Romney gives cash to unemployed supporter

Mitt Romney gave an unemployed woman a handful of cash after a campaign rally in Sumter, South Carolina.

An aide for Romney said the woman received about $50 dollars from the GOP presidential candidate according to reports.

The woman, identified as 55-year old Ruth Williams said she had followed the Romney campaign the last week in South Carolina. 

"I was on the highway praying and said, 'God just show me how to get my lights on, and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there," said Williams in an interview with ABC News "And then God said 'Follow the bus,' and I followed the bus to the airport."

Williams said she had met Romney earlier in the week and told him about her financial troubles.  During Saturday's campaign event, she said Romney spoke with her, introducing her to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) and then handing her cash from his wallet.

"He was kind to me," she said in a report from CNN. "He held onto me and he made Gov. Haley and them come see about me."

Romney who was a successful businessman before entering politics has been the recipient of tough attacks from his GOP rivals for his tenure as CEO of investment firm Bain Capital.  

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have accused Romney of profiting from shutting American businesses and firing workers when he headed the private-equity and venture-capital firm.

Bain invests in and takes over struggling businesses in hopes of restructuring them. But their moves have sometimes resulted in bankruptcies and layoffs.

Perry has called Romney a "vulture capitalist" claiming he targeted weak companies, stripping them of their assets. Gingrich called the Bain model "indefensible" and said it "undermined capitalism."

The attacks have led to concerns from Republicans that the Democrats could adopt the message in November's general election.

While Romney has claimed that his decisions at Bain helped create 100,000 jobs, his critics have disputed that figure.

In an open letter titled "Free Enterprise," Obama campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter slammed Romney claiming that his primary goal as CEO of Bain was creating wealth for his company, not creating jobs for workers.

“He laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries. And he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars while taking companies to bankruptcy,” the letter released Friday said.

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