It appears that President Obama is going to go after Mitt Romney during Tuesday night’s debate by criticizing his time running Bain Capital, among other attack vectors he will use. That’s the word from a campaign spokesperson who is with the president as he takes three days off the campaign trail to prepare for the debate.
As President Obama began to hunker down at a plush resort here for three full days of debate prep, his campaign team signaled the incumbent may steal a page from Vice President Joe Biden and show a more aggressive tone in Tuesday’s second face-to-face showdown with Republican Mitt Romney.
“Gov. Romney has been making pitches all of his life and he knows how to say what people want to hear whether that was during his time at Bain or during the dozens of town halls he did during the primary,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday. “His running mate also left him vulnerable on a number of issues — admitting there was a $5 trillion tax cut, after he denied it, but again failing to explain how they would pay for it, leaving women worried about their ability to make choices about their own health care and failing to articulate their plan for winding down our presence in Afghanistan.”
It’s significant that Psaki previewed the president’s next clash with Romney with an immediate mention of his time at Bain, a word Obama never mentioned during the first presidential debate, in Denver.
The president turned in an effort that left even some of his own advisers wondering about a lackluster performance, and preparations for the second debate are critical — with Democrats eager to see him stop the momentum Romney has gained in several key states.
Also noteworthy is that Psaki mentioned Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who faced intense pressure from Biden literally from the first minutes of their one and only vice presidential debate, this past Thursday.
Biden hit Ryan on everything from tax cuts to Iran policy with a ferocity that left Republicans complaining about interruptions and eye-rolling that GOP officials believe will ultimately backfire with undecided voters because of its negativity.
White House officials, however, are raving about Biden’s performance with so many superlatives that they are openly acknowledging that the vice president did a better job of explaining the president’s agenda than Obama himself.
Yes, Biden did a much better job of explaining the Obama agenda for a second term than the president himself — if that agenda includes mugging for the camera, giggling like a schoolgirl, and generally acting like the world’s number one jerk. Otherwise, what exactly did Biden have to say that was so compelling? “Malarkey” may be a profound comment on the election, but it hardly denotes an explanation of policy.
But the Obama campaign knows through experience that Romney’s weak spot with middle class voters is Bain. Romney has not done the best job defending his business career and he better come up with some zingers for Tuesday night if the president is going raise all the tired, dishonest issues he has put in ads over the last few months.
Perhaps a stirring defense of capitalism itself might be in order. Or a charge that Obama hates successful people and businesses. However he handles the attack, he is going to have to make his defense short, and memorable.
Another good debate performance by Romney will keep the Obama campaign on the defensive. That’s a good place for it to be three weeks before the election.
Settle down! Romney has done well and will continue to do well. He’s got this!
the bain lies are easy to neutralize.
most of the cases obamanuts cite are post-romney actions that were in fact done while a big obama bundler ran bain.
all mitt has to do is mention this and the fact that it’s a desperate political attack done because the president has no new ideas and because his old ideas have failed.
period.
Did Gov. Romney steal our tax dollars and give it to Bain Capital to invest? I think not.
Did Obama steal our tax dollars and give it to his millionaire buds, while pretending to ‘invest in green energy’ companies that were known to be on the verge of failure? I believe he did.
Say what you will -the fact is that never in human history have so many lived so well as we have in a capitalist system.
When an incumbent President launches personal attacks on his challenger in a nationwide debate, he loses the debate.
For the President to be attacking an American citizen personally (not via PACs, not via surrogates, not via attack ads, but face to face) live on TV looks totally “unpresidential.”
What it does suggest, is that Obama now realizes that he can’t run out the clock and coast to re-election.
Romney is winning this!
I’m solidly middle class and Romney’s business success is a major plus, not a negative!
Because that worked so well for Newt.
The counterattack is obvious:
“Bain under my administration got no taxpayer money, unlike Wall Street and Solyndra under yours.”
Three words for Mitt Romney – Fisker, Fisker, Fisker.
Oh my, the President is going to publicly excommunicate Mitt Romney. How *will* he survive the blow?
Here’s a fundamental difference–in Mitt Romney’s world, you get let go, with no hard feelings, because you can’t get the job done. In the President’s world, you only get let go, with recriminations, if you somehow make the public realize Barack Obama can’t get the job done.
Incidentally, the mayor of Atlanta thinks anyone upset about Biden’s decorum during the debate is not really upset, just manufacturing something for political gain.
When one considers how the Occupy movement was inudulgently treated in Atlanta (both at Woodruff Park, until they went to far, and at the follow-on AT&T protest), vice the outright rejection of Tea Party request for permits, one is not remiss in thinking the city of Atlanta proper really has no respect for you unless you are a Democrat. Which suggests that if you aren’t, it might best be a place to avoid.
Of course, considering the corruption that has been prevalent in Atlanta over the last two decades, esp. at the airport, the “flea-market” atmosphere of the Olympics created by Bill Campbell, the cheating on school tests, the inability to not shoot little old grannies in the middle of the night, and the desire to rename things just because a group now has the power to do it and wants to glorify its own group members when there is no real problem with the old name–well, not having the good opinion of the majority of the denizens of Atlanta (and their elected representatives) is probably a loss one can recover from.
Indulgently, not whatever I spelled it as. Apologies.
That’s why thinking people live in Cobb, Gwinnett, Cherokee, Hall, etc…and try to stay far away from Fulton & DeKalb. (We won’t mention Clayton…)
Go Mitt!
Bain actually created jobs, unlike Dear Liar.
The counter:
Mr. President, when are you going to stop trying to spreading this ridiculousness notion? That I somehow was paid huge sums of money to shut down factories and put people out of jobs? Seriously now. Where is the money in that?
Factories are places where people put in work and create wealth. How could anybody benefit from shutting down a wealth production center, unless it really isn’t producing any wealth? If it’s putting in all this work and uses all these raw materials and its costing more than it makes, then the job isn’t sustainable. The people in those jobs will be out of work when the company goes bankrupt. A lot of times this is a management problem. Sometimes its a part of a company that doesn’t have a proper business model.
So companies hire Bain Capital, or Bain capital buys majority stock, and we fix the company. We restructure the management and make it profitable. If the company is running a factory that just can’t be profitable, we sometimes close it down. That factory would have gone out of business in any case, and if left operating a loss, it might have bankrupted the company, destroying all of the jobs. We prune the withering parts that might destroy the company, and we make the rest of it profitable, so it can expand and hire more workers. Just ask Dominios or Staples how they’re doing, and how many more people they hire now than they did before.
Mr. President, you’re trying to press this silly notion that capitalists are evil, and that they can make money by being evil. Overwhelming we only do well if everyone else does well. Jobs are good. We can’t make money by destroying jobs. We make money by creating them. And as your campaign has been sharp to point out, Mr. President; Bain capital makes a lot of money.
It’ll cost him 1.5 minutes to say, and he’ll shut Obama up about Bain Capital, permanently.
And while that’s an excellent statement, all Romney would really have to say in a devastating sound bite is simply this:
“I refuse to apologize for being an American capitalist, Mr. Obama. What’s your excuse?”
“Yes, Biden did a much better job of explaining the Obama agenda for a second term than the president himself — if that agenda includes mugging for the camera, giggling like a schoolgirl, and generally acting like the world’s number one jerk”
Mr. Moran, you and I were listening to different debates if you thought that Biden outlined a second term agenda.
And what’s Obama going to say on Romney’s time at Bain Capital? That he lost more jobs than I did? Good luck with that line of attack and announcing it to the world only gives Romney time to develop a good counter strategy.
Even though the Bain Capital attacks didn’t work out for Newt, the Obama administration has total access to information since they are the government that they can exploit through spinning and soundbites that Newt did not.
So,the Obama administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars going after Romney on Bain, with no visible payoff to show for it, yet somehow going after him on Bain again is going to be different this time? Granted, for a very small number of voters this may be new, but considering just how much this attack has been used already I doubt it. Also granted, people may care more when one of the candidates actually makes the attack personally, but it could just as easily backfire and make Obama look petty.
Another problem is, this is a town-hall format, so most of the questions asked are going to rank high in the public consciousness. That leaves Obama with few opportunities to smoothly bring up anything at Bain. Most questions are likely to be about employment, deficits, terrorism, and probably Libya since thats finally being covered. Most of these are pretty big issues, so dismissing these questions to talk about Bain is rather risky.
So, yeah, seems like an iffy strategy. It’s high risk and probably low yield, seeing as Romney has had lots of time to come up with good answers for it. What Obama desperately needs is a good defense, and while thats probably impossible given his position that doesn’t mean he can make up for it in offense.
I can’t see this being a problem since Romney will have correct and factual information oh his time at Bain. Libs have screamed and shouted about the bankruptcies but they are afraid to talk about the successes. Given their total lack of comprehension about business, they simply don’t understand that some businesses are in such bad shape they cannot be saved unless money is constantly pumped into them and then ultimately they will fail regardless of what you do.
The money this administration pumped the economy ultimately went to corporations that are unionized or closely tied to this administration, in either case, a lot of the money most likely came back to the democratic party in the form of campaign contributions. When you give something away, someone has to loose something, in this case the unions won, the American taxpayer lost with no hope of ever recovering even half the money.
Don’t be surprised when Romney wipes the floor with him again. Mitt has a significant advantage both in smarts and facts. I would counter with a nutshell explanation of basic capitalism and how it works and how it worked with Bain, then contrast that with the false notion that government creates jobs, and that Obama “saved” GM with taxpayer dollars. He didn’t save anything except union perks. Meanwhile, the taxpayers, bondholders and non-union workers got screwed, and GM will be back in real bankruptcy before you know it because the proper bankruptcy process was prevented from taking place, and the structural problems still remain, in particular the legacy costs of unsustainable union benefits. It would be foolish indeed for Bain to be brought up. Would set up Romney perfectly to deliver a crushing blow to the socialist currently occupying the white house. I believe a clear explanation of the GM intervention could sap some voters from Obama in Ohio who think Obama saved the auto industry.
If I was the moderator, I’d be very sure the citizen’s question was answered, instead of it being used as a segueway into a non-seqitur attack, by asking the citizen if the response answered what she was looking for, or was irrelevant. I doubt Crowley will do that, though.
At least, not to Obama.
Oh, I forgot. Ms. Crowley and staff will make dang sure Obama gets the questions he needs. Dang sure. Based upon past media performance.
I feel stupid for even thinking the questions wouldn’t be screened.
Romney needs to do something along the llines of:
“Since the President seems acutely unaware of what venture capital does and how it operates, I’ll take a few moments to explain it to the audience…”, then give a concise overview.
Of course, for the average American, wrapped up in MTV and ESPN for 47 months of a “Presidential Season”, it might be futile.
Heck, even your average, “well educated” citizen thinks businesses exist to create jobs.
Romney just needs to step up and own the Bain issue. He can recount the private capital wins and losses and point out that he took care of his stockholders. Then he looks at the camera and says, “Who would you rather have taking care of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars: Somebody who knows how to make money or somebody who only knows how to spend it?”
BINGO! I hope there is at least a degree of fairness to this debate, so that Mitt has the necessary time to defend himself should these attacks come. I don’t they’ll be stated directly, but will be veiled. Hopefully most voters will be able to see through the insincere craftiness of the President.
When I heard that the Obama campaign had decided to go after Bain in the next debate I actually did kind of a happy dance. It’s the same old Obama who things all those people who make money are evil. Mitt, on the other hand, is more passionate about Bain – a company he started and built – and it’s accomplishments than any other topic.
Yeah, bring up Bain. That sounds like a winner.
Romney actually has experience in the real world, and has made money at it.
He could just ask Obama if he has ever been in charge of any profit making enterprise, such as an ice cream stand.
Only in the bizarre alternate dimension of the Democrats can you be “against choice” if you oppose their mandatory health care plan.
It seems to me that Mr. Romney should point out that Bain tried to make businesses profitable. If they became profitable, they sold them for a profit. If they failed, they sold them off for what they could get.
Failed businesses often have labor cost problems they either can’t (foreign products are cheaper) or won’t (labor union deals, former owner’s family …) deal with.
He should also point out that Mr. Obama did what he said should have been done witht hhe auto bailout. In the end it was a structured bankruptcy. Of course, Mr. Obama structured it to benefit the labor unions at the expense of the tax payers andd the non-union workers.