 [Daily Nation (Kenya)] Barack Obama's
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them ...
campaign has fired off a withering attack on Mitt Romney, branding the US president's likely election foe as a corporate raider who made money "hand over fist" by destroying jobs.
The Obama campaign's intervention Friday whipped up a new storm around Romney, who has been battered by criticism from his Republican rivals over his 15-year role at equity firm Bain Capital and his claims to have created 100,000 jobs.
| There's a good idea: let's compare who's created jobs and who hasn't. You sure you want to have that argument, Mr. Axelrod? |
The Chicago-based team's decision to enter the fray added to the impression that an important moment of the 2012 campaign could be at hand, with Romney battling to shore up the central rationale of his presidential run.
Obama strategist Stephanie Cutter took aim in a memo at Romney's claim that his business expertise gives him the corporate savvy and turnaround skills needed to reboot the struggling US economy. She accused Romney of taking advantage of an "uneven playing field" by using the cash of rich investors to take over failing firms, strip them down and fire workers during his time at the private equity firm.
"Our economic crisis and endemic income inequality were caused in large part by a few who put profits over people," Cutter wrote. "Mitt Romney and his friends made money hand over fist while working families lost their grip on the middle-class lifestyle they earned.
"Between now and November the American people will decide whether to respond to this crisis by electing a corporate raider who profited from -- and promises to restore -- the conditions that caused it."
| As opposed to throwing taxpayer dollars into Democratic-connected green companies that went bankrupt... |
Cutter accused Romney of closing more than 1,000 industrial plants, stores and offices, cutting employee wages and benefits and pensions and outsourcing American jobs to other countries while making hundreds of millions of dollars.
The controversy was further fuelled by a report by the McClatchy newspaper chain that Bain Capital more than doubled its money on its acquisition of GS Industries Inc., the former parent company of Georgetown Steel, in the 1990s, even as the steel manufacturer went on to cut more than 1,750 jobs.
| How many at Solyndra lost jobs? |
Restore fairness
| When they say they're going to "restore fairness" you should keep your hand on your wallet. |
Obama would restore fairness for consumers and help the middle classes regain economic security and support the business sector, Cutter argued, and rejected Romney's claims that Obama was waging war on capitalism.
| Waging war? More like just blowing it up... |
"That's what's on trial, not free enterprise. Free enterprise isn't running for president, Mitt Romney is."
| Free enterprise sure isn't in the White House now... |
Romney sought to mitigate political damage from the Bain affair, which is complicating his campaign to win next week's South Carolina primary after triumphs in Iowa and New Hampshire nominating contests.
| Complicating? Nice editorial... |
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