Obama doubles down on anti-free trade rhetoric, won't let go of outsourcing jobs issue

Obama doubles down on anti-free trade rhetoric, won't let go of outsourcing jobs issue

ObamaDishonest obamadoesntunderstandeconomics outsourcing Romney

Anti-business, anti-free trade rhetoric continues from Obama. One is either left with the notion that Obama doesn't understand corporate finance or he is dishonest. Given that even the Washington Post and FactCheck.org understands these points and has repeatedly pointed them out, one has to lean towards the latter. With charges of felony, you would think that the press would force the Obama campaign harder to back up their claims. From the Associated Press:

An unrelenting President Barack Obama jabbed at Mitt Romney's record with a private equity firm in an ad Saturday that aimed to keep his rival on the defensive just as the Republican challenger's campaign hoped to take advantage of poor economic data to gain an edge on the incumbent.

Obama met Romney's plea for an apology for the attacks with a mocking ad that charged that the firm shipped American jobs to China and Mexico, that Romney has personal wealth in investments in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and that as Massachusetts governor, he sent state jobs to India.

"Mitt Romney's not the solution. He's the problem," the ads says as Romney is heard singing "America the Beautiful." . . .

Saturday, in Clifton, Va., Obama again tried to tie Romney to the loss of American jobs, contrasting himself with his rival.

"I want to stop giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas," Obama [said] . . . . "Let's give those tax breaks that are investing right here in Virginia, right here in the United States of America, hiring American workers to make American products to sell around the world."

Romney's spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, fired back Saturday, accusing the president of being less than truthful about Romney's record.

"The American people deserve the truth and they certainly deserve better from their president," Saul said, from Boston. . . .

From Fox News:

Obama in an interview with WJLA-TV said Friday that Romney needs to better explain his tenure at Bain.

"Ultimately Mr. Romney, I think, is going to have to answer those questions, because if he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations," Obama said. "But again that's probably a question that he's going to have to answer and I think that's a legitimate part of the campaign." . . .

Anderson Cooper on CNN summarizes the Obama campaign strategy this way:

Basically the Obama campaign wants to paint Romney as the greedy, out of touch rich guy, whose com BC closed factories and killed jobs just to make a quick buck. . . .

David Gergen had this statement on CNN on July 10th. When asked by Anderson Cooper if Obama was opening himself up to the charge that he is attacking success, Gergen said (3:19 into the video):

Absolutely, and you know I happen to think that the attacks on Bain capital are well off base. I know something about that company. I know something about the people who work there. I have done some work with them in the past. I was on a board that sold out to Bain Capital. . . .

Here is another statement by Gergen on July 12th:

Having said that, again, what's surprising about this is the Obama campaign is now playing a very rough form of politics. And is that really what we were promised way back when? . . .

The AP story also has this note at the end of the piece:

Bain Capital said in a statement that Romney "remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999."

CNN reports the accusations from Team Obama of felonious conduct are simply false. John King spoke to four executives at Bain, two of whom are “active” supporters of Barack Obama and three of whom are Democrats. All four said that Mitt Romney left Bain in a rush in 1999 so as to work full time on rescuing the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, and that he had nothing to do with Bain after he left in February 1999. So what about the attacks on Romney by Obama claiming that Romney was still running Bain in 2000 and 2001? Well, that claim is essential to the Obama campaign ad on outsourcing. From the Washington Post on July 12, 2012:

Just because you are listed as an owner of shares does not mean you have a managerial role. . . .

Fortune obtained the offering documents for a Bain Capital Fund circulating in June 2000, as well as a fund in 2001. None of the documents show that Romney was listed as being among the “key investment professionals.” As Fortune put it, “the contemporaneous Bain documents show that Romney was indeed telling the truth about no longer having operational input at Bain -- which, one should note, is different from no longer having legal or financial ties to the firm.” . . .

In the Massachusetts document, Romney is also listed as 100 percent owner of “Bain Capital Inc.” But there is less than meets the eye here. Bain Capital Inc. was the management firm, which was paid a management fee to run the funds and actually made virtually no profit, since it existed to pay salaries and expenses. After Romney formally left Bain in 2001, a new entity called “Bain Capital LLC” took over the management function.

By virtually all accounts, Romney was focused on the Olympics in the 1999-2002 period. Yet because Romney had not legally separated from Bain, his name is littered across Securities and Exchange Commission filings concerning Bain Capital deals during this period. The crazy quilt of private-equity structures, in some ways, makes his ownership appear even more ominous, as the filings list hundreds of thousands of shares controlled by Romney. . . .

Info from FactCheck.org is available here. Fortune's article is available here.

Moreover, unwinding a private equity firm's ownership structure is extremely complicated. The "firm" itself is largely a legal construct of convenience, since it doesn't pay salaries, make investments or do much of anything else. Instead, what matters are the individual funds.

In the case of Bain Capital's funds, it's reasonable to assume that Romney was considered a "key man," meaning that each fund's limited partners could have voted to end the fund's investment period -- or take over fund management themselves -- if a super-majority felt it prudent. But that didn't happen, and Bain saw no reason to expend massive administrative effort to amend existing funds. Instead, it asked Romney to sign documents when necessary, and made the managerial/ownership changes on new funds going forward. . . .

On July 13 the Washington Post had this:

The one thing new we saw in the Globe story was the assertion that “Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain ‘executive’ in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.” But then we realized we had already reviewed those documents in January. The 2001 form describes him as a “former executive” (see page 1 of form A-5) — the campaign says this was retirement pay — but the 2002 form says “executive.” So either you believe he suddenly rejoined the firm, after leaving it, or someone made a typo.

Romney’s sudden departure from Bain had left the partnership in flux, in fact almost breaking up the firm, and a final resolution was not reached until he ended his Olympic sojourn and decided to run for governor. At that point, he signed retirement papers that set his departure date as February 1999, the month he left for the Olympics.

Fortune magazine on Thursday reported that it had obtained the offering documents for Bain Capital funds circulating in 2000 and 2001. None of the documents show that Romney was listed as being among the “key investment professionals” who would manage the money. As Fortune put it, “the contemporaneous Bain documents show that Romney was indeed telling the truth about no longer having operational input at Bain — which, one should note, is different from no longer having legal or financial ties to the firm.”

Still, if the Obama campaign wants to put its money where its mouth is, it should immediately lodge a complaint about Romney’s financial disclosure form, filed just last year, rather than try to mislead people about potential violations in relatively unimportant SEC documents. . . .

Obama's campaign has spent $100 million on attack ads in swing states.

President Barack Obama's campaign has spent nearly $100 million on television commercials in selected battleground states so far, unleashing a sustained early barrage designed to create lasting, negative impressions of Republican Mitt Romney before he and his allies ramp up for the fall. In a reflection of campaign strategy, more than one-fifth of the president's ad spending has been in Ohio, a state that looms as a must-win for Romney more so than for Obama. Florida ranks second and Virginia third, according to organizations that track media spending and other sources. About three-quarters of the president's advertising has been critical of Romney as Obama struggles to turn the election into a choice between him and his rival, rather than a referendum on his own handling of the weak economy. Obama's television ad spending dwarfs the Romney campaign's so far by a margin of 4-1 or more. . . .

Elizabeth Warren blasts Romney comment that “corporations are people.”

Elizabeth Warren blasts Romney comment that “corporations are people.”

elizabethwarren Romney

Politico has this:

It was almost as if she was behind a lectern at Harvard again, teaching a lesson.
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took direct aim at Mitt Romney at an Obama fundraiser on Monday, dredging up his remark that “corporations are people.”
“No, Mitt, corporations are not people,” she exclaimed. “People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick,… they live and they die. Learn the difference. . . .

If this is what is taught at Harvard, we are in bad shape.  Here is the point that Romney was making.  Corporations are made up of people who work together.  Corporations don't exist independently of people.

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell is nailed for selectively editing Romney talk

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell is nailed for selectively editing Romney talk

mediabias Romney

Now see the entire talk here.

Clearly Romney was making a completely different point about competition between the public and private sectors.

UPDATE: MSNBC's nonapology.   

An MSNBC spokesperson emailed the following at 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon:
“MSNBC did not edit anything out of order or out of sequence and at no time did we intend to deceive our viewers.”

So?  No one said that MSNBC had edited this material out of order.  The problem was that the edits had obviously changed the meaning of what Romney had said.

Now even Bill Clinton acknowledges Romney's "sterling" business record

Now even Bill Clinton acknowledges Romney's "sterling" business record

BainCapital ObamaDishonest Romney

When is the Obama campaign going to realize that this is a dead horse and get off it?  From Politico:

President Bill Clinton veered sharply off message Thursday, telling CNN that Mitt Romney's business record at Bain Capital was "sterling." "

I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say 'This is bad work. This is good work,'" Clinton said. "The man who has been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold."
Clinton also went on to say that Romney's time at Bain Capital represented a "good business career."
The Obama campaign is in the third week of an all-out assault on Romney's time as a corporate buyout specialist — accusing the GOP nominee of bankrupting companies and laying off workers all while pocketing a profit for  himself and investors. . . .
But the negative tenor of their attacks on an influential segment of Wall Street have made some Democrats uncomfortable. . . . 

"Obama: Bain debate ‘is what the campaign is going to be about’"

"Obama: Bain debate ‘is what the campaign is going to be about’"

BainCapital DemocratsturningonObama Obamaantibusiness ObamaDishonest Romney

From Politico:

Obama’s damn-the-torpedoes remarks were also aimed at some of his fellow Democrats who are increasingly anxious that their party’s leader is attacking a private equity firm for doing what such businesses were created to do: make cash within the confines of the law.
“My opponent, Gov. Romney, his main calling card for why he should be president is his business experience,” Obama told American and international reporters at McCormick Place at the conclusion of the two-day NATO summit focused on the seemingly weightier issues of Afghan withdrawal and Pakistan.
The deep blue of the NATO stage backdrop seemed, for a moment, to morph into the sky blue of Obama’s campaign sets.
“When you’re president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. … So, if your main argument for how to grow the economy is ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you’re missing what this job is about,” Obama said. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity, but that’s not what my job is as president.”
Obama’s staff and Romney aides have been locked in an intensifying battle after Newark Mayor — and Obama ally — Cory Booker blasted the Obama campaign’s targeting of the venture capital firm as “nauseating” and a “distraction from the real issues.” . . .

Obama's comments about businesses taking the short term but him being concerned about the economy growing 10 years from now is just nuts.


From ABC News:

. . . As for the criticism that the Team Obama’s Bain attack is part of “nauseating” political discourse with which Booker has become “very uncomfortable,” Axelrod said, “on this particular instance he was just wrong.”
Booker is not the only Democrat to question the aggressive, negative portrayal of Romney’s work in private equity.  Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said today he agreed with “the substance” of Booker’s comments and “would not have backed out.”
“I agree with him, private equity is not a bad thing. Matter of fact, private equity is a good thing in many, many instances,” the Democrat said in a separate appearance on MSNBC earlier in the day.
Former Obama administration economic adviser Steven Rattner made similar comments last week, calling a new Obama campaign TV ad attacking Romney’s role in the bankruptcy of a Bain-owned steel company “unfair.”
“Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to create profits for its investors,” Rattner said.  ”‘It did it superbly well, acting within the rules, acting very responsibly. … This is part of capitalism, this is part of life. I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.” . . .

Democrat Virginia Senator Mark Warner (a former venture capitalist): 

Chuck Todd:  "Do you think that Bain Capital practiced good or bad ethics here in the way that they went about their business?"

Senator Warner: "I think that Bain Capital was very successful business.  I think they got a good return for their investors.  That is what they were supposed to do." 

Now what are we to make of Van Jones' comments here?  They sure sound as if Van Jones' comments on integrity implies that even he agrees with Booker.  Is that possible?  Also from the Washington Examiner:

“An urban mayor who nearly DIED saving neighbor from a fire, has earned right 2 demand integrity & courage from other leaders,” Jones tweeted on Tuesday in a message addressed to Booker’s Twitter handle. . . .

UPDATE: Here is an interview with an Obama campaign spokesman defending the campaign's attacks on Bain capital. From Mediaite (video available at bottom of page):

The Obama campaign spent the better part of the day of attempting to recover from Newark MayorCory Booker‘s near-scuttling of a major component of their reelection effort, Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, coming very close with President Obama‘s strong double-down at a press conference this afternoon. Then, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt took to Anderson Cooper 360 to undo as much of that as he could. . . .
[Obama's reframing of the Bain question to whether Romney has the experience to be president] nearly did the trick, using their most effective weapon: President Obama himself. . . . More importantly, he changed the headline to “Obama Doubles Down.” . . .
[Anderson Cooper asked Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt] “How can President Obama attack Mitt Romney on his time at Bain, highlighting only times when Bain cost companies jobs, and at the same time hold high priced fund raisers with the head of another private equity firm that’s done work with Bain, the Blackstone Group, there are people who have worked at other private equity firms in his own administration?”
. . . Five or six times, Cooper tried to get LaBolt to answer that one question, only to be met with uninterrupted talking points, or naked subject changes.
The rest of the interview went on along the same lines. Asked if he agreed with Mayor Booker that Bain had “done a lot to grow businesses,” LaBolt responded, “You know what Mayor Booker also said?” . . .

UPDATE2: A new poll by Rasmussen suggests that the Bain attacks aren't working so well for the president. 

Democrats have begun criticizing Mitt Romney’s business record, but a plurality of voters view the Republican’s business past as a positive.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that Romney’s track record in business is primarily a reason to vote for him. Thirty-three percent (33%) see his business career as chiefly a reason to vote against him. Twenty-two percent (22%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) . . .

Or how about this?

Voters now trust likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney more than President Obama on all five issues regularly surveyed by Rasmussen Reports, especially when it comes to money.
A new national telephone survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters trust Romney more than Obama when it comes the economy, while 39% trust the president more. Ten percent (10%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording,click here.) . . .

Just a copy of Booker's remarks:

"To me, it's just we're getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital," Booker said. "If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me, I'm very uncomfortable with." 

Nice summary of quotes from different Democrats upset with Obama's attacks on Bain Capital.


UPDATE: Some more Democrats speak out:

Deval Patrick: Bain "Not A Bad Company"

Ed Rendell: "Either/Or" On If He Agrees With How Obama Campaign Being Run

Rattner on Bain

More info available here.

UPDATE: Federal Inmate Keith Judd ends up getting 43% of

UPDATE: Federal Inmate Keith Judd ends up getting 43% of

2012election DemocratsturningonObama Obama2012 Romney

43% to a federal inmate, amazing!  To put it in perspective, Keith Judd got almost as many votes in the Democrat primary as the winner of the Republican primary, Mitt Romney, got.  From the West Virginia Secretary of State:

Big green donors backing Romney

Big green donors backing Romney

Romney RomneyEnvironment

From Politico:

. . . Romney and his super PAC have taken millions from funders with strong green streaks — despite the fact that the former Massachusetts governor has run to the right in the primary, proclaiming doubts about global-warming science and trashing President Barack Obama’s greenhouse gas emissions policies.
Julian Robertson, founder of the Tiger Management hedge fund, helped put cap-and-trade legislation on the map with $60 million in contributions over the past decade to the Environmental Defense Fund.
Now, Robertson has given $1.25 million to Romney’s Restore our Future super PAC, plus the maximum $2,500 to the Romney campaign.
Other green-minded financial backers may not be giving as much as Robertson, but they still share the view that climate-change science and a solid environmental agenda wouldn’t be a lost cause if Romney won the White House. . . .