And So The Attack Ads Begin........

[Dave]

Well I guess the attack ads have already begun in what has now been trimmed down to Romney vs Obama and the Obama campaign threw out an ad that makes Romney try and look bad but of course is exactly a factual ad. It deals with the closure of GST Steel that Bain Capitol had been overseeing. Why I say the ad isn't exactly factual is that while Romney was indeed head of Bain Capitol, he had left the firm 2 years before the GST Steel closure. In other words, he didn't have a hand in what with GTS at the time they closed. Keep in mind that GST was already on shaky ground when Bain took over and as we can all imagine, not every company can be saved.

The Romney campaign shot back with their own ad, showcasing a success story from Romney's Bain years. Another steel company that almost wasn't got started thanks to Romney and Bain and now employs 6000 people.

I'm still not a big fan of Romney and obviously less of a fan of Obama but in this case I have to give Romney's team the win in the battle of the ads so far.

The first ad is the Obama ad and then the Romney ad:

[XLFD]

Hope and change - Romney?!

Being a smart businessman is Romney's strength, for Obama to attack him on spurious, disingenuous grounds is putting his chin in Mitt's wheelhouse.  Look at Barack's partnerships with business, such as Solyndra, GM, GE, etc.  Great models those.

[AQUAMAN]

I predict Obama will go even more negative as time passes, that won't bide well with the public though, as polls have consistently shown. Hope he continues into the abyss. A far cry from his first election, where he stayed on subject and didn't go negative. His loss, our gain.

[Dave]

Good point.... for a president that said he was going to change how things are done in Washington, he's has been almost a complete failure in that regard. Washington if anything is worse now then its ever been.

[Willy]

So why doesn't his add let people know that he left the company 2 years before GST closed. I hope he isn't going to run a stupid campaign. He has to answer the lies that Obama is telling the people.  I heard somone on the radio today ask the question "are you better off now then 5 trillion dollars ago"?

[Dave]

IF the Obama reelection campaign is going to put ads out claiming this and that, a few things they might want to take into consideration is to A) Make sure Romney was actually still at Bain when the layoffs happened (so far in these ads, they have yet to show any layoffs that he was directly involved in) and B) Make sure that one of your biggest campaign money fundraisers isn't an executive at Bain.

Image credit: Obtrained by ABC News from Sankaty Advisors

The Obama campaign’s latest attack tells the story of workers at an Indiana office supply company who lost their jobs after a Bain-owned company named American Pad & Paper (Ampad) took over their company and drove it out of business.

Here’s what the Obama Web video doesn’t mention: A top Obama donor and fundraiser had a much more direct tie to the controversy and actually served on the board of directors at Richardson, Texas-based Ampad, which makes office paper products.

Jonathan Lavine is a long-time Bain Capital executive and co-owner of the Boston Celtics. He is also one of President Obama’s most prolific fundraisers. He has already raised more than $200,000 for the Obama campaign this election, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Lavine started working for Bain in 1993. He was one of three Bain executives who served on the board of directors of Ampad for several years, a post he held until 1999. Here’s a news release announcing his departure from the company in April 1999.

Lavine’s placement on the board of Ampad suggests he had a more direct role than Romney in the series of events surrounding the layoffs, labor disputes and eventual bankruptcy of the Marion, Ind., factory featured in the Obama campaign video.

Asked about Mr. Lavine’s role, Obama campaign spokesman Ben Labolt put the focus back on Romney.

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for president highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation,” Labolt said. “The president has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression”.

And, Labolt argued, Romney, as the CEO of Bain, would have been the one ultimately responsible for what happened with Ampad.

“He made profit at any cost for himself and his partners by outsourcing jobs and bankrupting companies,” Labolt said. “From buyout to bankruptcy, Mitt Romney was CEO and sole owner of Bain. The managing director working on Ampad reported directly to him and has said Romney could have ordered him to settle with the union but didn’t.”

UPDATE: Alex Stanton, a spokesperson for Bain Capitol, does not dispute that Lavine was on the board of Ampad, but insists that he had nothing to do with the workers being laid off in Marion, Indiana.

“Jonathan Lavine was not at Bain Capital when Ampad was acquired by the firm, and was not involved on the investment during the challenging situation at the Marion plant.  The assertion he had any involvement with those events is totally false,” said Stanton in a statement.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/top-obama-donor-tied-t...

[XLFD]

Who is really surprised that the Obama campaign is attacking free market capitalism, while putting forth the idea that their huge injection of public funds into select companies that kissed the President's ring was something that saved America?  Do they really want Americans to choose between Karl Marx and Adam Smith?  I think even now Adam would win that argument.