Bain & Company:
Jeffrey Zients will serve as President Obama’s new acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but the president’s decision might undercut attacks on Republican Mitt Romney’s career as a venture capitalist, because Zients and Romney are both alumni of Bain & Company.
[. . .]
President Obama’s top campaign strategist, David Axelrod, criticized Romney for having a “Bain mentality,” just as some of Romney’s Republican presidential election rivals have blamed him for layoffs that took place at companies that Bain Capital financed.
The White House emphasized Zients’ “twenty years as a CEO, management consultant, and entrepreneur” when announcing his promotion, but did not mention that Zients’ used to work with Bain & Company.
More here.
It really is going to be difficult for Obama to make the case that Bain is Evil Inc, especially since such a key person in his Administration worked there. President Goldman Sachs is also going to have a hard time running against Wall Street, his Administration is teeming with bailout bankers.
Even Obama's Car Czar, Steve Rattner has gone on the record defending Bain (I'm sure there were some angry emails and phone calls on that one) He said the Gordan Gekko corporate raider image is absurd
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Romney and his work at Bain Capital is not nearly the silver bullet cowardly conservatives think it is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sure they will point out that Bain & Co. is a completely different entity than Bain Capital; one does management consulting, the other does PE/LBO and VC.
I think you are completely incorrect re: Bain Capital, and the problems it will cause for Romney. And it has nothing to do with cowardice whatsoever; instead, it's centered around his complete inability to explain the situation without coming off as a rich, out-of-touch, robotic mega-millionaire with something to hide.
My wife (who doesn't follow politics much, but knows a lot about taxes) asked me last night, 'how much income do you think Romney and Bain have hidden in tax shelters and foreign accounts?' The answer is, probably quite a bit. That makes his tax returns and income from that business an even greater liability.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBain Co is a different corporate entity from Bain Capital, however Romney ran both of these firms.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInteresting, this guy takes over and Obama comes out seeking authority to reorganize departments, streamline services and fire people with little consultation with Congress.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama's election stragegy is obvious here. Equate himself with Romney (appointing the Bain guy and touting Romney/Obamacare) to demoralize conservatives and then preach class warfare and reject the Keystone pipeline to energize his base.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo Obama's hiring Mitt's co-workers?
And none of you think you're backing the wrong guy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think the real damage isn't to Obama's campaign attacks on Romney's "Bain mentality", but rather that now people are going to find out that people from Bain with the same experience as Romney are already running the financial organs of the government, and to no avail: we still had a recession, and we still have a government that is unfriendly to business, is overly regulatory, and still thinks it's smart enough to run everything from washington better than it could be done in the distributed marketplace.
It adds heft to the suggestion that a President Romney really wouldn't be a far departure from a President Obama on economic issues.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBain There, Done That…
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