COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Mitt Romney?s done defending his Bain Capital record. He?s going on offense.
The former Massachusetts governor arrived here Wednesday fresh off his New Hampshire primary win armed with a new plan for a multi-pronged response to the Republican rivals who?ve been bashing his private equity past. Campaign advisers are polishing new messaging, tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately. They?re cueing up new commercials.
Continue ReadingRomney pushes for three-peat
And they?re rolling out a more aggressive approach from the candidate himself, even as the candidates who?d been waging the Bain battle appeared to be retreating from the rhetoric on Wednesday.
The change comes following three days of stumbling responses from Romney and campaign aides, who admit they were caught unprepared for the explosion of Bain as the dominant topic of the Republican race ? ?out of nowhere,? one adviser said. And it comes as Romney is aiming to turn his polling lead into a primary win ? an early-state hat trick they hope will quickly establish him as the presumptive GOP nominee.
They?ll start with advertisements featuring employees of companies started and rescued by Bain telling their stories ? a direct response to the documentary released by the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC that features employees of four companies closed by Bain that brutally slams Romney as a job killer. That documentary is set to be parceled out into shorter commercials that will air in South Carolina with a $3.4 million ad buy.
Romney adviser Kevin Madden said they?re confident they?ll quash those attacks with their new rebuttal.
?For every scare story that they try to present related to the governor?s experience in the private sector and free enterprise,? Madden said, ?we can point to a whole host of successful enterprises that have resulted in job creation and wealth and prosperity.?
It?s part of a shift for the Romney operation from painting his rivals as desperate for slamming him to instead casting their candidate as the standard bearer of traditional Republican economic values.
?Our identification with core Republican principles helps us in the primary,? said one senior Romney adviser, who asked not to be identified. ?Being in favor of capitalism is always a major positive in the Republican primary.?
?You?re going to get people saying, ?But for this company, I wouldn?t have a job,?? the senior adviser said.
Romney has already pivoted from his awkward response over the weekend ? including telling voters in New Hampshire that he, too, knew what it was like to fear being fired, from his early days out of business school ? to embracing the highlighting of his time at Bain as a positive.
?I?ll be talking about [Obama?s] record when I?m facing him,? Romney said told reporters aboard his campaign plane en route to South Carolina. ?And the other guys, they don?t have a record in the private economy, so it?ll be a different, I think, approach.?
And smacking back the suggestion that his rivals are simply leaping on a weakness now that the Democrats would have anyway exploited to the point of killing his candidacy, Romney ? who referred to the other GOP candidates as ?desperate? in his New Hampshire victory speech Tuesday night ? said he is unconcerned with how his record will be portrayed in the primary or the general election.
?We?ve understood for a long time that the Obama people would come after free enterprise,? Romney said on the plane. ?A little surprised to see Newt Gingrich as the first witness for the prosecution, but I don?t think that?s going to hurt my efforts. Frankly, if I can?t take a few shots coming from my colleagues on the Republican side, I?m not ready for Barack Obama.?
Romney?s also engaged his surrogates to mount a line of attack that?s been circulating among Republican pundits since the Bain firestorm began at the NBC News/Facebook debate on Sunday: GOP presidential candidates who attack Romney for working in finance are anti-capitalist.
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