WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama tried Monday to tarnish Mitt Romney as a corporate titan who got rich by cutting rather than creating jobs, opening a new effort to undercut the Republican’s claims that his background of business success is what America needs in a time of economic uncertainty.
At the center of the Obama campaign effort are a new website, TV ad and online video including interviews with onetime workers at a Kansas City, Mo., steel mill that Romney’s former private equity firm failed to successfully restructure. Workers lost jobs and health care benefits. Pensions were reduced.
“It was like a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us,” says steelworker Jack Cobb.
Added John Wiseman, “Bain Capital walked away with a lot of money that they made off this plant. We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer.”
Obama’s TV ad was scheduled to run in five battleground states — Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — and was part of a larger $25 million, month-long campaign.
Romney’s campaign, meanwhile, aggressively worked behind the scenes to counter the Obama campaign’s Bain message.
It released a Web video about a successful steel company that Bain invested in called Steel Dynamics. The video shows steelworkers describing the company as the embodiment of the American dream, noting that the company grew from a workforce of 1,400 to more than 6,000. That video was not immediately planned for television.
Romney’s campaign said the former Massachusetts governor welcomes an election-season conversation with Obama about jobs. Romney’s campaign has argued that he helped spur tens of thousands of jobs in the public and private sectors and pointed to a net job loss during Obama’s presidency, most of which occurred during the first few months of his administration. Obama has touted the creation of 4.2 million new jobs over the past 26 months as his policies took hold.
Obama steered clear of criticizing Romney during a commencement speech at the Barnard College in New York
. He urged graduates of the female college to fight for their place at “the head of the table” and help lead a country still battered by economic woes toward brighter days.
“I believe that the women of this generation will help lead the way,” he said.
Obama’s choice of Barnard as his first commencement address of the spring underscored the intense focus both candidates have placed on women. Obama acknowledged that today’s college graduates are entering a shaky job market. To those who say overcoming the nation’s challenges isn’t possible, Obama said, “Don’t believe it.”
Romney, meanwhile, prepared to deliver a speech today in Iowa on reducing the huge federal debt.
