PRESS RELEASE from DNC
For Immediate Release
January 10, 2012

Contact: DNC Press

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Statement on New Hampshire Primary Results

Manchester, New Hampshire – Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement on the results of tonight’s Republican primary in New Hampshire: 
 
“Mitt Romney may have won in New Hampshire tonight, but he can't run from the fact that his support was rapidly eroding before any vote was even cast.  Over the course of the last few months Romney had the support of as much as 45 percent of the primary electorate – at one point boasting a nearly 30 percent lead over the rest of the GOP field.  But tonight he fell far short of meeting expectations – especially in a state where he’s a part-time resident, which is next door to his home state of Massachusetts, in the same media market. He fell short next to a state where he raised a family and served as Governor, and where he’s been running on and off for political office over nearly two decades and for president for seven years.  
 
“But what’s more troubling for Mitt Romney is the fact that the premise of his candidacy is unraveling.  He leaves here wounded by a series of episodes that made it clear to voters – both in New Hampshire and for those watching across the country – that he is completely out of touch with the concerns of America’s working and middle-class families.  Romney disingenuously claimed just a few days ago that he once feared getting a pink slip when in fact his campaign can’t offer any examples of when that might have been the case.  Yesterday, he went as far as saying that he enjoys being able to fire people.  He continues to call himself a job creator, but his accounts of creating 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital have been knocked down across the board.  Even worse, as one of his colleagues said, he never considered what they did at Bain Capital as job creation. What they did was make a profit while companies were sometimes driven to bankruptcy, workers were laid off, and jobs were sent overseas.  These revelations have led to a precipitous drop in Mitt Romney’s support – and his failure to perform better in the Granite State is a significant setback for both his campaign and his candidacy for president.” 
 
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DNC MEMO
 
To:        Interested Parties
 
From:    Brad Woodhouse, Democratic National Committee
 
Date:     January 10, 2012
 
RE:        Romney Slammed for Being Out of Touch with Middle Class Prior to New Hampshire Primary, Which He Needs to Win by Wide Margin
 
As voters head to the polls in New Hampshire’s Republican primary tonight, the bar is set very high for Mitt Romney.  Romney has been up by 30 points against his Republican contenders for months here in the Granite State, and for good reason: in addition to having a home here and having worked and raised a family next door in Massachusetts where he was governor for four years, Romney has spent four years investing time and resources to win New Hampshire by a huge margin.  By anyone’s reckoning, Romney should be running away with this thing. 
 
Yet over the past 48 hours, we have seen increased scrutiny over central claims to Romney's candidacy from the media and Romney's opponents, and that scrutiny has caused his support to drop in advance of the primary.  That’s because the more New Hampshire voters see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him.  They continue to lose trust for Mitt Romney as they find out that he’ll say anything to win, he has no idea what working and middle-class families have been going through in this country, and while he says he’s a job creator, he’s actually a corporate raider.
 
ROMNEY HAS CONTINUED TO MAKE FALSE CLAIMS ON JOB CREATION
 
Over the weekend and heading into tonight’s primary, Mitt Romney has continued to make inaccurate claims about the number of jobs he created in the private sector.  He keeps falsely claiming credit for creating 100,000 jobs as a corporate-buyout specialist for Bain Capital.  As the Washington Post pointed out in a fact-check today, that’s “an untenable figure,” and the Romney campaign has failed to provide “a real accounting of how many jobs were gained or lost through Bain Capital investments.”  And Romney makes this unsubstantiated claim worse by failing to account for job losses that resulted from bankruptcies, layoffs and outsourcing.  Even one of Romney’s own colleagues from his days at Bain has said he never considered what they did to be job creation – but instead it was to create wealth for themselves and investors.  So why can’t Mitt Romney level with the American people?
 
ROMNEY SAID HE ENJOYS BEING ABLE TO FIRE PEOPLE, DISINGENUOUSLY CLAIMED THAT HE FEARED GETTING A PINK SLIP
 
Over the weekend, Mitt Romney said, “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip,” yet his campaign has been unable to offer any examples of when he might have been concerned about losing his job.  This is not surprising, as we know that Romney took the job with Bain Capital after working out a deal that was so sweet, it included zero risk.  The Boston Globe reported in 2007 that Romney only agreed to run Bain Capital after he was able to negotiate terms that prevented any financial or professional risk.  Romney had no skin in the game – and the only reason he knows what a pink slip looks like is that he’s handed out so many.
 
Just yesterday morning, in a shocking moment of true honesty, Mitt Romney said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”  That’s precisely the approach he took at Bain, where his business model was to put profits over people – regardless of the consequences for working and middle-class families.
 
CONCLUSION
 
As New Hampshire voters learn more about Mitt Romney, it becomes harder and harder to trust him.  They see someone who will say anything to get elected, and someone who claims he cares about helping the middle class but has played by a different set of rules than most Americans – one he writes for himself that is oriented towards creating profit at any cost.  And the central rationale Romney has made for his candidacy – that his business experience and economic background make him fit to lead the country – is unraveling before our very eyes.  That’s where Mitt Romney stands heading into tonight’s New Hampshire primary – and simply put, if Romney doesn’t greatly exceed 32 points he got in his 2008 second-place finish, this will be a loss for him.