Poll: Voters Think Romney And Bain Were Driven By Profit, Not Job Creation

[ProSense]

Poll: Voters Think Romney And Bain Were Driven By Profit, Not Job Creation

Amid renewed scrutiny of his time at Bain Capital, a new poll examines how voters view presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s career at the private equity firm.

The poll, conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) on behalf of Daily Kos and the SEIU, found that 57 percent of voters believe Romney’s primary concern at Bain Capital was making a profit. A much smaller group of voters — 12 percent — believe that Romney was largely motivated to create jobs, while 25 percent say he cared about both equally.

Romney’s career with Bain has been a linchpin of his presidential campaign, with the former Massachusetts routinely touting his role as a job creator in the private sector. President Barack Obama’s campaign has sought to reverse that narrative over the last week, highlighting layoffs made by Bain while Romney was at the helm.

The poll of 1,000 registered voters nationwide was conducted May 17-20. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/poll-voters-think-romney-bain-were-driven-by

[Atman]

1. 37% of respondents are really stupid.

[ProSense]

2. Definitely the 12 percent.

The other 25 percent seems to want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Who knows: among them, some may skew to profit more than job creation as a motive.

[lunatica]

3. And yet again the Obama campaign is dominating what everyone is talking and polling about

And winning the talking points in the process. In that sense Cory Booker did us a favor. It's forcing everyone to talk about what Obama wants the voters to talk about. It's uncanny.



And I'm willing to bet that Cory Booker really does feel nauseated now.

[sufrommich]

4. Yep, working for Bain is going to be

what does him in. The Obama campaign needs to stick with it.

[riderinthestorm]

5. Good to see Democratic messaging finally starting to work.

Now they need to study WHY this meme took hold when others have failed.

Then we'll be making some progress.

K&R

[WI_DEM]

6. 'Democratic leaning PPP' does the media ever identify Rasmussen as 'GOP leaning'???

[karynnj]

7. Interesting - and it shows that the Democratic message on this is getting thru

I hadn't thought about it, but this was close to something that Obama actually said - that Romney did succeed with Bain Capital, but his goal was to make money for the share holders and that was NOT the same goal he has as President. His goal is to help all people.

The poll suggests that a majority of the country already understand the first step in the complex message the Obama team is sending as to what Romney's goal at Bain was. The next step would be an understanding of whether the "tools" that Romney used are transferable to what a President needs to do. Here Romney will argue that they are and Obama would argue that they are ofter diametrically opposed - as they were in the auto bailout - where what Romney advised was NOT at all what Obama did.

That likely will be a secondary theme going forward. The primary theme will likely be what type of country we want to be. While the Republicans have yelled "class warfare", they ignore that the real "class warfare" is not the words said by Democrats, but the very real "war" that the top income groups are clearly winning. Since the end of the 1970s, the share of the pie that belongs to the top 1% has reached historically high levels. One estimate was that they have 41% of the country's wealth.

Now look at what Romney (Ryan) is proposing. Eliminating estate taxes - so there is no tax when the huge accumulations of wealth are passed to the next generation. Cutting taxes on these self described "job creators" - even though many really do not create jobs and some actually destroy them. These will increase the share of the 1% - so I guess Romney thinks 41% is not enough. Meanwhile - even as the plan cuts revenue - which is already an historically low % of GDP, they pretend their main goal is balancing the budget. This means cutting an amount equal to the deficit AND the value of these tax cuts AND the increases they want in the defense budget Where do you get that kind of money in the budget? Most of what is left is all the programs that help the needier people and entitlements - like Medicare and Social Security.

The importance of the "secondary theme" on Bain - is to insure it is weakened in terms of suggesting that Romney can magically "turn around" the country - making everyone more comfortable in the process. Of lesser value, it also lets people equate how the "peons" (all of us not in the 1%) will be treated if we are not immediately valuable to the economy.

[dkf]

8. This isn't a very good message IMO.

Geez if we are going to turn Romney into the champion of capitalism is this really going to work for us?

[sufrommich]

10. The message is clear: Romney does not "create jobs",

Romney "creates wealth" for the already obscenely wealthy. I can't imagine a better campaign meme.

[dkf]

12. The obscenely wealthy like pension funds?

Here is the latest annual report from CALpers...

http://www.calpers.ca.gov/eip-docs/about/pubs/annual-investment-report-2011.pdf

Investments enable retirement. Private equity is one allocation that most large pension funds will have.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

11. Maybe this is only the beginning

and perhaps the campaign will begin to focus on his term as governor of Mass as the election draws nearer.

[barbtries]

9. duh

it's kind of funny that the question would even come up. except for the relentless spin machine of the right and the so-called media bringing it to us.

[Brooklyn Dame]

13. Oh for crying out loud...

...what else do we need to know about him?!?

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/05/good-grief-mitt-what-planet-are-you-from/