In the current week’s issues of Automotive News, Joseph Lichterman writes about how a claim that
the Obama campaign has launched against Mitt Romney regarding Bain Capital and
Cambridge Industries is false. Automotive News is the most trusted and
independent newspaper in the auto industry.
Romney was not part of Bain Capital when the Bain decision
was made to put Cambridge into bankruptcy.
Romney left Bain Capital in February 1999 to save the Olympics. The Bain decision not to inject more cash
into Cambridge came in November 1999 with the decision to enter into bankruptcy
in 2000. According to the Cambridge CFO
at the time, “Mitt Romney wasn’t even there.”
By law, at the end of every political advertisement, the
candidate says, “I approved this message”. It appears that this specific charge is false
For those who need some context, the Obama campaign has a
commercial running in some key battleground states that charges Romney with
seeking profit over jobs during his time at Bain. As part of this commercial, the case at
Cambridge is used to say that Bain withdrew substantial cash from Cambridge
before it entered bankruptcy. This eventually led to Cambridge loosing about a thousand jobs once it was in bankruptcy. The rhetoric is that Bain was a vampire
capitalist. All of this happened when
Romney was not there.
