I love it! A two minute ad to run in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and a few other battleground states that attacks Romney on his supposed strength of business experience and job creation. Hits him hard on Bain:
The ad describes how Romney and Bain Capital destroyed a steel manufacturer in Kansas City, making millions while driving the company into bankruptcy. The dumped the pensions on the federal government while stripping the company dry for their own wealth. 750 jobs destroyed.
Greg Sargent at The Plum Line describes the strategy well:
This isn’t just about attacking Romney’s wealth and character. It’s about turning Romney’s number one asset — the aura of economic competence created by his successful business career — into a liability, about painting a frightening picture of his vision of our economic future as one that would be founded on a flimsy foundation of unbound Wall Street profiteering and risk-taking. It’s designed to sow doubts about whether a President Romney would truly have the economic security of middle class Americans at heart, and to make him the walking embodiment of the economic behavior that led to widespread economic misery.
The message is about fear: Romney = middle class insecurity.
The ad also tells people to go to RomneyEconomics.com for more info:
GST Steel: Bankruptcy and bailouts
Kansas City’s GST Steel was a successful company that had been making steel rods for 103 years when Mitt Romney and his partners took control in 1993. They cut corners and extracted profit from the business at every turn, placing it deeply in debt. When the company eventually declared bankruptcy, workers were denied their full pensions and health insurance, and the federal government was forced to step in and bail out the pension fund
RomneyEconomics.com
More from RomneyEconomics:
Romney Economics: GST Steel
Jobs lost 750
Bain initial investment $8 million
Bain profits > $12 million