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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during news conference in front the shuttered Solyndra solar power company's manufacturing facility Thursday.
SAN DIEGO -- The Romney campaign has moved quickly to exploit the candidate's unannounced visit to bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra, producing a web ad entitled "Symbol of Failure," designed to highlight the president's role in the failed business.
The ad intersperses audio from national news broadcasts' coverage of the bankruptcy and subsequent federal investigation of Solyndra (including NBC's coverage), with clips of Barack Obama visiting the plant in 2010, and Romney's press conference there Thursday.
Graphics highlight what the Romney campaign is presenting as the vital statistics of the Solyndra failure, which took place after a series of federal loan guarantees were put in place which Republicans decried as the height of cronyism: 1,100 employees laid off, $535 million in taxpayer dollars spent.
After Tuesday's Texas GOP primary, Mitt Romney was able to clinch the party's nomination with more than the 1,144 delegates needed. Vanity Fair's Carl Bernstein and the Washington Post's David Ignatius join a conversation on why the race between Romney and Obama is so close. The panel also discusses Romney's recent hits against Solyndra.
The quick-turnaround ad comes as the Romney and Obama campaigns are concluding a week spent battling over Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts, and the salience of his role as CEO of Bain Capital when it comes to expertise creating jobs -- not just wealth for investors.
Thursday, the political theater reached its zenith (or nadir - depending on your perspective) with dueling press conferences on the East and West coasts, as Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod attacked Romney's record as governor in Boston, and Romney attacked the president's record, standing on a highway median in front of the vacant Solyndra headquarters in Fremont.
“Two years ago, President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus. Well you can see that it’s a symbol of something very different today. It’s a symbol not of success, but of failure,” Romney is shown saying near the close of the 1:38 second web video, as uplifting music begins to play.
"I can tell you that my experience in the economy tells me how it is businesses make decisions to hire people in America. I want to use that knowledge to get Americans working again. The idea of 23 million American families out of work or stopped looking for work or underemployed is unacceptable and crony capitalism like this did not help,” the ad concludes.
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Solyndra is just one of many examples of the federal government wasting our money. If they stook to performing legitimate federal government functions we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. What cracks me up the most is douche bag politicians are calling for more regulations because a bank made a bad investment and lost it's own money,all the while the federal governmennt makes horrible investments like this all the time. The hypocrisy is enough to give anyone a headache.
I don't give a crap when banks lose their own money because of stupidity but when they start playing risky games with my money someone needs to reign them in.
Are you talking about Obama or his pal Corzine?
Romney has had some failures too...but he walked away rich.
You would think that someone who wants to show that he is smart enogh to be President would know better than to stand in front of an empty building and no people to applaude. This Utah Idiot is showing how dumb he is every day . A kooky religion for a kooky politician . He left time on the TV for the people of Massachusetts to show instances of the stupidity of Romney as a former Governor.
What's romney yapping about? Standing in front of shut down businesses is what he does best. Only usually it is after he raped the business of all its money, fired all the employees and sent the jobs to China. Obama did not pocket millions from Solyndry like romney does on the businesses he shuts down. romoneys motto is 'screw the middle class... they don't matter. What matters is me and my buddies pocketing millions'.
Watch who you vote for, you to could be bankrupt.
Well DOH, that lsck of regulation is what threatens another meltdown that was created by the "too big to fail" institutions that almost destroyed the economy. That needs to be fixed (they both need to be fixed).
Solyndra, Another GOP Mess Passed To Obama
Solyndra is trying to rival her big sister Katrina's ability to make the federal government look incompetent. But whose baby is she?
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah used Solyndra to argue against worker-training benefits. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina used it to argue that the federal government should stay out of autism research. Disaster relief, cancer treatments, you name it: Solyndra has been an argument against them.
This year the government faced the prospect of a shutdown because House Republicans added a provision to the spending bill to draw more attention to -- what else? -- Solyndra.
"Because of some of the horrible weather we have had over the past several weeks, we have all agreed to add emergency funds we didn't originally plan in this bill, and Republicans have identified a couple of cuts," explained Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, including "a cut to a loan-guarantee program that gave us the Solyndra scandal."
What McConnell neglected to mention is that Solyndra was cleared to participate in this loan-guarantee program by President George W. Bush's administration. He also did not mention that the legislation creating the loan-guarantee program, approved by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005, received yes votes from -- wait for it -- DeMint, Hatch and McConnell. -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-birthing-of-solyndra/2011/09/26/gIQANTGC0K_story.html?hpid=3z
Beautiful!
These Jackals are reliant on the ignorance of their constituents.
So it seems that what we're talking about here at its core is a failed investment. So let's talk about that: what is the success rate for private equity investments? Not sure, but I do know that the best and brightest portfolio managers at the biggest money management firms make bad investment choices every single day. I work for one of them; I know. You can do all the research in the world, visit the company, talk to management, do the quant studies and screens, and it can still fail as an investment. It seems that is what happened here. Now that's not to say that it's not unfortunate that this happened, but the fact remains that even the best and brightest in the investment world make mistakes due to unforeseen circumstances or other factors that cause a company or stock to fail. Now if portfolio managers make continued mistakes they get fired. But one mistake? I don't know, seems like a lot of griping for a loss of $535 million, which in the grand scheme of say, what was lost when the economy collapsed from pension funds and other retirement plans, is pretty paltry. Let's try to keep this in perspective.
Romney as President would lead this country like Bush did. Giving tax breaks to the rich and big business doesn't create jobs but the buying power of the middle class does. Romney's stent as governor of Mass. was not a glowing report on creating jobs either, 47th in job creation. Romney doesn't have a clue running the Federal Government nor foreign affairs and probably will have this country in a war somewhere in the Middle East within months of being elected (shiver at the thought)
Republicans in congress where are the JOBS? You can create them but you don't know how! Stop worring about the social issues and do you job and help President Obama get the country moving.
I'm voting for President Obama at least he's trying to move this country "forward" but as usual the obstructionists Republicans could care less about the American people.
Obama holds stock in Solyndra, think thats why he signed off on it?
He does? I didn't know that! Give us the link to the proof, please
The realsymbolsoffailure arethedesinged to failcoporation that give romney money then disappear. The real symbolsd of failure are JohnPaulsonauthor of designed to fail securites ggiving rpomneymulti million campaagncontributions. These are sortents of a desained to fail Presidency should rRmney win.
So Romney wants to campaign on the failure of a Bush program? Figures. Deny the faults and failures of the Republicans and try to blame them on Obama. Not even close Mittens.
I see him standing there, and his voice resounds in my mind:
"Barak Obama gave them $500,000, and they went bankrupt. I would have gutted them and sold them to China, and put $500,000 in my pockets, and in the pockets of my sponsors. Is this what _you— want? Try try and to fail, instead of vulturing for profit?"
Can't edit, page is having issues. Should be $500,000,000 but you get the point.
Obama was advised that Solyndra would fail. He gave them the loan anyway as a payoff to the executives who donated money to his campaign. It is called the Chicago Way or, more commonly, political corruption. Unfortunately, we don't have a means to investigate the President of the US. We the people are without recourse and must suffer under the most incompetent administration in the history of the world. "Obama" will become the name applied to incompetent governments. The Afghanistan government will hence forth be called and Obama government, so too Greece, Spain, Portugal, Somalia, Syria, ....
It's stunning how many morons refuse to acknowledge the simple truth of what you say, Jamie.
Jamie: Really? I take it you're not deeply versed in the Constitution. Our remedy for misdeeds of a President is to beseech our congresspersons for Impeachment. If they refuse, our remedy for bad congresspersons is Recall.
So, if you're really so anti-Obama like you're told to be, you've already written letters to your Representitives calling for Obama's Impeachment on the grounds that he has violated the public trust.
Less stunning, the one idiot moron who gobbles up the adulterated spooge.
Here's a napkin. Wipe your chin off. You may need another. You missed some spots.
Rom boy seems to reflect what the Mormon Church and his faith taught him to bear false witness and lie. If Solyndra is per his say President Obama's failure then Rom boy's record as Governor of Massachusetts, head of Bain plus failure to have integrity is equal fair game. Sen. McCain has shown immense integrity to stand up and dispel wrongful and hateful accusations. Rom boy so far has not a testament to his character, integrity and faith based orientation. Simply, Rom boy has none he only sees green and has tunnel vision.
Why are we so freaking excited to rail Obama for giving tax payer incentives to a US energy company, when there have been decades of continual subsities for oil, which no one cares about.
You guys on here ripping Obama for supporting something W. started- are you this pissed off about our taxpayer funded incentives for oil too?
I hope so.
And when you stroke Romney for being the second coming, are you aware that he too, as Gov. gave away tax payer subsidies to energy start ups?
Solyndra is a non-issue and Romeny should stop lying about it saying that the inspector general found that contracts were given to friends and family- because he didn't and Romney's lying about it.
Good Mormon.
Taxpayer cash not incentives. When a child or spouse wastes scarce family money, there is hell to pay. The American electorate will unleash its own HELL on Obama this fall; just wish we had a way to recall a bad president like Obama instead of having to ride out this loser's streak. The British have it over us on this score.
Romney's just jealous that he and his cronies at Bain couldn't get in to profit off of Solyndra with one of their "structured bankruptcy."
Why is nobody commenting on Romney's outright lie? He states that the IG (Insepector General) said that they had determined that funds were given out to friends/donors. This is a falsehood. Check with the IG, they have made NO determination.
Additionaly - Romney has a couple of business in MS that he funded with TAX DOLLARS as well - and they failed too - so isn't he just as guilty of what he accuses the President of?
Guess he never heard the warning of casting stones in a glass house.
There is a difference between the so called Obama loan and the Romney money give a way. Romney lied about Obama giving money to friends and family but the truth is Romney did give taxpayer money to campaign donors for these start up company's that went under.
Obama should go back to school and learn economics instead of being the socialist that he is. Maybe then he will understand that you don't make investments in company's that are on the verge of failure. Especially with MY MONEY!
Our present downturn can be traced to the capture of both houses of congress by the left in the off year elections of 2006. Frank and Dodd pushed Fannie Mae to make every loser in the country a house loan regardless of credit worthiness. Brokerage firms on Wall Street sold "derivatives" to insure the performance of this bad loans for a couple of pts premium which was ridiculous! The premium should have been min. 10 % of the loan value. Bush should have gone on TV and used the bully pulpit to stop Franks and Dodd but did not. He became the frat boy when we NEEDED him to be the Cowboy. Sorry last two years for Bush and Neo-cons as they did not handle the liberal takeover of DC well. They basically surrendered to the left.
Obama is a failed experiment. He will be deposed by the Voters in Nov. Romney will right the ship of state which is severely damaged esp. Obamacare. Hopefully, the Supremes will void it, but it MUST be repealed in its entirety. That will required the removal of Harry Reid as majority leader of the Senate. So even if your state is not in play this fall, get rid of your liberal senators and congressmen! Very important. Obama has put this great nation at risk and Romney cannot get in office too soon.
Daddy, I suspect you're in for a big surprise if Romney gets elected in November -- which he may. The model he'll bring to the presidency is that of the consulting firm, not a business. The job of a consulting firm is to restructure an existing company and make it profitable for its shareholders (those who have paid him money to do the job) or to dissolve it and close the company down if it can't be restructured.
Either way, he gets paid. Success or failure, jobs or unemployment, mean nothing. The bottom line is profit.
As of now, what's interfering with private profit are all those burdensome government regulations, like those imposed by the EPA for instance. (Created by Congress and signed into law by our greatest socialist president, Richard M. Nixon, who also signed the Clean Air Act.)
By eliminating them, the contributors to his campaign -- I mean the shareholders -- will make a profit. As for the rest of us, I'm getting to like the taste of arsenic in my drinking water (Bush raised the tolerance limits) and I never wanted the steak I buy in the supermarket inspected by the government anyway.
Jamie Alvarez, I see it's make-up-a-fact Friday, eh?
Of course, that would be illegal and the Republican leadership would have been all over it like white on rice.
But please, continue to entertain us...
How is it that MSN did not call Mittens on his bold face lie that President Obama funneled money to family and friends when he gave his speech in front Solyndra ??!! I did not see anything in this article about Romney's Solyndra like attempts while he was in office! Liberal bias, RIGHT!!!!
I am SO sick of Romney and the Republicans who lie and lie and lie.
Solyndra was a Bush issue and the rest of the Republicans dropped the issue. I guess Romney did get the memo. Like Ann Romney says, It's Mitt's turn. I guess they expect him to get his TURN even if it's through lying.
He is an embarrassment!
Hornets inbound
The only reason Solyandra was a failure is because Solar Power creates freedom from politicians such as Romney who can only use systems such as gasoline and other "extracted resources" to effectively force upon an American the idealogy that the GOP and politicians like Romney want to force upon Americans.
Solar Powered homes are free of this outside influence because no one can control the Sun. It is a free resource that when harnessed allows an American to be free of the oppression of politicians such as Romney.
The only reason that solar power has failed for Obama is because politicians like Romney cannot use it to say "Look at all that I have created for you. Look at what hope I have brought to your family." Just so Americans will gather around him like sheep in cave scared of coming into the light.
Solar Power is the GOP's worse nightmare because it puts the sun at the center of the Americans Universe and not Romney who thinks of himself as a god.
Want to be free of the politicians lies and corruption invest in Solar Power and they will not be able to regulare your money by increasing the cost of natural resources.
Romney and the GOP hates freedom unless it puts them at the center so they demigog to everyone else as if they were a God.
What is totally a mystery is why Romney and the other Repub have such a low opinion of the intelligence of the American people. They must have the most awful consultants to pull stunts like these.
All it takes is a simple google search to discover that both Democrats and Republicans pushed this loan from the time the application was submitted until even after the company went broke. Perhaps the Repubs do not know about Google yet (certainly Romney clearly does not).
What is also terrible is the caliber of Presidential candidates the GOP is nominating. You know they have better people.
Yes they do but are in the process of purging them from the party. If you are a moderate or God forbid think of working with the other side let alone think of the unthinkable I.E...Compromise you will be challenged in a primary by a right wing zealot nut job.