Romney's "Summer of Bain" = Swift Boat 2.0 ?

[Tender Branson]

Is Obama 'Swift Boating' Romney's Record?



US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at a town hall meeting at Central High School in Grand Junction, Colorado on Tuesday. Romney said he has "nothing hidden" in his taxes, rebuffing accusations by President Barack Obama's campaign that he is being secretive with his wealth in offshore accounts and businesses. In an interview with Radio Iowa that aired Tuesday, the Republican presumptive nominee said his finances were legitimate and managed by a blind trust. (AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm)

...

Washington. Mitt Romney and his advisers built a reputation during the Republican primaries as tough street fighters skilled in political warfare. They quietly took pride in tearing apart Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and the rest of their rivals.

The aggressive posture ultimately became one of Romney’s selling points, particularly among conservative voters who were searching for a candidate tenacious enough to defeat President Barack Obama in the general election.

But now, even with polls suggesting he is battling Obama to a draw at this stage of the race, Romney finds himself confronting concern that he is not nimble and aggressive enough to withstand the Democratic assault against him.

The president and his re-election campaign have managed to turn the focus of the race in recent days to taxes, outsourcing and Romney’s bank accounts — almost everything except the weak job-creation figures released last week. That has stirred worries among some Republicans that Romney is allowing himself to be defined by the Obama forces and lacks the kind of powerful counterpunch the party base is craving.

Now deep into his second run for the White House, Romney has shown consistent discipline, sticking doggedly to his strategy of making the election about Obama’s stewardship of the economy and for the most part avoiding the traps set for him by rivals.

‘’If you’re responding, you’re losing,” Romney told Fox News on Wednesday, his voice betraying no concern.

But the latest Democratic offensive has become so intense that the Romney campaign will start a new wave of television commercials Thursday, aides said. In a rapid-fire era of presidential politics, when candidates have the ability to respond at a moment’s notice, the restraint of Romney’s campaign over the past two weeks has opened a round of second-guessing about his insistent focus on the economy.

Conservatives have lit up talk radio programs across the country, worrying whether Romney’s business record has been “Swift Boated,” referring to attacks waged against Sen. John Kerry’s military record in 2004. The Romney campaign headquarters in Boston has been inundated with advice and criticism from donors and supporters who worry that Romney has lost an opportunity to introduce himself on his own terms.

‘’Team Obama is doing just what we did in 2004, which is to define the opposition furiously and early,” said Mark McKinnon, a strategist who worked on George W. Bush’s re-election campaign. “Most voters don’t have a deep sense of Romney other than he’s not Obama. And in this cycle, that may be enough, but it’s a very risky approach.”

Four months until Election Day, much of the Republican Party’s base is boiling. The latest example came Wednesday, when the House held a symbolic vote to repeal the national health care law upheld last month by the Supreme Court. But Romney was in Houston speaking to the NAACP convention, a sign that he is trying to adhere to his own strategy of working to broaden his appeal to independent and undecided voters.

As his business record and tenure as Massachusetts governor were being relentlessly assailed in television commercials across a range of battleground states, Romney released a Spanish language ad Wednesday that featured his son Craig. He delivered a testimonial about his father, whom he called “a man of great convictions.”

Romney’s advisers acknowledge that the questions about his record and wealth have contributed to a climb in his unfavorable rating among voters. But the campaign does not believe that the overall position of the race has changed, with voters still seeking an alternative to Obama.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/international/is-obama-swift-boating-romneys-record/529952

[sg0508]

I don't think it's apples to apples because he's trying to portray a middle class friendly image and his record and history at Bain Capital and after Bain may completely destroy that.  This is the MAJOR issue of his campaign that he's trying to get across and this story could actually destroy him if it holds water. 

The thing is, this issue came up in the 94 Senate Campaign and 2002 Gov. matchup

[Bacon King]

This is an effective line of attack because even if Romney manages to rebuff all the details, it still reminds the average voter that Romney is a billionaire elitist they have nothing in common with.

[Sasquatch]

Death by a thousand cuts.

[WhyteRain]

Well, except

1.  The Swift Boat Veterans had actually been in Vietnam with Kerry while none of these people had actually been at Bain Capital with Romney.

and

2.  As I've been saying, with all the other issues confronting the nation, no one's going to give a damn what Romney did or didn't do 15 years ago at Bain (or 50 years ago in high school).

Anyway, I think if I were advising Romney, I'd say, with even the MSM factcheckers forced to acknowledge the lies of the Obama campaign, that he's milked this enough for now.  Save some of it for later when you need a "there you go again" moment.

[President von Cat]

Romney and his team's reputation as a group of political street fighters is entirely undeserved. Romney won the primary for one reason: dollars. He was simply able to drown out all of his rivals with a stream of negative advertising in pivotal states. If Romney had the same amount of funding as Gingrich and Santorum, its questionable if he would have been able to pull it off.

The fact that he had to spend millions to clear out the weakest field of candidates in the past generation to get the nomination is a testament to his weakness as a candidate.

And now, as it turns out, we're seeing Romney die on his sword, because he can only marginally outspend the Obama campaign and finds himself getting drowned by negative ads in pivotal states.

[Bull Moose Base]

That's right.  If Obama isn't scared of Romney's political talent, he's overlooking the fact that this is the guy who put away Roemer and others in the primary.

[Indy Texas]

Yes, Obama's attacks on Romney's record at Bain are unfair. No, the fact that a company Bain Capital invested in outsourced jobs isn't especially important.

But none of this would hold water as much if Mitt Romney weren't basing his entire campaign for president on the idea that he "knows how to create jobs" - something which sounds even weirder when GOP doctrine suggests government can't create jobs.

It's worth remembering that the bulk of Mitt Romney's career was spent not as a private equity partner, but as a management consultant. It's being overly generous to place management consulting in the rough-and-tumble part of the business world. Management consultants are people who are paid a fee to give advice to companies; in that sense, it's really more like being a doctor or a lawyer than being an entrepreneur or a manager.

Romney's private equity record likewise says nothing about his ability to create jobs. It says much about his ability to generate profits. But anyone with a decent understanding of management knows that one of the quickest ways to increase a firm's profits is to eliminate jobs. No one starts a business to create jobs; they start a business to generate a return on their investment. Any jobs created are incidental. There shouldn't be anything wrong with this; I don't think "You make too much money" is a very salient insult. Liberals don't understand that. But conservatives need to dispense with the starry-eyed vision of people who sit in offices and say "Let's see how many jobs I can create today."

Mitt Romney was a good management consultant and a good private equity investor. But he hasn't done a good job of explaining how any of that entails he will be a good president. If anything, his management consulting experience would seem like a more logical jumping off point - many of the organizational problems companies experience have analogues in government agencies. Someone who knows how to make a major corporation run more efficiently could probably do the same for a Cabinet-level agency. But there will probably be layoffs involved.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I'd say that yes, Obama's campaign is currently in the midst of a 'swift boat' attack on Romeny based around his time at Bain Capital. The Swift Boat attacks on Kerry and the Bain attacks on Romeny have a number of things in common. Both take what was perceived to be one of the candidate's strengths and turn into a liability through constant bombardment. Both were a 'Death of 1000 Cuts', hitting on the same subject again and again from slightly different angles. Both featured a candidate who was apparently unwilling or unable to respond to the attacks promptly, clearly, and effectively.

The final impact, that worked on Kerry and appears to be close to working on Romney, is that they successfully defined the candidate in the public's mind, before he could present his own narrative. If Romney doesn't present a positive and straightforward position that sums up his time at Bain soon (probably before the Olympics get rolling) he's going to spend the rest of his quest for the Presidency being 'that rich capitalist @$$hole' which, in my opinion, not be good for his chances.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Much like Swift Boat exposed the key weakness of the Kerry Campaign, this has the capacity to do the same to Romney if they aren't careful.

The key problem for Kerry was that he didn't respond quickly enough the allegations, clearly he hoped it would all go away. Like many Rovian tactics, this relied on a lot of luck and the ineptness of the Kerry people on this certainly provided that.

I do have a problem with this line of questioning being referred to as Swift boating, the SB movement was a creation of the Rove machine and paid for by Bush supporters. These questions about Romney are reasonable, because their catalyst lies within easily available documents. I think most would accept his name remaining on documents in 2000, but why does he still appear with multiple roles 3 years after he himself said had retired. Like the Kerry campaign, the response from Camp Romney has been appalling, no one is denying the docs are genuine, but they're not answering the key question of whyhe appears for those 3 additional years. They needed to be faster and smarter on this than they have been.

Swift-boats didn't kill Kerry's campaign, but it added to the narrative the Bush people were trying to create, so while most realised it was garbage, it allowed enough doubt to creep in to assist in the creation of this picture. Romney is in a similar situation, Obama has been trying to establish the narrative that he's without firm convictions, except wanting to help out his rich friends, exported jobs OS and that he's hiding something about his financial dealings... The difference between this as the Kerry scenario is that the scandal existed in a place that a high school newspaper reporter could have found it and come to the same conclusion as the Globe.

[WhyteRain]

Much like Swift Boat exposed the key weakness of the Kerry Campaign, this has the capacity to do the same to Romney if they aren't careful.

The key problem for Kerry was that he didn't respond quickly enough the allegations, clearly he hoped it would all go away. Like many Rovian tactics, this relied on a lot of luck and the ineptness of the Kerry people on this certainly provided that.

I do have a problem with this line of questioning being referred to as Swift boating, the SB movement was a creation of the Rove machine and paid for by Bush supporters.  

I truncated your comment because I just want to deal with these parts.

1.  I recall John Kerry strolling to the podium to accept his nomination in 2004 and the first thing he did was give a military salute and say something like "John Kerry reporting for duty!", and as a military veteran myself, I sat agog thinking "Oh no he didn't, oh no he didn't just do that!"

You see, no military veteran forgets that in 1971 John Kerry went on national TV and, under oath, swore that his fellow veterans were war criminals!  (And he threw his (or, he later claimed, someone else's) medals away, also on national TV.)  Thus, in our eyes, he gave himself a permanent, political discharge from the U.S. military.  And we could live with that:  If you don't have pride in the team, you should get off it.  Fine.  Then here comes 2004:  Kerry saw that, unlike 1971, now soldiers -- even Vietnam vets -- are popular; and that unlike Kerry, Bush and Cheney did not serve in Vietnam.  So Kerry decides it's to his political advantage to re-enlist!!

"Oh no you don't!"  I wasn't a bit surprised when men who'd serve with Kerry -- the men he called war criminals in 1971 -- decided to speak up.

Of course, a lot of these guys were former officers -- that means they're college graduates, pretty smart.  So they don't just "speak up", they get organized.  They organized as one of those 501(c) groups that are allowed to be political but aren't part of any candidate's campaign.  This allowed Bush, whenever he was asked to condemn them, to say that (1) he "honored Sen. Kerry's service" and then (2) he would condemn "all the 501(c) groups".  In other words, Bush remained above the fray.

2.  Kerry's mistake:  Because it was not the Bush campaign doing the hits, but an independent group of veterans, Kerry erred by responding directly and personally.  He should have let his surrogates do it (and he did to some extent, but he also waded deep into it himself).  

3.  That's one of the key difference between the Swift Boaters and the Bainers:  Bush did not put his own personal credibility on the line to back the Swift Boaters.  Bush didn't say, "Kerry absolutely needs to answer these questions" or anything remotely like that.  Bush kept his distance and even condemned the Swift Boaters (along with all the other 501(c) orgs).  In the case of the Bainers, on the other hand, Obama has put his personal credibility on the line.  (That's also why it's fine for Romney to respond personally even where it was not fine for Kerry to -- because it's not an independent group making the charges but the president's campaign and the president himself who're making the charges.)

4.  In the case of the Swift Boaters, Kerry's credibility was at stake, but Bush's was not.  In the case of the Bainers, Romney's credibility is at stake, but so is Obama's.  If, as now appears likely, even the media is portraying Obama's attacks as false, it will be a blow to his credibility as much as -- if the Bainer claims prove true -- it would be a blow to Romney.

[AmericanNation]

1.  I recall John Kerry strolling to the podium to accept his nomination in 2004 and the first thing he did was give a military salute and say something like "John Kerry reporting for duty!", and as a military veteran myself, I sat agog thinking "Oh no he didn't, oh no he didn't just do that!"

You see, no military veteran forgets that in 1971 John Kerry went on national TV and, under oath, swore that his fellow veterans were war criminals!  (And he threw his (or, he later claimed, someone else's) medals away, also on national TV.)  Thus, in our eyes, he gave himself a permanent, political discharge from the U.S. military.  And we could live with that:  If you don't have pride in the team, you should get off it.  Fine.  Then here comes 2004:  Kerry saw that, unlike 1971, now soldiers -- even Vietnam vets -- are popular; and that unlike Kerry, Bush and Cheney did not serve in Vietnam.  So Kerry decides it's to his political advantage to re-enlist!!

"Oh no you don't!"  I wasn't a bit surprised when men who'd serve with Kerry -- the men he called war criminals in 1971 -- decided to speak up.

Of course, a lot of these guys were former officers -- that means they're college graduates, pretty smart.  So they don't just "speak up", they get organized.  They organized as one of those 501(c) groups that are allowed to be political but aren't part of any candidate's campaign.  This allowed Bush, whenever he was asked to condemn them, to say that (1) he "honored Sen. Kerry's service" and then (2) he would condemn "all the 501(c) groups".  In other words, Bush remained above the fray.

2.  Kerry's mistake:  Because it was not the Bush campaign doing the hits, but an independent group of veterans, Kerry erred by responding directly and personally.  He should have let his surrogates do it (and he did to some extent, but he also waded deep into it himself).  

3.  That's one of the key difference between the Swift Boaters and the Bainers:  Bush did not put his own personal credibility on the line to back the Swift Boaters.  Bush didn't say, "Kerry absolutely needs to answer these questions" or anything remotely like that.  Bush kept his distance and even condemned the Swift Boaters (along with all the other 501(c) orgs).  In the case of the Bainers, on the other hand, Obama has put his personal credibility on the line.  (That's also why it's fine for Romney to respond personally even where it was not fine for Kerry to -- because it's not an independent group making the charges but the president's campaign and the president himself who're making the charges.)

4.  In the case of the Swift Boaters, Kerry's credibility was at stake, but Bush's was not.  In the case of the Bainers, Romney's credibility is at stake, but so is Obama's.  If, as now appears likely, even the media is portraying Obama's attacks as false, it will be a blow to his credibility as much as -- if the Bainer claims prove true -- it would be a blow to Romney.

Correct.  The Bain-ers are almost nothing like the swift vote veterans for truth.  The Bain-ers are more like the birthers and Obama is planting the seeds of his own destruction by making himself the leader of this witch hunt.  Now for the next 4 months, Obama can be correctly portrayed as a lying, un-serious, and small person which shows he isn't much of a leader.  Accusing   

Isn't THIS "Recovery Summer"? I heard about it last year and the year before that.  Or is it "Recovery Summer 3.0" ? LOL.     

[krazen1211]

Just wait till the next jobs report comes out and people see that obama is crying about a decade old bain capital document or two.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

One would think you'd be right, krazen. But I'm starting to the think the unemployment rate could jump to 9% and Obama's numbers still wouldn't budge. When have the job numbers ever made a difference so far this year?

[WhyteRain]

The Bain-ers are almost nothing like the swift vote veterans for truth.  The Bain-ers are more like the birthers and Obama is planting the seeds of his own destruction by making himself the leader of this witch hunt.  Now for the next 4 months, Obama can be correctly portrayed as a lying, un-serious, and small person which shows he isn't much of a leader.

The Birthers also started out in the Democratic Party and they never gained the currency among conservatives that, say, the "9/11 Truthers" did among Democrats.

Anyway, "Bainers" is good, but "Bain Truthers" I think is more descriptive.

[/quote]
Isn't THIS "Recovery Summer"? I heard about it last year and the year before that.  Or is it "Recovery Summer 3.0" ? LOL.     
[/quote]

Yes, it's Summer of Recovery III. 

When Biden made his famous prediction in 2010, it should have come true.  In every other deep recession  (1958-59, 1969-70, 1973-75, 1980-82), by the time of the Summer of 2010 in terms of distance from the depth of the recession, the economy was roaring along at 5-7% growth.  Instead, this one is around 2%.  Even the very mild recessions of 1990-91 and 2001 had stronger recoveries!

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

No...  don't think it's anything like the Swift Boat stuff from 2004.  Will it hurt Romney like the Swift Boaters hurt Kerry?  Sure, but that's about the extent of the similarities.  Negative attacks on someones record have been going on a long time before the 2004 race...

[All Along The Watchtower]

Well for one, the Swift Boat accusations were not based in truth.

[Likely Voter]

One way they are the same is that the attacks go after the candidate's strength. Obama and his team are turning Romney's Bain record into a bad thing in the way that Kerry's war hero record was turned into a bad thing.

This is straight out of the Karl Rove playbook, which makes his decrying of it all the more hilarious. Of course he is smart enough to see the irony himself I am sure.

[Simfan34]

This is an effective line of attack because even if Romney manages to rebuff all the details, it still reminds the average voter that Romney is a billionaire elitist they have nothing in common with.

Romney is only worth $250 million.

[Ebowed]

Now I'm reading an article suggesting that the production of the 2002 Olympic uniforms was 'outsourced' to Burma, then under the control of a brutal military regime.  This after politicians from both parties are lodging complaints about the outsourcing of the production of 2012 uniforms to China.

It certainly builds into the narrative that Mitt Romney, running on his record of job creation, seemed not to enjoy creating jobs in the USA.

[AmericanNation]

Now I'm reading an article suggesting that the production of the 2002 Olympic uniforms was 'outsourced' to Burma, then under the control of a brutal military regime.  This after politicians from both parties are lodging complaints about the outsourcing of the production of 2012 uniforms to China.

It certainly builds into the narrative that Mitt Romney, running on his record of job creation, seemed not to enjoy creating jobs in the USA.

OMG, who cares?


Mitt Romney(as a private citizen)=created thousands of private sector jobs in the USA (Net). 
Mitt Romney(as MA Governor)     =oversaw the creation of thousands of jobs (Net) AND full employment

Barrack Obama(as a private citizen) = created zero jobs (net)
Barrack Obama(as president of USA) = created zero jobs (net)

hmmm...

[Kalimantan]

I'd say that yes, Obama's campaign is currently in the midst of a 'swift boat' attack on Romeny based around his time at Bain Capital. The Swift Boat attacks on Kerry and the Bain attacks on Romeny have a number of things in common. Both take what was perceived to be one of the candidate's strengths and turn into a liability through constant bombardment. Both were a 'Death of 1000 Cuts', hitting on the same subject again and again from slightly different angles. Both featured a candidate who was apparently unwilling or unable to respond to the attacks promptly, clearly, and effectively.

The final impact, that worked on Kerry and appears to be close to working on Romney, is that they successfully defined the candidate in the public's mind, before he could present his own narrative. If Romney doesn't present a positive and straightforward position that sums up his time at Bain soon (probably before the Olympics get rolling) he's going to spend the rest of his quest for the Presidency being 'that rich capitalist @$$hole' which, in my opinion, not be good for his chances.

Good post

[Brittain33]

Barrack Obama(as president of USA) = created zero jobs (net)

B.S.

There's no rationale at all for starting the clock in January or even April 2009 and somehow claiming Obama destroyed the approximately 2 million jobs that vanished in that time period before any of his policies could take effect. At that point, we were enjoying the long boom created by Bush's slashing tax rates.

[ajb]

Obama has created about as many private-sector jobs as were created in the same amount of time in George W. Bush's first term in office -- not a great record, in other words, but definitely positive private-sector job creation. The thing is, the size of government ballooned during the early Bush years, while it's shrunk under Obama, so while Bush also had a lot of public-sector jobs to add to his numbers, public-sector job losses under Obama cancel out private-sector gains.
In other words, conservatives should like Obama, since he's created what are, from their point of view, "real" jobs, and destroyed lots of "fake" jobs.

[AmericanNation]

Obama has created about as many private-sector jobs as were created in the same amount of time in George W. Bush's first term in office -- not a great record, in other words, but definitely positive private-sector job creation. The thing is, the size of government ballooned during the early Bush years, while it's shrunk under Obama, so while Bush also had a lot of public-sector jobs to add to his numbers, public-sector job losses under Obama cancel out private-sector gains.
In other words, conservatives should like Obama, since he's created what are, from their point of view, "real" jobs, and destroyed lots of "fake" jobs.

except "stimulus" was largely diverted into propping up government "jobs" and spending, so to call him "like(-able)" to conservatives is a complete joke.  You think your statement makes a point or sounds good, but it doesn't.   

Bush inherited a recession and a terrorist attack.  Credit markets and hiring froze up in 2001.  He worked toward fixing the problems.  He didn't make them worse like BO.  The private sector isn't "doing fine" and government isn't "shrinking."  I mean what are you talking about ?? census workers? They should be let go BECAUSE THE CENSUS IS OVER!