Just a couple days ago, David Perdue
didn't feel like he needed to defend his career in outsourcing—heck, he was "proud of it," though he was also
trying to redefine what outsourcing means. It's starting to seem like the Georgia Republican Senate candidate is rethinking that pride, though, at least for campaign purposes. Asked about the issue at a debate,
Perdue had this to say:
Look, don't be confused, folks. This is another attempt by my desperate opposition to use one line out of a 186-page document to define a career.
That doesn't sound like pride.
But about that one line out of 186 pages. The one line in the legal deposition in question was "Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that," in response to the question "Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?" Where Perdue was once all "Defend it? I'm proud of it," now he doesn't want to be defined by that one line.
Okay, then. Let's look at a few other lines from that 186-page document, in which Perdue himself defines his career.
Kurt Salmon Associates, some of my experience there was helping footwear companies develop the ability to import shoes from Asia, specifically Taiwan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia.
That's five lines in the deposition transcript.
Then at Reebok most of -- all of our production was sourced in Asia.
Two more lines.
Sara Lee did not have a centralized sourcing operation in Asia, and we built that from the ground up.
Three more lines, plus the 31 further lines in which Perdue went into detail about exactly how he built that centralized sourcing operation in Asia from the ground up. As for Pillowtex, the bankrupt company Perdue was being deposed over, when Perdue was negotiating to become its CEO:
One of the problems this company had was overburdened with domestic manufacturing capacity.
Perdue saw his role as CEO as unburdening Pillowtex of that domestic manufacturing capacity and moving manufacturing to Asia.
If Perdue doesn't want to focus on the one line "Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that" or the other one line "Defend it? I'm proud of it," there are plenty of other lines to focus on making the same point: David Perdue made millions of dollars outsourcing to Asia. That career in outsourcing is what gave Perdue the money and public standing to make a serious run for Senate as a businessman who would know what to do about the economy. Problem is, it turns out that what he knows to do about the economy is outsource it to Asia.
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