Former Pennsylvanian governor Ed Rendell is the latest Democrat to express concern about how the Obama campaign is targeting Mitt Romney’s work while at Bain Capital. Talking about the Obama campaign ads on Bain, Rendell told BuzzFeed, “I think they’re very disappointing. I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well.” Democratic Virginia senator Mark Warner also praised Bain this morning as a “very successful business,” but added that Bain was also “a valid topic of debate.”
Newark mayor Cory Booker, whose Sunday comments that he was “very uncomfortable” with the Bain attacks launched a flurry of news stories, walked back his comments further last night in a MSNBC interview, saying that he thought Romney’s “job creation record” was “fair game.” Booker, whose comments were used in a RNC fundraising letter yesterday, also made it clear he supported Obama. “I’m very upset that I’m being used by the GOP this way,” Booker stressed.
Meanwhile, the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA released a web video today featuring criticisms of Romney’s Bain Capital record from his GOP primary opponents:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2fJhF6uctfM
Newt Gingrich, for his part, said last night that while he maintains “there are things you can legitimately look at in Bain Capital,” he doubts attacks in that direction will be “politically effective.”
“I think for the president of the United States with the worst unemployment record in modern times to attack a businessman over job creation gets him exactly into a fight that Obama doesn’t want to be in the middle of,” Gingrich told CNN’s Piers Morgan.
“I think private equity on balance creates far more job than it kills,” he added.