Mitt Romney attack movie is devastating

Newt Gingrich’s SuperPAC “Winning Our Future” has put up a 30 minute long attack movie which focuses on Mitt Romney’s record as CEO of Bain Capital. The movie titled, “When Mitt Romney Came To Town” is a slickly produced film which reminds me of the now infamous swift boat ad from 2004 which severely crippled John Kerry’s campaign. But it is important to note that this ad is not “swift boating.”

As The Nation’s Ari Berman correctly points out, any attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain are fair game.

Will the film tell the full story about Bain Capital? Doubtful. There’s more gray than black and white to most stories. Bain is a very good at what it does. But Romney did profit, at times, from other people’s misery. The Wall Street Journal found that 22 percent of the companies Bain invested with during Romney’s tenure “either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses.” To suggest precisely that is not “Swift Boating.” It’s the truth.

And it is important to note that his private sector experience at Bain Capital is the focal point of Romney’s entire message. Romney’s stump speech boils down to, “I was in the private sector” and “I will do better than President Obama because I know how to create jobs.”

The movie, paid for by Newt Gingrich’s SuperPAC, is something we will be seeing more of in the world after Citizens United. And for the record, while the movie is effective, I’m certainly not supporting Newt Gingrich for president.

This attack ad movie destroys Romney’s argument for why he should be elected president. It does so by showing us the faces of the real people who were laid off as a result of Mitt Romney’s company Bain Capital, buying their companies, restructuring them, firing their workers, and closing their plants. Romney made millions off of these deals.

While some of what Romney did at Bain is considered ordinary practice, it is not, it is “vulture capitalism.” Showing how Romney destroyed so many lives is an effective way to cast him for what he is–a face of Wall Street greed.