The other day, in front of a group of reporters, the president defended his attacks on Romney's business experience. He said, "The main goal of a financial firm like Romney's is not to create jobs. Their main goal is to create wealth for themselves and their investors." He went on to say,"Sometimes jobs are created...sometimes it goes the other way. Workers get laid off. Benefits disappear. Pensions are cut. There may be value for that kind of experience, but it's not in the White House."
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| Image from wired.com |
The president wants to discredit Romney's record and portray him as a hollow man driven by profit and that Americans should fear someone who tramples on those who get in the way of his wealth accumulation.
Is the president accurate? Should we fear Mitt Romney?
The answer is emphatically, no.
It is ridiculous to insinuate that we should fear an individual who time and again went into financially broken companies and made them stronger. It is ridiculous to insinuate that Americans should fear an individual who has a 25+ year track record of being accountable with other people's money. It is ridiculous to suggest that Bain Capital is full of "vampires" and "vultures" when Bain's reports indicate that its investments have been successful 80% of the time and that only 5% of the firm's investments ended in bankruptcies.
But has Mitt Romney had a perfect career? Has he been successful at everything he did? Absolutely not. And Mitt Romney has never tried to act under that assumption. He talks about the successes of his career, but what makes Mitt Romney so unique is that he is also willing to recognize his failures.
Mitt Romney will be the first to admit that not every investment went as he had hoped or planned. He has frequently admitted frustration and deep disappointment for failed investments that resulted in job losses and heartache for laid off employees.
But when his company is successful 80% of the time and experienced real failure only 5%, is there a chance that the Obama campaign is choosing to focus on bad? Is he choosing to distort the real picture of this American company?
Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu argues that it is absolutely fair game to use Bain in the campaign, but only if you talk about Bain as a whole. He said, "If you want to talk about Bain on cherry-picking basis that's a distortion."
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| Darren Hauck/Reuters |
Mitt Romney has repeatedly said that his investors were always cautious with the companies they invested in and in the event that they were unable to help resuscitate a broken company, they carefully learned from their mistakes.
Can the same be said of this administration?
When was the last time that we heard contrition or an apology from a DC politician? When was the last time we heard an apology from this president for the $5 trillion spent in just 3 1/2 years? Money that has failed to stimulate our economy.
Instead, we have watched an administration in just three+ years, throw money at programs hoping each time that it would be the trick to revive our staggering economy. As I said here, it has been like watching individuals throw darts at a dart board. Each time crossing their fingers to hit the mark.
But the president has promised that attacks on Bain will continue and he will continue to brand Romney as a "reckless" and "immoral" individual. However, as they scrutinize and vilify, there is one blaring truth that they will never be able to say: Mitt Romney nor anyone on his team has ever grossly overspent the money they were allotted. In his entire 25+ years, Mitt Romney never borrowed an unthinkable $5 trillion without ever devising a plan to repay the debt.
Can the same be said of this president?
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| Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP |
Can we imagine for a moment if Mitt Romney had been this type of investor? Would the media ever have stood by and allowed him to get away with it? Would the media have tolerated an individual whose organization recklessly spent/ borrowed $1.6 trillion annually and never hinted at a plan to repay it?
The answer is of course not, nor should they.
But this president is given a pass on his 3 1/2 year record and the media seems perfectly willing to blame the immoral reckless spending on an "inept" Congress.
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The Romney campaign released this campaign ad highlighting some unknown details of Obama's first-term investments where billions and billions of dollars were made for clean energy solutions.
Most of these clean energy investments were to companies owned by some of Obama's biggest Democrat donors. In just a few short years, most of these investments have failed causing these companies to shut down--jobs lost---money wasted--peoples' lives affected. Billions and billions of tax dollars have been lost.
Who is accountable for this loss?
It seems almost ironic that this president wants to hold Mitt Romney accountable for the jobs lost at a steel plant or one paper company, yet the trillions he lost on failed programs are brushed off as "politics as usual."
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| AP Photo/Jae C. Hong |
We should expect more from our leaders.
Fortunately with Mitt Romney, we can.
Go Mitt.
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