Obama Video Hits Romney Role in Ampad Bankruptcy - East Idaho News
News

Obama Video Hits Romney Role in Ampad Bankruptcy

  Published at

Getty 050112 MittRomney?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1337606032363Jeff Swensen/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The story of Ampad, a company acquired by Bain Capital in 1992 that later went bankrupt, was used successfully by Democrats 18 years ago to help derail Mitt Romney’s run for a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts.

Now, the Obama campaign is resurrecting the case to help keep Romney out of the White House.

A new five-minute campaign web video aims to discredit Romney’s key selling point of his candidacy — his business experience — featuring testimonials of workers laid off from a Marion, Ind., office products factory acquired by Ampad in 1994.  Romney was CEO of Bain at the time.

“Good paying job with good benefits.  I loved the people I worked with.  I thought I was settled in for life,” says worker Jerry Rayburn who lost his job after Bain came in.

Ampad went bankrupt in 2000, shedding a total of 1,500 jobs, according to the film.  Bain profited $100 million from the deal.

“He’s just the opposite from Robin Hood,” one worker says of Romney.

With the Ampad video, the Obama campaign signals it is doubling down on the argument that Romney was a corporate raider more interested in amassing personal wealth than in creating jobs.  

Last week, Democrats focused on the case of Kansas City, Mo., steel company GST Steel, which was also acquired by Bain and later closed.

GST was featured in a TV ad attacking Romney that ran in five battleground states. Obama campaign officials said Sunday that they are extending the ad buy in Ohio.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION