid off during Romney’s tenure at Bain or afterwards. This is the kind of business that Romney claims to have given him a background that would make him a good president, and I think the Obama campaign has a right to attack not only what Romney did, but what the business Romney founded and previously headed did and still does.
The campaign that I have heard criticism is involves accusations that Romney was a pioneer of outsourcing at Bain Capital, which appears not to be true.
Neither the Romney campaign nor the Obama campaign is interested in truth. Attack ads are not intended to be true. They are intended to be effective.
“Huh??????”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-courts-private-equity-cash-at-new-york-fundraiser/
“On the same day his campaign launched an attack on Mitt Romney‘s record in private equity, President Obama is attending a big-dollar fundraiser at the Manhattan home of one of the industry’s top figures.”
Jeff- I’m actually doing a write-in for Bernie Sanders.
Capitalism is often described as ‘creative destruction’. Bankruptcy and job losses are the destruction side while start-ups etc are the creative side. The destruction happens to every company, some sooner than others.
Nature is often described as ‘creative destruction’. Death and mortification are the destruction side while births etc are the creative side. The destruction happens to every person, some sooner than others.
This discussion just confirms my initial impression of Romney. He’s a computer — data in, data out, yes, no, buy, sell, profit, loss. It’s all the same to him. (Though true, false don’t seem to be part of his vocabulary.) No feelings. If you want a calculating machine for President, vote for him.
Have you ever noticed that his eyes are empty? No expression. Oh for a Jack Kennedy. His eyes were actually ugly, but oh how alive. (Yes, these things count.)
In hell there is no risk. Wonder if some people might be more at home there.
In America, risk is for the little people.
FLASH
German theologian Gerhard Ludwig Muller has just been named head of the CDF. Good news for the poor — he was a friend of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierez and even praised him publicly, unheard of in a Vatican man. He’s generally conservative.
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/inquiries-and-interviews/detail/articolo/gerhard-ludwig-mueller-congregazione-per-la-dottrina-della-fede-congragation-for-the-doctrine-of-t/
“As a M&A attorney, I say with full confidence, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Ever think that mergers actually SAVE jobs?”
Jeff, I would welcome info from you on your novel idea. The proof seems to be your burden. No doubt you will furnish many examples.
While we are at if Jeff, tell me how many of your colleagues adhere to the following mandate of St. Paul?
“For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. Not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that there may be equality. As it is written: Whoever had much did not have more, and whoever had little did not have less.” (2 Corinthians 8: 9, 13-15)
David N – my view is that anything that happened at Bain and Company, Bain Capital and Commonwealth of MA while Romney was in charge is fair game, but we shouldn’t hold him responsible for events when he was not in charge.
I disagree. He was responsible (in part) for making the company what it was; a predator. I think that we can at least speculate whether he would have stood in the way of some Bane deal had he been there, based on his record when he was there.
And never forget — Romney is still getting noticeable income from Bain. He is profitting from its practices.
In America, risk is for the little people.
Wow, what a shame that you have such a negative view of America; hope you can still enjoy Independence Day. I’m betting one perfectly grilled hot dog with all the fixin’s and plenty of ice cold beer on hand will change your mind!
Wow, what a shame that you have such a negative view of America; hope you can still enjoy Independence Day. I’m betting one perfectly grilled hot dog with all the fixin’s and plenty of ice cold beer on hand will change your mind!
Mark Proska,
Actually, I have been thinking for some time now that those of us who remember conservatives in the 1960s saying, “America, love it or leave it,” should now be saying that to conservatives. They hate the country so much that some of them even flirt with the idea of secession! According to conservatives, and especially Tea Partiers, we live under tyranny. See here:
Conservatives actually seem to hate the country. That is why they need to “restore” it and “take it back.”
“Catholic social teaching has insisted that the free market must serve human dignity, not simply profit margins.”
http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/nuns-bus-sister-women-religious-respond-real-world-struggles
anything that happened at Bain and Company, Bain Capital and Commonwealth of MA while Romney was in charge is fair game, but we shouldn’t hold him responsible for events when he was not in charge.
Jim,
Suppose Romney wanted to brag about the current state of health care in Massachusetts. Would you allow him only to be proud of what happened up until the day he left office ( January 4, 2007), or would you say he had a right to point to the success of RomneyCare even today?
Are you referring to America the country or America the religion?
David and unagidon – for the employer featured in the commercial in question, my understanding is that Bain didn’t acquire the company until Romney had already left. I don’t hold him responsible for shutting down the plant where those workers lived. He wasn’t involved in that decision. He helped found the company that eventually, under someone else’s direction, bought that other company and shut down the plant.
If I sell the house I own and then, five years later, the guy who bought it for me fails to keep his dog under control and the dog digs up the neighbor’s garden, I don’t expect to be held accountable for that, either.
Nor should you be. But if you were the CEO of Fannie Mae, instituting its destructive policies, but you cashed out before it crashed, you’d certainly still bear some responsibility for it. And if you cashed out and it didn’t crash but continued its policies, I would argue that you would bear some responsibility there too.
David–
I’m sure there are some conservatives who actually hate America, but I think you overstate the case. I imagine they, and the vast majority of Americans, celebrate the 4th of July with pride. When I think of someone who hates America, I think of someone who is more comfortable saying God damn America than God bless America, someone who would have trouble being proud of his country unless a family member were elected to high office, someone who, try as he might, simply can’t help but be embarrassed for America when others, show their pride in it, without apology. Someone who cringes at the very idea of American exceptionalism. I feel sorry for these unfortunate sons (and daughters).
Are you referring to America the country or America the religion?.
Unagidon–
I am not sure why are you asking me this question, as you are the one who first referred to America, and in the pejorative.
I was stating a fact. You know of any rich people that have been really hurt in this recession?
Of course, America the religion is above criticism.
Unagidon–
Actually, I do, but that’s not the point. I refer you back to my post of 4:30 pm.
“Jeff, I would welcome info from you on your novel idea. The proof seems to be your burden. No doubt you will furnish many examples.”
Do some research. I have sat in countless board meetings with directors contemplating a merger; not once have i heard one of them argue “let’s merge so I can get a bigger paycheck.”
Just one example: we represent a regional health care services provider that has acquired numerous smaller hospitals around the South. Without this acquisition, these smaller communities would not have a hospital.
Finally, “profit” really has nothing to do with the decision to merge or not.
Jim P there are now papers that disclose that Romney signed showing him in charge of Bain years after he said he left. His truth level is one point above zero.
see Huffington post.
“He was responsible (in part) for making the company what it was; a predator.”
THe Boston Globe has done this analysis. Bain, under Romney’s leadership, was no more aggressive in its investment strategies than any other private equity firm, and its practices were in-line with the industry. You can say you just don’t like private equity, but to try to paint Romney at Bain as some outlying predator is false and wrong. It smacks of people trying to portray Obama as a radical socialist terrorist because he attended Jeremiah Wright’s church and hung out with Bill Ayers.
Furthermore, what is Pres. Obama proposing to – specifically – to curb in private equity? Outsourcing? Leveraged buyouts? Or more fundraising at their homes?
PS – If private equity practices are so egregious, where is the outrage at Nancy Pelosi – who is of course married to a hedge fund manager – who while she was speaker blocked legislation making prohibiting Congresspersons from having special access to from IPOs and emerging company deals, as detailed on 60 Minutes? Again, private equity might or might not be a problem, but if it’s a problem, it certainly pertains to both parties.
As one of my favorite professors used to say “something to ponder”:
“Though Americans mostly remember Steve Jobs as the brains behind the iPod and the iPhone…he was also a job destroyer. Shortly after returning to Apple as CEO in 1997, he fired 3,000 workers and he shut down all of Apple’s manufacturing facilities, shifting production to contractors in East Asia. Before this brutal round of layoffs, Apple was just over a billion dollars in the red. After it, the then-struggling company made a $309 million profit. In the years that followed, Apple’s employment levels soared as the company more than replaced manufacturing workers with engineers, support staff, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, a growing army of retail employees. Had Jobs not fired large numbers of workers, it’s not clear that Apple would have survived.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/304631/private-equity-and-smithian-division-labor-reihan-salam
They must have had hospitals or there would have been nothing to “merge” with. What you mean to say is that they were unprofitable hospitals that might have closed had they not be acquired, right? So having been acquired what is the charge structure looking like at these hospitals these days? Profit has nothing to do with it?
How many merged companies have you been employed at?
I don’t like private equity; I don’t like predatory asset-stripping target-leveraging risk-transferring zombie capitalists. There, I said it. “Bain, under Romney’s leadership, was no more aggressive in its investment strategies than any other private equity firm, and its practices were in-line with the industry.” That’s like saying that Richard Speck was not a particularly prolific serial killer given industry standards.
In other words, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t talk about Obama in a thread about Romney? Okay. If you look back at my posts during the presidential election you will see that I specifically said that the finance dollars would be backing Obama because he was their friend (and I didn’t like that either).
Yes, it is a problem with both parties. It’s just that I can see that and you can’t.
uld have survived.
Yes. Every thug is really Napoleon and every capitalist is really Steve Jobs. Can you name one new product that Bain Capital rolled out?
“Finally, “profit” really has nothing to do with the decision to merge or not.”
Jeff, are you going socialism on us?. Sometimes mergers are for survival. But to state what you did above?? Just goes to show when lawyers start thinking….
With all your ad hominems Jeff, I must say you give me a lot of laughs. Unagidon has answered your unsubstantiated assertions. How many of these companies and/or directors do you represent? http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/in-caymans-its-simple-to-fill-a-hedge-fund-board/?ref=todayspaper
No doubt you are stressing the “preferential option for the poor”…..
JEFF: “Finally, “profit” really has nothing to do with the decision to merge or not.”
BILL M.: “Jeff, are you going socialism on us?. Sometimes mergers are for survival. But to state what you did above?? Just goes to show when lawyers start thinking….
Funny, Bill M. REALLY funny :-)
And I always thought Apple’s turnaround was becaue of the ipod.
“Bain, under Romney’s leadership, was no more aggressive in its investment strategies than any other private equity firm, and its practices were in-line with the industry”
Robert Reich agrees with Jeff. He said the Democrats aren’t connecting the dots;Bain is just one player in the “casino capitalism” that almost threw our economy off the cliff. Reich also agrees with Unagidon that these guys play with OPM, and when their bets pay off, they win big, but when they lose, its the average guy that pays the price.
http://www.thenation.com/article/168623/mitt-romney-and-new-gilded-age
The worst perhaps in the following news from today’s times is that glaxo-klien made close to 20 billion selling deception about drugs but was fined 3 billion which they would say is good business. Do we have any candidates wailing against these thieves? More likely they are asking for contributions…..
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/ex-brokers-say-jpmorgan-favored-selling-banks-own-funds-over-others/?hp
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/chief-executive-of-barclays-resigns/?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/business/glaxosmithkline-agrees-to-pay-3-billion-in-fraud-settlement.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/opinion/rigged-rates-rigged-markets.html?hp
I think Romney should be extremely unapologetic about his success. He should talk about it every chance he gets. It is not a sin to be wealthy in America. It’s the essence of the American Dream. He should embody the Dream. Those Obama commercials are about broken dreams. The Obama Administration has been four years of broken dreams. Romney should be Mitt Romney, Daring to Dream. That’s my campaign advice to him – and gratis.
“He should talk about it every chance he gets”
Since I don’t want him to win, I would have to enthusiastically agree.
The point the Obama campaign is trying to make in calling attention to Romney’s private-equity past is not, as Jeff Landry supposes, “to try to paint Romney at Bain as some outlying predator.” They’re not saying he was an especially evil titan of capitalism. Nor, I think, are they saying “He must have done something bad to get so wealthy.” They’re trying to explain just what sort of business Romney’s background is in — portraying him as “in-line with the industry” is precisely the point.
That’s because Romney’s basic pitch for the job of president is: the economy is a disaster; the incumbent isn’t up to the job of fixing it; what America needs is a man like me who understands how business works. So the Obama response is: Here’s the kind of business Mitt Romney understands. Is that how you want your president to approach fixing the economy? They’re trying to complicate the assumption that someone who has made lots of money must know a lot about “creating jobs” and will therefore be able to make the rest of us (or at least the deserving among us) richer, too.
“The point the Obama campaign is trying to make in calling attention to Romney’s private-equity past is not, as Jeff Landry supposes, “to try to paint Romney at Bain as some outlying predator.” They’re not saying he was an especially evil titan of capitalism. Nor, I think, are they saying “He must have done something bad to get so wealthy.” They’re trying to explain just what sort of business Romney’s background is in — portraying him as “in-line with the industry” is precisely the point.”
Unagidon called him a predator, not the Obama campaign. That said, I welcome a debate about in the election abou the role of private equity. But that’s not what the campaign is doing: it is misconstruing the record, first of all, and not addressing how, precisely, it would stop what many see as private equity’s abuses. For example, what is the President proposing specifically to make outsourcing more difficult?
“How many merged companies have you been employed at?”
Yes; the merger strengthened the overall financial statements, and actually resulted in an improved collective bargaining agreement for many of the workers.
“I don’t like private equity; I don’t like predatory asset-stripping target-leveraging risk-transferring zombie capitalists. There, I said it. “Bain, under Romney’s leadership, was no more aggressive in its investment strategies than any other private equity firm, and its practices were in-line with the industry.” That’s like saying that Richard Speck was not a particularly prolific serial killer given industry standards.”
I’d say you don’t really understand private equity.
“In other words, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t talk about Obama in a thread about Romney? Okay. If you look back at my posts during the presidential election you will see that I specifically said that the finance dollars would be backing Obama because he was their friend (and I didn’t like that either).”
I’m sorry; I must have missed the thread about Obama’s economic record; or his fundraising among private equity moguls; or his increasingly alarming claims of ever-expanding executive privilege; or his (again) his proposals to rein in the influence of private equity.
Then perhaps you need to learn more about private equity.
“Every thug is really Napoleon and every capitalist is really Steve Jobs. ”
Strawman, anyone?
“It is not a sin to be wealthy in America. It’s the essence of the American Dream.”
Now Jim, is that why you vote Republican and I thought it was because of prolife. So the one percent make it to heaven or perhaps the upper middle class also. It’s the rich man over Lazarus and the eye of the needle is for strict constructionists. Deacon I am waving the celibacy requirement and making you a bishop.
Jeff, you mean private equity as in hedgefunds where the directors are responsible to prevent the equity from being raped. Equity is such fun that being a director is now a stand alone business. But you understand it. That is why stocks are dead since 2000 except for the directors and brokers et alii.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/in-caymans-its-simple-to-fill-a-hedge-fund-board/?ref=todayspaper
Bill – there are a lot of Democrats living the American Dream, too. They are funding President Obama’s re-election campaign.
And the episcopal seat I’m holding out for is Rome’s. Thought I had it, too, momentarily, last time (it’s all recounted in that unpublished chapter from David G’s book). As it happens, I’m already fundraising for the next conclave, with $40K a pop dinner parties on the Upper East Side.
Agree with you on the Democrats, Jim.