Rick Grimaldi: The President's Red Herring

by Rick Grimaldi - 7/17/12 -

So which candidate has cost America more jobs? The President is running ads that attack Mitt Romney's leadership at Bain Capital. He accuses Romney of outsourcing jobs. The Obama camp even suggests that Romney may have committed a felony. The President continues to deflect from his own record and, despite fact checks suggesting otherwise, continues to assert that Romney misled the SEC and is misleading the voters. Nonsense.

Mitt Romney has addressed the issue. He has said that he stepped down from active leadership of Bain in 1999. This is not out of the ordinary in business. He and other Principals at Bain have repeatedly explained that Romney was, during the time in question, fully devoted to working on the Olympics. which by the way he saved from financial ruin.

It is accurate that Bain, under Romney's leadership invested in companies that outsourced jobs. He should address this issue head on. What Romney did at Bain was to invest in companies that were undervalued, mismanaged or otherwise in trouble. He turned them around and ultimately maximized their value before selling them. Did some of the jobs get outsourced? Yes but remember outsourcing is not the same as offshoring and more importantly had Bain not gotten involved many of the companies would have gone under.

If we want to talk about jobs lets discuss the failure of the President to create jobs. We still have 8% unemployment and anemic job growth. At least Mitt Romney has the skill set to recognize and execute a turn around plan.

Mitt Romney needs to continue to respond to these attacks. They are inaccurate and deceitful. More importantly Romney better understand right now that his opponent will do what it takes to win. I hope the Romney campaign is prepared for this fight.

The President says "these are the games in politics." I say let the games commence.