The Mitt Romney campaign today launched “GST Steel Facts,” a Tumblr blog that details Bain Capital’s relationship with GST Steel. The company, which went bankrupt in 2001, features in an ad that the Obama campaign released earlier today. The Obama ad calls Romney a “vampire” and suggests that he is responsible for the workers at GST Steel losing their jobs.
The Obama ad has fallen apart on the facts, chiefly because Romney had left Bain Capital two years before GST’s collapse, to save the Salt Lake City Olympics. The Obama ad therefore accuses Romney of misdeeds, when there were no misdeeds, GST failed despite Bain’s intervention to save it, and Romney was tasked with saving a more high profile national effort — and in which Romney succeeded.
Even Obama’s former car czar, Steve Rattner, has blasted the Obama ad as unfair.
Rattner, nicknamed the “car czar” for his work on the auto bailout, has worked in the private equity industry himself. He told “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, “I think the ad is unfair.”
Romney should never have said anything about creating jobs while he was at Bain, Rattner added. “Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to make profits for its investors, most of whom were pension funds, endowments, and foundations” he said.
“It did it superbly well, acting within the rules, acting very responsibly, and was a leading firm. To pick out an example of somebody who lost their job, unfortunately, this is part of capitalism, this is part of life. I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.”
The Romney campaign’s “GST Steel Facts” site includes Romney’s response to the Obama ad, tweets and links to stories about the facts, and this ad that details a Bain Capital steel success story, titled “American Dream.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2w7iXazNso
The Tumblr site’s quick production and rollout shows that the Romney campaign has no intention of allowing attacks by the Obama campaign to go unanswered.
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