Obama’s Private Equity Hypocrisy

How many faces does Obama truly have? One can only imagine how hard it must be for him to keep up. His double speak occurs so frequently that at least one of them is bound to slip through the cracks and into the public spotlight. Obama launched a new round of negative TV ads against Mitt Romney, calling him a “heartless” “job destroyer” referring to his experience with Bain Capital. The Obama Reelection Team should have reviewed the most basic public relations strategy before they released these ads: timing is everything.

From the Washington Post:

“President Obama’s campaign is out with a tough new ad, “Steel,” attacking former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s record on job creation.

The two-minute ad focuses on GS Technologies, a steel mill in Kansas City, Mo., that was bought by Romney’s private equity firm Bain Capital and went bankrupt soon after.

The ad paints Romney as out of touch with the needs of the local workers and concerned only with Bain’s own profits.

“We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer,” says one former mill worker in the ad. Another calls Bain “a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us.”

A Vampire, eh? Oh the irony of Obama’s reelection staff’s choice to launch an attack on Romney’s private equity experience the same day Obama asked the heads of private equity firms for money at a $35,800 a head fundraiser. On Monday night, Obama spoke at a fundraiser in Manhattan at the home of Tony James, the president of the private-equity giant, the Blackstone Group. Many attendees from the private equity world paid $35k/head to listen to Obama speak, the same man who has referred to them as greedy “fat cats” and accused them of stealing jobs from America.

Obama’s team, of course, claims there is nothing wrong with private equity:

“Asked about the attack on Mr. Romney, deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said yesterday the President isn't "questioning private equity as a whole." But that wasn't the message as recently as April, when Team Obama posted on a website a list of eight private citizens who were Romney donors and whom it said had "less than reputable records.

The targets included Paul "Chip" Schorr, who happens to be a partner at . . . Blackstone. The Obama campaign website accuses him and his private-equity brethren of outsourcing jobs as well as closing a "buyout of a Colorado travel reservations company that led to 841 layoffs while Blackstone and its partners recouped the billions of dollars they invested in less than a year.”

Obama demonizes Wall Street and everything related to it, but welcomes their cash. Obama has also received more money from Bain Capital than Romney, as well as more money from Wall Street than any politician in American history.

Apparently, it’s detrimental to America’s economy to elect a President with private equity experience, but America’s economy will be saved under the leadership of a President who is influenced by private equity cash? That’s at least the case in Obama’s twisted logic. Timing and forthrightness are crucial to a campaign. Obama’s team is struggling with both.

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