The Obama Camp Serves Up a Bain Story: Some local outlets take the bait, while others offer a closer look
One of the moments in the 2012 presidential race that we all know was coming arrived this week: the Obama campaign launched its first round of attacks on Mitt Romney over his tenure at Bain Capital.
Unsurprisingly, there was a swing-state emphasis to the offensive. In addition to new TV commercials and a website targeting “Romney economics,” the President’s people organized news conferences in three battleground states—Iowa, Nevada, and Ohio—using labor leaders and prominent Democrats to attack the record of the presumptive Republican nominee. Their focus was Stage Stores, a chain of clothing stores that filed for bankruptcy and reportedly shed 6,000 jobs after Bain sold most of its interest in the company at a huge profit in the late 1990s.
The Obama campaign’s strategy also posed a challenge for reporters at local media outlets: Would they take the story served up on a silver platter, or get deeper into the complexities and provide the necessary balance? A look at some of the coverage shows a mixed response.
The president’s team was likely happy with the story by Las Vegas Sun reporter David McGrath Schwartz, posted online Tuesday and in print Wednesday. Here’s the lead:
With President Barack Obama’s campaign launching an offensive to paint Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s time as head of a private equity firm in a negative light, here’s the Nevada connection: Between 2000 and 2002, Stage Stores, a clothing chain, shut down three stores in rural Nevada as part of a bankruptcy.
The stores’ closures came after Bain Capital had sold off its interest in the company in 1999. Obama’s campaign said the chain had been saddled with debt after an aggressive expansion under Bain, and after Bain made $170 million profit from the investment.
