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A brief summary of the issue (to be fair, my summary is going to be necessarily biased against Romney, since I just don't like him, but I'm gonna TRY to make at least a VAGUE handwave toward objectivity):
Mitt Romney made much of his fortune through founding a company called Bain Capital, which did all sorts of things that I don't entirely understand. It involved financial stuff. Buying and selling companies. Stuff like that. Business-y things that I don't quite get, but which I am told are really useful for the way that the modern economy works.
Around 1999, the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was mired in corruption, malfeasance, mismanagement, and general dumbf*ckery, and they hired Mitt Romney to come in and un-dmbfu*ckery the whole situation. Which he actually managed to do, and which counts as one of Romney's Big Life Achievements that he can point to.
In order to do this, he took a leave of absence from Bain Capital, but he was nonetheless still listed at CEO/Chairman of the Board/sole stockholder/owner, and like that.
While he was off in Salt Lake City, Bain Capital started helping companies move formerly-American jobs overseas.
Now, the Obama campaign is attacking Romney hard for directly and personally destroying American jobs -- saying, in effect, sure, he's been a job creator -- for India and China. But not so much for the United States.
The Romney campaign's response has been, basically, dude, he was in Salt Lake City dealing with the Olympics during this whole time; it's not his fault Bain was organizing the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
The Obama camp has been going back to Romney's Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign, where people were asking whether Romney even met the residency requirements for living in Massachusetts, since he'd been doing all that stuff for the Olympics, and Romney, at THAT point, was pointing out how often he'd been coming back to Boston for board meetings and stuff. And also his SEC filings for the period, where he was acknowledging that Bain was his company, and he was CEO and all that.
So that's the argument right now: everybody agrees that, from 1999 to 2002 or so, Bain Capital was helping to outsource jobs from the United States. The Obama camp says that Romney was involved in this; the Romney camp says that he had nothing to do with it, because he was doing all that Olympic stuff, and then governor stuff after that.
But here's how I look at it: Romney's defense is just not all that defense-y. They're arguing that Romney had no clue what was going on in his own company at the time that his own company was hurting the United States. That Romney was blind to it, but was nonetheless profiting from hurting the United States.
Honestly, being completely unaware of what your organization is doing? Not really that great a recommendation for a Presidential candidate.
Mitt Romney made much of his fortune through founding a company called Bain Capital, which did all sorts of things that I don't entirely understand. It involved financial stuff. Buying and selling companies. Stuff like that. Business-y things that I don't quite get, but which I am told are really useful for the way that the modern economy works.
Around 1999, the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was mired in corruption, malfeasance, mismanagement, and general dumbf*ckery, and they hired Mitt Romney to come in and un-dmbfu*ckery the whole situation. Which he actually managed to do, and which counts as one of Romney's Big Life Achievements that he can point to.
In order to do this, he took a leave of absence from Bain Capital, but he was nonetheless still listed at CEO/Chairman of the Board/sole stockholder/owner, and like that.
While he was off in Salt Lake City, Bain Capital started helping companies move formerly-American jobs overseas.
Now, the Obama campaign is attacking Romney hard for directly and personally destroying American jobs -- saying, in effect, sure, he's been a job creator -- for India and China. But not so much for the United States.
The Romney campaign's response has been, basically, dude, he was in Salt Lake City dealing with the Olympics during this whole time; it's not his fault Bain was organizing the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
The Obama camp has been going back to Romney's Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign, where people were asking whether Romney even met the residency requirements for living in Massachusetts, since he'd been doing all that stuff for the Olympics, and Romney, at THAT point, was pointing out how often he'd been coming back to Boston for board meetings and stuff. And also his SEC filings for the period, where he was acknowledging that Bain was his company, and he was CEO and all that.
So that's the argument right now: everybody agrees that, from 1999 to 2002 or so, Bain Capital was helping to outsource jobs from the United States. The Obama camp says that Romney was involved in this; the Romney camp says that he had nothing to do with it, because he was doing all that Olympic stuff, and then governor stuff after that.
But here's how I look at it: Romney's defense is just not all that defense-y. They're arguing that Romney had no clue what was going on in his own company at the time that his own company was hurting the United States. That Romney was blind to it, but was nonetheless profiting from hurting the United States.
Honestly, being completely unaware of what your organization is doing? Not really that great a recommendation for a Presidential candidate.