President's team accuses the GOP presidential hopeful of putting corporate profits
above American workers when he headed private equity firm.
President Obama this weekend attacked Mitt Romney as a jobs killer, accusing the GOP presidential hopeful of putting corporate profits above American workers when he headed a highly successful private equity firm.
In a
web video released Saturday, Obama's team revisits Romney's track record at Bain Capital, saying he sacrificed middle class jobs to enrich investors and executives, including himself.
The video features testimony from a handful of workers from various companies around the country purportedly laid off after Bain bought them up and shut them down.
"One day we had a job and the next day we didn't," says one unidentified man.
"I understand if you've gotta cut back, [do] lay-offs – I mean that's part of the business," says another. "But you don't come in and just take everything that everybody's got and destroy a business. … That's what they did."
The message arrives four days before the first presidential debate in Denver, a highly anticipated event that's sure to feature plenty of discussion about jobs and the economy – issues where Obama is considered most vulnerable.
The video is designed to undermine Romney's argument – expected to be prominent in Denver – that his business experience makes him the better candidate to rescue an economy where unemployment has been above 8 percent for 43 straight months.
"When Mitt Romney mentions his private-sector experience, remember: It wasn't about creating jobs," the Obama video reads. "Before the debate, get the facts about Romney's business record."
It's hardly the first time Obama has gone after Romney over his tenure at Bain. In May, the president's campaign launched an aggressive campaign to portray Romney as a cold capitalist who killed or outsourced domestic jobs for personal gain.
At the time, a number of Democrats – including former President Bill Clinton – had voiced concerns with those attacks, warning that voters might view them as a broad condemnation of private equity firms rather than a focused rebuke of Romney's management style – an interpretation that could reinforce perceptions, encouraged by Republicans, that Obama is anti-free market.
But with Romney on the defensive over divisive comments he made about almost half of the country being "victims" who are "dependent on government," the Obama team senses a political winner.
