Vice President Biden worked to tie Mitt Romney to former President George W. Bush and the obsolete policies of a bygone era in a speech on Tuesday at a New Hampshire college.
“We will not do it their way again. We intend to move forward,” Biden said in Keene, N.H. “We intend to build a middle class. We mean it.”
Accusing Romney of championing a return to policies that “ran us into the ditch,” Biden pointed to GOP resistance to a bill renewing the Violence Against Women Act, opposition to a contraception-coverage mandate and what he called a “Republican-induced recession.”
“We will not go back to the '50s in social policy, to the Cold War in our foreign policy and to the policies of the last administration on our economic policy,” Biden said, almost shouting as he ripped into the presumptive GOP nominee.
Obama and his campaign team see an opportunity to tie Romney and the GOP to outdated approaches to governance, thanks in part to legislative maneuvers that have forced Republicans to choose between voting against popular legislation and embracing bills that contain elements they oppose. They also hope that some of the unpopularity of the Bush legacy will rub off on Romney, who has been endorsed by Obama’s predecessor and is getting a hand in fundraising from former Vice President Cheney.
But Biden and Obama face continued resistance to their attacks on Romney’s record as a businessman, with many Republicans and a few Democrats questioning the fairness of going after the private-equity industry for fulfilling its mission by making profits.
Biden pushed back on those misgivings Tuesday, arguing that Romney’s record at private-equity firm Bain Capital is fair game because Romney himself has made his business experience Exhibit A in his case for why he’s the best candidate to turn the economy around.
“Look, he raised it,” Biden said.
“Your job as president is to promote the common good. That doesn’t mean the private-equity guys are bad. They’re not,” Biden said. “But that no more qualifies you to be president than to be a plumber.”
Earlier Tuesday, Romney’s campaign dispatched former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R-N.H.), a top Romney surrogate, to throw cold water on Biden’s visit to the battleground state.
Sununu told reporters that examination of Bain’s record was fair game, but only if it is done honestly and examines the record in its entirety, rather than cherry-picking negative elements.
He added that matched up side-by-side with Obama’s economic record in his first term, Bain’s record would easily win out among voters looking for evidence of financial competence.
“I would hope that in the process he would explain to those students why 50 percent of those students aren’t going to find jobs when they graduate,” Sununu said. “It’s a disaster for them, and I hope the vice president takes a few moments to explain to them why Obama’s policies have, in essence, screwed them so badly.”
