Obama: You Know That Romney Is A Meanie Who Closed Business, Right? Because He Did UPDATE: Team Romney Gets It

Subtle it ain't.

Team Romney is pointing out that Obama himself laid off lots of workers when he took over GM. In fact, Obama's "Car Czar" says the Obama ad is unfair.

Asked to defend the new two-minute ads featuring a steel worker who lost his job on Morning Joe, Rattner replied: "I think the ad is unfair. ... I do think to pick out an example of someone who lost their job unfortunately, this is part of capitalism. This is part of life. And I don't think there is anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about."

The Romney camp has to be ready for this. So far they've mostly relied on the "Obama did it too" when he closed GM dealerships. Personally, I don't think that's the strongest defense since Obama will come back and say, "Maybe but I didn't get rich off the misery of others".

Yes, this whole thing is weak sauce if you're a committed partisan but if you're an out of work voter in Ohio, Pennsylvania or anywhere really, you aren't interested in lectures about the necessity and beauty of "creative destruction".

What I'd like to see Romney do is stop talking about creating Staples or The Sports Authority and talk about something that created franchises. That would enable them to put an everyman/small business owner face on his work.

One challenge Mitt has is he's framed his time as Bain as being about job creation, which leads to this kind of counter-attack. The reality is Romney was about wealth creation. The two are connected but not the same. It's understandable from a political perspective why he went with this frame but it means having to effectively deal with the "heartless" image that goes along with being in finance. It's not fatal but it can't be ignored either.

I know conservatives don't like dealing in emotional appeals but they work. Again, not on the committed but on swing voters....the people the Bain attack is aimed at. We can't be too good to play the heart-string game when we can.

Hopefully Team Mitt has something lined up and ready to roll out soon.

UPDATE: And now Romney is out with his own ad touting a steel company Bain invested in that's thriving. Nice. Very nice.

Via @mpoindc

posted by DrewM. at 03:01 PM

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