Et Tu, Brute?

[mshan]

"Democrats plan to have Bain Capital employees make the case against Mitt Romney at their convention in Charlotte.

Senior Obama campaign officials confirmed to Fox News that at least two people who worked at Bain Capital -- Romney's former private equity firm -- will speak at the Democratic National Convention this week.

The bold move comes after Democrats have spent millions of campaign dollars on ads shedding light on companies that folded after Bain takeovers. While the campaign is not revealing who will be speaking or when they'll be addressing the convention, one thing is clear -- it will not be favorable to Romney.

A knowledgeable source told Fox News that possible speakers could include Steve Pagliuca -- managing partner at Bain Capital, considered the unofficial head of the firm. Pagliuca is a co-owner of the Boston Celtics who ran for the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy and lost in the Democratic primary to Martha Coakley in 2010.

Another possible speaker is Jon Lavine, an Obama campaign bundler and very senior member of the firm. Matt Levin, also a partner at Bain, is said to be very active in Democratic politics as well and could be included in the program.

The Bain attack from Obama supporters seemed to subside a bit after the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action produced an ad that linked Romney to the cancer death of the wife of a worker who was let go from a Bain-owned steel mill.

In recent weeks, the Romney campaign has taken the Bain attacks head on, pushing back aggressively in ads, opinion columns and speeches. In his nomination acceptance address in Tampa, Romney said about Bain, "That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story." Romney listed successful Bain companies including Staples, The Sports Authority, an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons, and Steel Dynamics -- now one of the largest steel producers in the country.

Romney continued, "These are American success stories. And yet the centerpiece of the president's entire re-election campaign is attacking success. In America, we celebrate success, we don't apologize for it. We weren't always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business. That's what this president doesn't seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving."

With the confirmation of the Bain speakers at the Democrats' convention, the Obama campaign is clearly signaling they are not finished with their line of attack -- one that they believe is moving voters in swing states in particular.

The Romney camp, though, is betting the attacks are backfiring and will make small business owners even more apprehensive about Obama and his policies."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ak-at-democrats-convention-officials-confirm/

 

[IronWing]

Immediate thread derailment: When did Brutus become Bluto or was it the other way around? Why?

Anyway, back on topic, Bain's destruction of viable companies and Romney's wealth gained through that destruction takes too long to explain. Thirty seconds is the most one gets to explain something. If the Dems want to capitalize they need to keep it short.

 

[mshan]

Having one of those Bain senior management types confirming, on national broadcast tv, that they were Reid's source about Romney's history of tax avoidance might fit the bill, eh?

 

[kia75]

Immediate thread derailment: When did Brutus become Bluto or was it the other way around? Why?

Bluto is the original name of Popeye's nemesis in the cartoons and due to some sloppy research, his name was briefly changed to Brutus in the early 60's.
This is the short answer, the long answer is below, but feel free to skip it.


Popeye was originally a comic strip by a different name where everybody had punny food names (i.e. Olive Oyl, Sweet Pea, etc) In the 1930's Fleischer studios licensed this comic strip to make the much more well-known Popeye cartoons. Every good character needs a villain so they also took the "Bluto" villain from the comic strip, a character that had only made a single appearance in all the comic book strips and made him Popeye's rival.

The cartoons become popular, much more popular then the comics but Fleischer studios eventually goes under and the rights to popeye are sold

In the 60's King features bought the rights to the Popeye comic strip but not to the Fleischer cartoons. Since Bluto only made a single appearance in the strip they assume that Bluto is a character created by Fleischer and think they can't use him (which they could because Bluto is a comic strip character). Since Bluto and Popeye are so popular, and you can't have Popeye cartoons without Bluto, they created the totally original Do Not Steal Character Brutus. Brutus is Popeye's rival for as long as King had the Popeye license.

A couple years later Hannah Barbara licenses the Popeye strip and has much better researchers. They go back to using Bluto and ever since then Popeye's rival has been Bluto.

 

[nehalem256]

So the plan is to have Democrats who work at Bain make the case that working at Bain is bad?

 

[jackstar7]

So the plan is to have Democrats who work at Bain make the case that working at Bain is bad?

Or... maybe... they know what it is like to work for the guy who wants to run the country like a business?

 

[umbrella39]

Kind of like having rich white Republicans talking about how trickle down actually does work and and that leveling the playing field is bad?

 

[jackschmittusa]

My guess is that since Bain is still a going concern, they are worried about all of the bashing and how it might effect their bottom line. An effective response might be "Well, we used to be a really nasty company under Romney, but since he left, we're really good guys now.".