Romney's Bain Capital issue is not going away

Private equity: It's an arcane phrase, for sure. But it's the force behind household names like Dunkin' Donuts, MGM Studios, Burger King and J. Crew.
And now it's at the heart of a political controversy.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has faced repeated questions about his record as former head of private equity firm Bain Capital. Business leaders say the usually reclusive industry has been unfairly villified, not to mention misunderstood.
Here's a primer on the industry . . . and how you encounter it every day.


Private equity refers to wealthy individuals and institutions that invest in private companies or buy out public companies and take them private so their stock is no longer traded on public exchanges.
The investors typically acquire an undervalued or distressed company, usually with borrowed money; reorganize operations; then -- often four to seven years later -- sell at a profit.


Put another way, as one of my associates has said, Romney is unlikely to get off scot free in a campaign where his claim to fame is that he flipped companies and then flip-flopped on the issues moving from a Massachusetts moderate, as Newt Gingrich is goading, with liberal positions on social issues like guns, abortion and health care, to a more traditional Republican, sympathetic to the Tea Party.
In practical political terms, the Romney campaign provides the unique narrative to the Obama campaign, who despite their lack of a record of accomplishment on the economy, now have a narrative. And that narrative is that the economy is now slowly improving, they are standing up for working people versus the rich and powerful, read: the 1%, read: Mitt Romney. And that they have been stymied at every juncture in trying to develop policies for the 99% by an intransigent Republican Congress.
To be sure, that in and of itself is not a winning argument.
With vast majorities of Americans dissatisfied with Obama's economic policies and feeling the country is heading in the wrong direction, there is a very clear sense that America is off on the wrong track.
What the Obama campaign will do is make the argument that Romney is simply not the answer. They will argue that by not having created the 100,000 jobs he said he did, Romney has exaggerated, or even worse, did not tell the truth.
They will argue that his performance at Bain Capital represents not pure free market capitalism, but financial manipulation. And that ultimately, Romney is on the side of the wealthy and the powerful, supporting policies that are inimical to working people.
And what's worse, they will say, you can't trust him to stand for anything. His flip-flops on the issues are so substantial that you really don't know what he stands for, and who he really is.
What Obama will try to do with all of this is to fight Romney to a draw, with independent swing voters in the middle and in the Midwest and Southwest.
Put another way, Obama's theory is that if they can fight to an effective draw with voters in the center through these kind of attacks, they will be able to mobilize their vote-- whether it be from liberals, young people, blacks or Hispanics-- in a way that gives them a narrow victory.
It is not a great strategy, but at least it is a strategy.
Romney's strategy at this point will be the one he articulated last Tuesday night when he won the New Hampshire primary. That he is for free markets, he is against regulation and that he is for opening up a society that President Obama has mismanaged.