Biden: Romney’s Bain experience ‘no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber’ [View all]

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/biden-romney-bain-experience-no-more-qualifies-you-to-be-president-than-being-a-plumber/2012/05/22/gIQAQf8riU_blog.html

Biden: Romney’s Bain experience ‘no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber’

Posted by Felicia Sonmez at 10:03 PM ET, 05/22/2012 TheWashingtonPost

Vice President Biden on Tuesday weighed in on the ongoing debate over Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, arguing at a New Hampshire campaign event that the presumptive GOP nominee’s investment-firm background no more qualifies him to serve as president than would experience working as a plumber.

“Your job as president is to promote the common good,” he said, comparing the job of a president to that of a private equity mogul. “That doesn’t mean that private equity guys are bad guys; they’re not. But that no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber!”

Biden, who spoke to a crowd of over 450 supporters and students at Keene State College, called the private-equity business itself “legitimate,” but pushed the administration’s argument that its imperative of wealth creation for investors doesn’t translate to the skill set of a national leader.

“Folks, making money for your investors, as Romney did very well, is not the president’s job,” he said. “The president has a different job.”