The film that the US political world has been waiting for is finally here. When Mitt Romney Came to Town is an attack video focusing on the Republican frontrunner’s corporate past — but will it have the desired effect of turning GOP voters away from Romney?
The 28-minute film, was released yesterday on the website of the pro-Gingrich super-PAC, Winning Our Future. The Republican candidates are currently touring South Carolina, ahead of the next primary election on 21 January.
The film first caused a stir last week when a three minute trailer was released on the King of Bain website, following a weekend of debates amongst the six Republican candidates.
Although it was released by his supporters, Gingrich has sought to distance himself from the video. Despite his initial criticism of Romney’s actions as CEO of the corporate firm Bain Capital, Gingrich has been reminded that his attacks on the former governor of Massachusetts’ economic past could easily play into the hands of the Democrats and lose him much-needed votes amongst his own party.
In an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren on On the Record last night, Gingrich said:
Well first of all I’m not attacking Bain Capital, I’m questioning Mitt Romney’s judgment, I’m questioning Mitt Romney’s decisions. He’s the person who has gone around now saying that his business career is one of his two credentials… I’ve raised the question, which I think is a totally legitimate question — what about some companies that Bain took over that went bankrupt? And all I’ve said is, you know, this isn’t about free enterprise.
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The film, made by Jason Killian Meath — who worked on Romney’s 2008 campaign — Stuart Stevens, and Russ Schriefer, focuses on Bain’s actions after acquiring four companies: the washing-machine company UniMac Corp., K.B. Toys, tech company DDi Corp., and paper company Ampad. The message at the heart of the documentary is that profit-led decisions were made regardless of the effects on the companies — all of which eventually declared bankruptcy — or the lives of their employees.
Former employees are interviewed during the 28 minutes, detailing the hardships they encountered after Bain Capital acquired the companies they worked for. “That hurt so bad” one woman says, “to leave my home, because of a man who has fifteen homes.” (He does not have fifteen homes, but we do know he just bulldozed his California mansion.)
“Sometimes we’d have to send a machine out without a part on it,” says another employee, who blames Bain of ruining the quality of their manufacturing by pressing them to produce more in less time.
The narrator accuses Romney of slashing “jobs in almost every state” before cutting to a video of Romney stating that “creative destruction does enhance productivity. For an economy to thrive, as ours does, there are a lot of people who will suffer because of that.”
The film ends with the narrator warning: “Now Romney says he wants to bring what he learned on Wall Street to the White House. What would his Cabinet look like? Who would he put in positions of power around him?”
It seems likely that the film will be an own goal. South Carolina is a conservative state that will not appreciate the fact that the documentary gives ammunition to the Obama campaign, or the blame it places on private businesses for job losses.
Republican voters were struggling to find a candidate to rally behind collectively. This video may just have inadvertenly promoted Romney to the task: it certainly will not enamour voters to his rivals.
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