Democratic leaders back Obama’s Bain strategy vs. Romney, acknowledge risks [View all]

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Source: washington post

After nearly two weeks of heated debate over whether President Obama should attack Republican Mitt Romney’s tenure at a private-equity firm, Democratic leaders across the country say they are largely united behind the strategy, even as some concede an uncertain outcome and new polls show Obama has lost ground nationally.

The Democratic leaders, in numerous interviews over the last week, said they are hearing little or no resistance among the party faithful in their states to a strategy that Republicans have characterized as anti-capitalist. And Obama has no plans to back off; his campaign will roll out more stories in the coming weeks that advisers said will again show Bain Capital as a corporate menace that protects profits at the expense of people and jobs.

“He wanted to have this conversation,” Jim Burn, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said of Romney, the likely GOP nominee. “We’re going to have it. There should be no hesi­ta­tion or equivocation.”

In Nevada, one Democrat said voters direct most of the blame for the state’s persistently high unemployment and foreclosure rates at Wall Street, describing it as the “bogeyman” of the election. In Ohio, party leaders said a large blue-collar population is receptive to evidence that Romney focused more on profits than people. Even in New Hampshire, where unemployment, at 5 percent, is far lower than in the hardest-hit states, Raymond Buckley, the state Democratic chairman, said voters blame the “reckless behavior” of investors such as Romney for the declining fortunes of their friends and family elsewhere.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-leaders-back-obamas-bain-strategy-vs-romney-acknowledge-risks/2012/05/27/gJQAJBH1uU_singlePage.html