Obama super PAC will target Romney in New Hampshire
(CNN)– Mitt Romney's return to New Hampshire isn't going unnoticed by the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama, which will air a television spot in the state slamming the Republican presidential candidate for his tenure as a venture capitalist.
Priorities USA Action will air the spot Friday as Romney returns to New Hampshire to kick off his six-state, five-day bus tour. Romney's first stop will be at the farm in Stratham where he officially declared his presidential bid last June.
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The Priorities USA Action spot highlights the New Hampshire-based company Holson Burnes, which was acquired by Romney's firm Bain Capital and later shut down.
"When Mitt Romney visits New Hampshire, remember his record," text in the ad declares.
News reports then flash on-screen about the shuttering of the Holson Burnes plant in Claremont, New Hampshire, in 1992.
"If Mitt Romney win$, the middle class loses," the ad concludes.
In a statement, Priorities USA Action senior strategist Bill Burton wrote Romney's record left New Hampshire workers struggling.
"In business, Mitt Romney profited from bankruptcies and layoffs while families in New Hampshire and across the country lost everything," Burton wrote. "Romney made millions even when he drove companies into the ground, workers lost their jobs, and promised retirement benefits were eliminated."
Democrats began targeting Romney's record at Bain beginning in May, after the former Massachusetts governor became the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Obama's campaign, along with his aligned super PAC, sought to portray Romney as a corporate raider interested only in securing profits for himself and his company.
Romney's campaign say the attacks ignore Bain's successes, including creating jobs at well-known companies like Sports Authority and Staples. They also say the attacks reflect an anti-business attitude from the White House.
In a statement Thursday, a Romney campaign spokeswoman said the Priorities USA Action ad was intended to distract from a failed economic message.
"President Obama's allies are using false attacks to distract voters from the President's out of touch comments that the private sector is 'doing fine,'" Amanda Henneberg wrote. "Middle-class Americans aren't doing fine and President Obama's policies have not helped. 23 million Americans are struggling for work, incomes have fallen, and gas prices have doubled. On day one, Mitt Romney will put in place policies that will get the economy moving, bring back jobs, and help the middle class."
Some of Obama's higher-profile surrogates also appeared skeptical of the Bain attacks, including Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker and former president Bill Clinton. Both pointed to the successes in Romney's record, saying he was a good businessman.
On Thursday, Bain Capital issued a statement responding to the Priorities USA ad, saying the suggestions about the firm's involvement with Holson Burnes were "simply false."
"The Claremont, NH plant was closed in 2005, 10 years after Bain Capital sold its ownership stake in the company. During its ownership Bain Capital grew Holson Burnes dramatically, investing millions of dollars and a great deal of time to improve Holson Burnes' competitiveness and building the Claremont, NH plant into the world's largest manufacturing facility for photo albums," the statement read.
It continued, "Bain Capital is focused on growing great companies and improving their operations. Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital over 13 years ago. We are not a political organization, and take no public position on any candidate. We are extremely proud of our employees and management teams, who have grown revenues in over 80 percent of our 350 companies, which include over 100 start-up investments."
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Bottom line, the state stays blue in November. Next.
Ads against Romney in NH???? Now THAT is a total waste of money! The smell of Obama desperation is in the air for sure.
Rudy NYC
Four and The Door wrote:
....There's a very good reason Obama has chosen to attack Mitt Romney on such an odd, easily debunked argument....
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If it is so easily debunked, how come Mitt Romney has yet to debunk any of it...
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Did you skip the last paragraph of this article?
Some of Obama's higher-profile surrogates also appeared skeptical of the Bain attacks, including Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker and former president Bill Clinton. Both pointed to the successes in Romney's record, saying he was a good businessman.
@BEND – You need to explain why you think expenditures to win New Hampshire are a wast of money. Do you realize how ridiculous your comments appear? As much as I appreciate you repeatedly making Conservatives and conservative positions look dumb, I am frequently dumbfounded by your posts. Are you 13? That might explain it.
Is not Mitt Romney the literal version of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko ? With statements of " I like to fire people" or his biggest hit " We are not worried about the Poor !" While his family has a choice of which car to drive, millions of Americans are deciding to whether to buy food or medciine. It not about class war fare, it is about 13yrs of tax cuts for the "job creaters" and unemployment at 9% ! That dog will not hunt ! How about both parties putting America First !
Four and The Door asked:
Did you skip the last paragraph of this article?
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Nope. You answered the question of proof just like a Romney would. No one is attacking Romney's business credentials. Romney's character is being attacked because he openly lied about jobs creation, and he knows everyone knows it.
Like I said, if the charges of job destruction are so easily debunked, how come Romney cannot debunk them. BTW, some Democrats want to keep many of their campaign donors happy. Both Booker and Clinton in the pockets of many Wall Street firms and people.
Are they using the same actors that they use in the Bain Capital Ads, or are they hiring new ones? either way it will be more distortion and lies. Thankgod for factcheck.org. only way to find the truth on both sides.
Reality is that the right has fine tuned their messaging skills to a point that facts do not matter. They point at the broken window and blame the damned liberal who left a brick which he the republican wing nut, then picked up and threw through the window.
They have developed a strategy of vulnerability nullification and it seems to work. That it works may be due to the demographic profile of their base. Basically what they do is accuse the left or middle of anything the right is guilty of doing or trying to do. They scream so loud, irregardless of the veracity, or more likely, the falsehood of their premise and facts, they scream so oud and so in concert and so persistently that eventually the message imprints with an ever widening spectrum of consumers of messaging. So in effect, the factual and literal lie becomes a widely accepted truth and a justification for smearing and deriding the other side.
Mikey - @BEND – You need to explain why you think expenditures to win New Hampshire are a wast of money.
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Obama has as much chance of winning NH as Romney does of winning NY. Granted MANY Massachusetts Democrats have moved there over the years and polluted the place but it is still a pretty conservative place. And I don't think Obama's snake oil pitch is selling too well across the country. The facts and economic conditions are showing Obama will be residing in Chicago come January 2013. This is wonderful news for the future of the country.
Another Opinion
Is not Mitt Romney the literal version of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko ? With statements of " I like to fire people" ..._____________________________________________________________________________________________
No. Is this the best you can do to take comments out of context to make your point?
"I like to fire people" was in the context of systems being in place to allow choice so that people are given incentive to do their job well. This is when people perform their best because they need to. For instance, do you think you would get your best haircut having to go to the only barber in 1,000 miles? You don't have a choice of 'firing' him. But if you have 2 barbers or maybe 2000 don't you agree that they would all perform better to keep their customers?
Deadbeat,do nothing, obama is a real loser and the past two years have proven that.Any idiot that would help loser obama get reinstalled have no clue how loser obama and his corrupt administration are destroying bthis country.
@BEND – The RCP average has the President ahead in NH by 6.4%. If you take out PPP (Democratic polling agency), he is still ahead by 3.5%. That does not mean that Obama will win, but it certainly means that he has at least a 50-50 chance of winning. I just can't shake the impression that a lot of Conservatives (and your comments make you a prime example) are simply living in an alternate universe.
Rudy NYC
Nope. You answered the question of proof just like a Romney would. No one is attacking Romney's business credentials. Romney's character is being attacked because he openly lied about jobs creation, and he knows everyone knows it.
Like I said, if the charges of job destruction are so easily debunked, how come Romney cannot debunk them. BTW, some Democrats want to keep many of their campaign donors happy. Both Booker and Clinton in the pockets of many Wall Street firms and people.
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Oh honestly... how inane. Do you honestly think playing dumb word games is going to win the election for Obama??? NOBODY is in business simply to create jobs. It is why jobs haven't simply appeared out of thin air even though companies are making money. People are hired WHEN IT MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE TO HIRE THEM and the money is there to hire them. Labor is the biggest expense of a business and if not managed properly will take a business down. (Just ask GM or the Post Office)
Romney helped businesses that were in already going out of business survive and by doing so preserved jobs and as those businesses started to thrive and grow, more and more jobs resulted. Were all businesses able to be helped and survive? No, just as in anything in life, success is not guaranteed. But was Romney successful, undeniably YES. Were jobs SAVED OR CREATED as a result of his successes, undeniably YES.
For Democrats to argue otherwise only proves to the American people just how clueless and out of touch they truly are. You are actually HELPING Romney with this line of attack and the polls are showing this. Good job!
@Four – ""I like to fire people" was in the context of systems being in place ....
While I agree with your argument as to what his comment intended (and I could make a similar argument regarding the President's "private sector" remark), it is his choice of words "I like to fire people" that is a little unsettling. Just like "I am unemployed, too" comment, which at $200 million of net worth was very insensitive considering the number of struggling individuals and families in America. Take that with a host of other comments "I like 'sport'" and his inability to identify a donut and you have someone who clearly has had little exposure to average Americans over the past three or four decades. In short, Romney is truly "out of touch".
Obama Super PAC!? Is that a misprint!??
Must be because Obama promised me he would be different and use only public funds.., right??
Anyone who says, "I LIKE to fire people," has questionable people skills. Anyone who likes to fire people, especially in this economy, is not a compassionate person and is not a balanced enough person to hold a position of much power. Sometimes a person does need to be fired, but generally employers don't find that to be an enjoyable task.
...BEND... wrote:
...Oh honestly... how inane. Do you honestly think playing dumb word games is going to win the election for Obama??? NOBODY is in business simply to create jobs...
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Where are "the 100,000 jobs that created while at Bain" upon which Romney has built his entire campaign? You have responded with the same non-answer that Romney and his surrogates have given. All we ask is just show us a some of the jobs he created "at Bain" and people would be quiet. Seems easy enough to do, provided the claim were true.
HI FOUR AND THE DOOR YOU ARE A LAUGH A MINUTE.
Nope half your 2000 hairdressers would go bankrupt; not enough customers. A flourishing US economy occurs when the middle class are spending because 70 % of GDP comes from consumer spending activity. That means businesses are more profitable and ooops god forbid per Grover Norquist they pay more taxes on profits and states collect more sales taxes to pay teachers fire fighters and police.
Like it or not Obama Policies have created Jobs ( not enough as he says repeatedly) but Romney wants attrition in public sector Jobs = higher unemployment lower consumer demand etc plus huge austerity measures and unpaid for Tax cuts and increased unpaid for defense spending.
Give me real facts man not your ideological spin and waffle.
By the way the Dow is up 50 % since Obama was elected so I think the private sector "RELATIVELY SPEAKING" IS DOING FINE c/f public sector and Middle class generally. If you are so keen on context you have to be so both ways or you just become a bigoted ideologue.
Regards,
Hodgson.
I am beginning to believe that Bain Capital grew more jobs "at Bain" than they did with the companies they "helped."