This morning on Face the Nation, Ed Gillespie commented that Romney “retired retroactively” from Bain Capital after questions about exactly what year the candidate retired have come to light. Romney left Bain to rescue the beleagured Salt Lake City Olympics, detailed in his book “Turnaround.” [Full disclosure: I copyedited the book].
Gillespie said Romney may have been listed as “part-time” after 1999, but that he had no role in the firm’s day-to-day affairs, a point the campaign has attempted to make repeatedly in order to separate him from Bain’s activity related to outsourcing during that period. Romney has said he left the company completely in 1999 when he started working to plan the 2002 Winter Olympics.”There may have been a thought at the time that [Romney’s Bain work] could be part-time. It was not part-time. The Olympics was in a shambles,” Gillespie told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union.””He took a leave of absence and in fact, Candy, ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February 1999 as a result,” Gillespie said.
In response, the Left has seized on the comment to breathe new life into their attacks on Romney’s time in the private sector. Daily Kos put up a headline that it was the “best new meme” and on twitter the hashtag “retroactively” is being used to contrast the Gillespie news byte with the Obama #Forward slogan.
Obama’s team clearly feels that a “meme” victory is achieved by contrasting somewhat empty slogans rather than talking about the economy. As they seek out their own “attack watch” twitter victory, the “meme” victory has yet to be embraced by the voting public. As they continue to salivate over the one-word memes, we’re left with remembering that Romney was busy in the private sector creating value for our economy as Obama studied under the tutelage of Saul Alinskyites.
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