The Obama campaign is attempting to damage Mitt Romney's record for creating jobs while he worked as a private equity executive with Bain Capital. A new ad published by the Obama reelection machine is trying to portray Romney as a "greedy, job-killing corporate titan with little concern for the working class," reports the AP.
The ad will be airing Monday on TV Monday in the five "battleground states" of Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado. The two-minute video interviews former steel workers from GST Steel in Kansas City, Missouri, a steel rod making factory that declared bankruptcy in after having operated for over 100 years, which resulted in the layoff of about 150 workers.
The ad features Joe Soptic, who worked for GST for 30 years and John Wiseman a steelworker for 28 years. Both claim that Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were directly responsible for the factory's closure. Soptic contends that the executives at Bain "made as much money off of it as they could and they closed it down, they filed for bankruptcy without any concern for the families." Wiseman added that "Bain Capital walked away with a lot of money that they made from this plant. We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer."
The video also presents Andy Cruz, a steel worker for 29 years and Jack Cobb, a 31 year steel veteran, also expressed their dismay over GST's shutdown. Cobb describes Romney as a "vampire" saying that the presidential candidate "came in and sucked the life out of us."
While the does reveal that Bain Capital had acquired the plant in 1993 and was the majority owner, it does not mention that the company filed for bankruptcy in February 2001, a full two years after Romney had left Bain in February 1999. Reuters reported that the likely cause the bankruptcy was most likely due to
As a response to the ad, Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul stated that "We welcome the Obama campaign's attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record." She added that "Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation."
The Wall Street Journal reported back in January on the successful companies that were aided by Bain Capital. They include Staples Inc., Domino's Pizza, and the Sports Authority Inc., which have created over 100,000 jobs.
The ad, according to the AP, will appear in conjunction with several events that the Obama campaign will be holding this week in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Missouri.
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