As Obama Attacks, Romney Defends His Record at Bain
Responding to attacks by the Obama campaign about his work at the helm of Bain Capital, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney defended his record in an interview today, saying he “was no longer” at the company when it closed a steel factory.
“That’s hardly something that was done on my watch,” Romney said on Wednesday in an interview with the conservative website Hot Air. “They said, ‘Oh, gosh, Gov. Romney at Bain Capital closed down a steel factory.’ But the problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there.”
The Obama campaign launched an aggressive attack earlier this week on Romney’s leadership of the private equity firm, using a two-minute advertisement profiling a steelworker with GST Steel whose job and pension were cut. The company was acquired by Bain in 1993 and filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
The Obama campaign on Wednesday expanded their effort to characterize Romney as an executive concerned about the bottom line and not American jobs. In a conference call with reporters, two workers - Cindy Hewitt, former Dade Behring employee and Randy Johnson, a former employee at SCM Office Supplies - told their story of losing jobs after a Bain acquisition.