“A good chunk of the media just wants to talk about the almighty polls, or what Sarah Palin’s bus tour means, or whether Donald Trump’s hair is colored,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said.
That emphasis on the superficial — and a healthy dose of liberal bias — meant that most voters had no idea that candidate Barack Obama’s only previous job experience was as a community organizer. Nor did they know that his only accomplishment in that capacity was to get some asbestos removed from one public housing project.
Not until Obama was already ahead of Hillary Clinton in the primaries did voters learn that he had spent 20 years listening to the anti-America, anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-Israel hate speech of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.
Is it any wonder that since taking office three years ago, Obama has largely failed at creating jobs and stimulating the economy? Now in the run up to the 2012 presidential election, the press once again is ignoring those qualities in the leading Republican candidate that anyone would focus on when hiring a new employee.
Few voters know that Mitt Romney holds degrees from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Few know that as a founder of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, Romney decided to invest in Staples when it had not yet opened its first office supply store. Thomas G. Stemberg, its founder, told Bain Capital that companies spent more on office supplies than they realized. He also cited the growing number of self-employed people who work at home and would patronize a discount stationery store.
Romney decided he would test Stemberg’s claim himself.
“He had his associates do a survey on how much people were spending on office supplies,” Stemberg tells Newsmax. “They’d call people and ask for the office manager and ask what they spend. They thought they were spending $200 an employee.”
That was a fifth of what Stemberg claimed they were spending. By having his people check invoices, Romney found out that Stemberg’s estimate was right. Romney agreed to put $600,000 of Bain Capital money into the new venture.
“He made eight times his money in three years,” Stemberg says.
Today, Staples employs 70,000 people. Besides Staples, Romney’s Bain Capital started or acquired such companies as Domino’s Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, and Sports Authority, helping to create jobs for literally millions of people over the years.
Contrary to the spin by opponents, Romney’s Bain Capital represented capitalism at its best.
Similarly, few know that in July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner in Bain Capital, disappeared. As it turned out, she had attended a rave party in New York City and had become high on ecstasy.
Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find Gay’s daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott. He hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with New York City police.
Romney enlisted employees of Bain Capital’s accounting firm and its law firm in New York to put up posters with a photo of the missing teenager. Cashiers at Duane Reade Pharmacies, owned by Bain Capital, stashed fliers with her photo in every shopper’s bag.
Romney and others from Bain Capital trudged through Manhattan, even scouring Central Park, and talked with everyone they could — prostitutes, drug addicts — to try to develop leads.
The hunt made the evening news, which ran photos of the girl and video of investment banker types prowling through Central Park in three-piece suits. The next day, a teenage boy she was with phoned in and asked if there was a reward. The boy got nervous and quickly hung up, but police traced the call to a home in Montville Township, N.J.
When they found her in the basement of that home, Gay’s daughter was shivering through detox after a massive dose of ecstasy. His daughter probably would not have lasted another day, doctors told him.
The fact is Romney saved the young girl’s life, but you will not see that story in the mainstream media. Instead of Bain Capital’s more than a hundred success stories that put food on the table for American families, you will see articles on the handful of instances when Bain had to shutter the doors of companies it acquired because they were losing money.
By ignoring such signs of character and competence in the Republican front-runner, the press does a disservice to the American people.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. He is a New York Times best-selling author of books on the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. His latest, "The Secrets of the FBI," has just been published. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via email. Go Here Now.
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