Eerie Similarity? New Obama Attack Ad Mirrors CNN Story on Romney and Bain Capital

May 14th, 2012 5:43 PM

A new Obama campaign ad – which CNN showed a clip from on Monday – features former steelworkers attacking Mitt Romney and his leadership of Bain Capital. Yet this January CNN piece on Bain Capital's ventures in South Carolina provided the same critical aura of "bad memories" and "bitterness" toward the company from South Carolina steelworkers.

United Steelworkers is one of the heavy hitters of Democratic donors, and yet CNN featured the local Steelworkers president bashing Bain Capital all through the piece without any clarification on the political position of the Steelworkers. The president took a parting shot at Romney for being "very responsible" for Bain's business practices at the steel mill.

The CNN story obviously featured a couple of quotes from Mitt Romney to get the opposing viewpoint. But the local Steelworkers union president was the most-quoted person in the piece. In comparison, Obama's newest ad features multiple steelworkers, who formerly worked at GST Steel in Missouri while it was owned by Bain, criticizing Romney for "destroying" careers and Bain for being a "vampire" in its dealings.

"He's [Romney's] running for president, and if he's going to run the country the way he ran our business I wouldn't want him there," said one of the steelworkers in the campaign ad. Compare this with CNN giving a microphone to the union president, whose view was "from the downside of Romney's private sector record on job creation."