Huckabee goes after Romney's "turnaround" record

Mike Huckabee took a jog this morning on Fort Lauderdale Beach, but first decided to trample on Mitt Romney's record as a venture-capitalist turnaround guru. The transcript:

Huckabee: "One needs to look exactly at what the business record is. If it's taking companies in serious trouble, buying them when they're in pain, selling off their assets and then making a huge profit off of it, that's not something a lot of Americans can relate to except those who lost their jobs because of those kind of transactions. If that's the turnaround, then there are a lot of Americans who would really not like to see their own lives turnaround quite like that.

Q: Did Romney do that?

A: Well, look at the record.

Q: I must admit, I'm not familiar with it. Are you familiar with any instances like that?

A: Certainly.

Q: Can you name one.

A: There were several companies that were purchased, KB Toys for instance, other companies that were bought. I think what you do is take a good look. L.A. Times recently did a story (here and here)on a lot of the money made in these transactions (that) ended up offshore, bank accounts that aren't even in the United States.

Romney supporters and former workers at Bain Capital say the attack is unfair and that the nature of business leads to tough choices.

According to the L.A. Times: "The story that gets written is he made lots of money and he's an evil person, that he's a robber baron," said Charles Baird Jr., a former managing director at Bain Capital. "People should be proud of the people he hired, the jobs he created and the pension funds he helped."

Comments

[Kenneth Naylor]

Perhaps we should look at Huckabee's record in private industry. Wait, he doesn't have one. He will probably stay in the race long enough to be McCain's attack dog, similar to another Arkansas governor from Hope.

[Dianne Brown]

Mitt Romney has a wonderful record and is a true conservative. He is the candidate for the Republican nomination and then President. John McCain and Mike Huckabee have problems with telling the truth. As a Southern Baptist, I am not proud of the way Huckabee has conducted himself nor of his liberal record. McCain earned the name "Maverick". He is just getting worse. He fought President Bush on just about everything he tried to do.