The topic of Mitt Romney's ties to Bain Capital continues to be a big controversy in election coverage. It has prompted an Obama TV ad (below) that has progressive pundits standing and cheering, with some declaring the election is effectively over. Yeah, it's a little early for that.
It's also raised comments that the Obama campaign is, in effect, "Swiftboating" Mitt Romney--if that term is defined as turning a perceived strength into a weakness. In 2004, Bush, Rove, and their election surrogates did just that with John Kerry's military record, by finding some people willing to raise very scurrilous and mostly false accusations and suggestions. The end result was a Republican convention where thousands of the GOP faithful mocked a Vietnam war veteran's service to his country by waving bandaid-covered fingers. It was a shocking display.
If you separate the strategy from the tactics, then I guess the Obama attacks could be called Swiftboating. The Obama campaign is going right at Romney's main claim for running--he sadly isn't running on his experience as governor, because then he would have to talk up the successes of Romneycare. (This has to be one of the first times a presidential candidate has taken his biggest governing success and basically turned his back on it. It really is an amazing development.) So he's running as someone who is going to get people back to work, fix the economy, and central to that is his career at Bain. It doesn't matter to me too much whether he actually stopped running the company in 1999 or 2002, but there is a contradiction in what he's said and what the paperwork shows. And beyond that, if he wasn't doing anything at the company, it looks pretty strange that he was pulling down $100,000 a year for it.
Every day the Obama campaign can keep the conversation focused on these topics is a huge win for them. And as others have noted, when the Romney campaign is spending its time complaining about the Obama campaign and demanding apologies, they basically look weak. It's just another way that this year's election is a bizarre echo of the 2004 campaign, with the roles switched. I never would've guessed we would be comparing Bush to Obama, but there are similarities here. Weird.
To me, the distortions and falsehoods that the Bush campaign raised about Kerry are much worse than raising questions about Romney's business practices (even though I think most of us would agree he probably didn't do anything illegal). Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. Romney has been a very successful businessman, but there are legitimate questions about how he practiced his business. But I suppose how you see this could depend on your political point of view. Nonetheless, it's quite ironic that the shoe is now on the other foot. I wonder how Rove and his compatriots like them apples?
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