The Obama campaign has a new two-minute ad that is aimed at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for his time at Bain Capital. The ad is critical of the likely Republican nominee’s role in acquiring the ailing GST Steel in Kansas City, and highlighted those that lost their job in the process.
But even one of President Barack Obama’s chief advisers is not buying it. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday, former Obama administration “car czar” Steve Rattner called the ad “unfair” and said that it wasn’t Bain’s responsibility to create or save jobs.
“I think the ad is unfair,” Rattner said. “I think — look, Mitt Romney made a mistake ever talking about the fact that he created 100,000 jobs. Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to make profits for his investors, most of whom were pension funds, endowments and foundations. And it did it superbly, acting within the rules and very responsibly and was a leading firm. So I do think to pick out an example of somebody who lost their job unfortunately, this is part of capitalism. This is part of life. And I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.”
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough had a similar reaction, but was more critical of the ad creators’ perceptions of the middle class.
“Here is the problem with the Obama team: They don’t have anybody around them that have worked in free enterprise and really gotten beaten up, and understand how free enterprise works,” Scarborough said. “My father, I have said it time and again, unemployed for a year and a half. My father saw this type of ad he’d go, ‘Oh, you lost your job? You work in a capitalist society? OK well, you don’t want to ever lose your job, move to Russia.’ And guess what, that’s not so far off how a lot of working class and middle class people believe. They’re not stupid. This is a paternalistic ad, made by some very intelligent people that went to Harvard and Yale, and are elites who have never worked in the free market who think that middle class Americans are stupid.”