Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

>>> seeing another round of attacks from mitt romney and bain capital 's investments in jobs overseas.

>> it was reported that governor romney 's old firm were pioneers in the business of outsourcing american jobs to places like china and india. now, so yesterday's advisers were asked about this and they tried clear this up by telling us there is actually different between outsourcing and offshoring . [ laughter ] that's what they said. you cannot make this stuff up.

>> this latest move comes after romney 's campaign responded to a pro- obama super pac ad, arguing that, again, outsourcing is not the same as offshoring . romney 's senior campaign adviser also took a shot at the president.

>> this is just another assault on free enterprise by president obama . one of the reasons why this economy is not moving at the pace that it should be. it's why millions of americans have been left behind.

>> i'm joined now by alex burns, national political reporter for politico. good to see you, alex . outsourcing, offshoring , it is not your typical political argument , is it?

>> chris, i think what you are hear here is president obama 's message on bain and mitt romney 's career, a bailout, the president is frying to fled a careful needle, telling the values romney has a businessman would translate to the job of president being t is a lot easier to say this guy outsourced jobs.

>> he had taken quite a bit of criticism, as you well know, from everyone from coulderry booker to ed rendell , even diane stein stein said move on what is the idea here? why does the obama campaign think this is a winning argument?

>> well, chris, the whole idea of private equity , the whole business and what it actually does is something of a mystery to voters but this a state like ohio, or a state like virginia, the idea of a u.s. company creating jobs overseas instead of creating them here, that is a lot easier to translate and the kind of thing we have heard in political races dating back to you know, well before the 2012 cycle. the romney campaign is hoping that they can defend their candidate in the same way they defended him from the initial bain ads saying this is an attack on a legitimate business practice and a misleading ad. i think it is going to be interesting to see how long the romney campaign sticks with that line of argument.

>> is trchlgt i think it is instructive to go back to this ad that kind of touched off this latest round and it featured a worker who was at a company that got shutdown answered talked about actually building the stage where the company came out and said, oh, hello workers, we're closing. let me just play a little clip of that.

>> mitt romney made over $100 million by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives. turns out that when we built that stage, it was like building my own coffin.

>> there is a new poll out that showed voters, of voters, saying 12 battleground states , showed that 47% think that places like bain hurt people. do you think that that's some indication that the argument is working? urge i think this is certain lane indication will is a receptiveness to the argument. the ad you showed was an ad from the obama super pac which all along has been delivering a much more sort of hard-edged message on the whole issue of bain and obama has himself. we don't next act whether the top line numbers in this race are moving because of the bain issue but the polling you just saw is part of the reason why the obama campaign , allies on the outside, think they ought to keep on messaging in that direction.

>> politico's alex burn. good to see you. thank you.

>> thanks lot.

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