In a video on the Obama campaign website, former GST Steel workers from Missouri talk about how Bain purchased GST Steel and then ultimately ran it into bankruptcy. Former workers say that what Bain did “wasn’t capitalism” but rather “bad management.” One worker describes Romney as a “vampire who sucked the life” out of the steelworkers. Another worker describes watching the last bit of steel being made before the plant’s closing as like “watching a friend bleed to death.” And so on. Phrases such as “the middle class will go extinct” and “job destroyer” echo throughout the six-minute video. According to the video, 750 jobs were lost when GST Steel closed down.

Now for the rebuttal. The Romney campaign released a video proclaiming that Bain’s work with Steel Dynamics in Indiana helped create 6,000 jobs. A worker in the video calls the company “a perfect entrepreneurial story.” The Romney video is one-sixth as long as the Obama video and one-twelfth as demagogic, but it’s 100 percent as misguided.

So what is one to think of these videos? Well, uh, geez… um 6,000 jobs created minus 750 jobs destroyed equals 5,250 total jobs created. Well alright then, Romney’s going to make a great president because he’s created jobs overall! This debate over whether Romney was either a job destroyer or job creator at Bain means nothing in terms of Romney’s efficacy as the potential president. The notion that he’s a job destroyer is simply a demagogic appeal to the pathos of the (mainly unionized) working classes. The rebuttal that he’s a job creator is a misguided attempt to portray Romney as something he’s not.

It’s as if Romney’s performance at Bain relates directly to his performance as the would-be president. It’s as if a President Romney could either press a “job create” button or a “job destroy” button. It’s as if the federal government is anything like a business, for that matter. The arguments fomented by the left are illogical and the defense offered by the Romney campaign has done nothing to assert that.

http://nextgenjournal.com/2012/05/bain-capital-mitt-romney-obama/