Bain Capital attacks on Romney are 'Chicago-style politics,' Romney adviser says
Photo credit: AP | Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks in Houston. (July 11, 2012)
Where Obama and Romney stand on issues
Mitt Romney's run for president
Celebrities endorsing candidates
Election 2012: Complete coverage
Timeline: Obama's first term
Local donations for 2012 race
Attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over his role at Bain Capital Partners LLC after he assumed management of the 2002 Olympics are “classic Chicago-style politics,” senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said.
“He was not involved in the management, was not involved in the day-to-day decisions -- he wouldn’t have had time,” Gillespie said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “He left a life he loved to go to Salt Lake City to save the Olympics for a country he loves more” and took a “leave of absence” from the firm.
The Boston Globe, in a July 12 report, said that Securities and Exchange Commission filings showed Romney was identified as the chief executive of Bain Capital three years after he said he left the firm to run the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. SEC filings also name him as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors LLC in 2001 and 2002, Bloomberg News reported July 13.
During that period, Bain completed a series of deals that resulted in relocating jobs overseas and bankruptcies that led to worker firings. Gillespie said Romney wasn’t part of that decision-making as he was no longer at the firm.
“It is standard, though, while on leave, to sign those documents for the SEC,” Gillespie said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
‘Mitt Was Gone’
While Romney’s name may have legally been on Bain documents, “Mitt was gone” running the Olympics and it took several years for the management committee that took over to negotiate the terms of his departure, former Bain Capital partner Edward Conard said on MSNBC Sunday.
The negotiations were “very complicated” because all the partners were involved and Romney and his lawyers were hard to reach, Conard said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes.” Romney was the first to leave the partnership, so his terms would set the standard for other departures from the company, Conard said.
Romney was “never there” during the meetings on investment decisions, Conard said.
Romney, speaking during a series of television interviews July 13, called the attacks from the Democratic Obama campaign “disgusting and demeaning.” The Republican candidate’s five- show blitz on Friday was intended to “make sure people understood he’s not a felon,” Gillespie said on CNN.Obama’s Record
“They want to talk about anything but President Obama’s dismal record when it comes to the economy, and it’s working,” Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, said on CNN.
Rahm Emanuel, Chicago mayor and former Obama White House chief of staff, focused on Romney’s resistance to publishing more of his tax returns. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Emanuel said Romney’s campaign seems to have decided it’s better to get attacked for lack of transparency than to show what’s in his returns.
Romney’s released tax filing, including multiple foreign accounts, “looks more like the Olympic Village than it does like a middle-class family,” Emanuel said.
“Next four years, the president of the United States is going to have tax reform, and you’re going to have to debate it with Congress and shape it,” Emanuel said on ABC. “Will it be a middle-class family’s desire to save to send their kid to college or protecting the loophole in the Cayman Islands?”
Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire, said on the ABC show that Obama campaign attacks on Bain Capital and Romney’s tax returns show that Obama is “just a small politician and running on small-ball politics at a time when our country is facing grave, grave challenges.”
