Ampad takes center stage
Key Takeaways
- Mitt Romney's 18-year-ago Senate campaign faltered after laid-off workers protested
- Laid-off Bain Capital employees drove to Massachusetts to protest his campaign
- Democrats produced half-dozen ads featuring those workers accusing Romney of lining his pockets
1994 Kennedy Parallel
When Mitt Romney ran for the Senate 18 years ago, he was faring quite well against Ted Kennedy until voters started hearing from some of Romney’s victims.
“When Mitt Romney ran for the Senate 18 years ago, he was fairing quite well against Ted Kennedy, right up until voters started hearing from some of Romney’svictims”
Democrats put together a half-dozen ads featuring laid-off workers who said they suffered while Romney lined his pockets.
Perhaps none of the companies played as big a role as American Pad & Paper, or Ampad.
Ampad is the subject of a new video from the Obama campaign.
Ampad takeover and impact
The article describes the Ampad story as a rather brutal one: Romney took over Ampad, drove it into bankruptcy, and Bain turned its $5 million investment into $100 million.
Workers at the plant in Marion, Indiana lost their jobs, wages, health care, and pensions.
The piece emphasizes the human cost faced by those employees.
Romney defense vs Wolpow
The Romney campaign claims the candidate was on a leave of absence from his firm at the time of Ampad’s demise.
“When Mitt Romney ran for the Senate 18 years ago, he was fairing quite well against Ted Kennedy, right up until voters started hearing from some of Romney’svictims”
However, the article cites a 2002 interview with former managing director of Bain Capital Marc Wolpow that says Romney was directly responsible for Ampad’s layoffs.
The article presents these conflicting claims without resolving them.
Obama ad strategy and hope
The piece argues that characterizing the Obama ad campaign as a literal replay of Kennedy’s 1994 strategy is not an exaggeration.
As Michael Yarbrough reported this morning, the Obama ad features many of the exact same Romney victims who spoke out 18 years ago.
The article says there is no need to reinvent the wheel because these are sympathetic people who were crushed by Romney’s business practices, and it notes that the result worked for Kennedy and that Obama’s team clearly hopes it will work for them too.
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