The central theme of Mitt Romney's campaign is that he can create jobs while President Obama can't. Romney touts his years as a business executive as evidence he can do so--and he has to, as Massachusetts ranked 47th in the U.S. in job creation while Romney was governor. But Democrats are increasingly going after Romney on his private sector record, too. An adviser to the late Ted Kennedy recently leaked an unaired ad against Romney from his 1994 race against the senator, which which Politico calls "an unexploded grenade."
The weak economy and high unemployment rate are Obama's "greatest vulnerability," and it seems that with the terrible jobs report released Friday, Democrats are all the more determined to disqualify Romney as offering a reasonable alternative to Obama's economic policies. The Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong reported late last month that the "mantra of top Democrats" had become Romney's inability to create jobs while governor. And Strong noted that Romney's resume helped sink his campaign against Kennedy in 1994. Sunday the Los Angeles Times' Tom Hamberger reports that Romney didn't meet expectations that he'd bring more businesses to Massachusetts because he'd been distracted by ambition to higher office. Thursday, the most damaging ad from that race was anonymously leaked to Politico.
The ad presents a harsh narrative of Romney's time at Bain Capital, which laid off a lot of people as it bought and sold companies. Alexander Burns writes: "A company that laid off hundreds of employees. A federal 'bailout' to rescue a failing bank. Mitt Romney, at the center of it all." The spot, Burns says, would have been damaging in the 90s, but it could have an even greater impact in this post-financial crisis era. At least, that's what Democrats probably hope.
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Elspeth Reeve
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