Mitt Romney must face his Bain past – Financial Times

Mitt Romney’s White House credentials rest on a simple foundation – he has the business nous to turn the US economy around. It is awkward therefore that he keeps backing away from his chief qualification. As the founder of Bain Capital, Mr Romney helped to pioneer the private equity business with which we are now familiar. It has its plus and minus points. By trying to wish away the latter Mr Romney is playing into the hands of the Obama campaign. Time is short. But it is not too late for the Republican candidate to reclaim what he has implicitly disowned. Indeed, his viability depends on it.

Mr Romney’s biggest error is to pretend Bain had nothing to do with outsourcing – a term conflated with offshoring – while he was in charge. Some of the most notable acts of offshoring by Bain-controlled companies took place after 1999 when Mr Romney moved to Utah to resuscitate the 2002 Winter Olympics. By insisting on 1999 as the cut-off point for his tenure at Bain, Mr Romney has made two missteps. First, as the Boston Globe showed last week, he continued as chairman, chief executive and sole owner of Bain Capital until 2002. His role may have been titular. But the fact his name is included on 62 separate Bain filings to the SEC after 1999 is uncomfortable. In politics if you are explaining, you are losing.

More seriously, by drawing the line at 1999, Mr Romney has made it clear he disowns any subsequent Bain investment involving offshoring. To be sure, he also thereby escapes association with the 2001 bankruptcy of a steel company in which he had originally invested – an episode highlighted by the Obama campaign. But Mr Romney is embarrassed by any hint of offshoring. A candidate can run but he cannot hide. If Mr Romney had painted a target on his back that said “shipping jobs overseas” he could not have helped his opponent more.

Unless Mr Romney embraces the logic of the global economy he will be condemned to the losing side of a mercantilist argument. If offshoring is a bad thing, so is onshoring – and indeed, so by extension is globalisation. By accepting this logic, Mr Romney betrays his integrity and the basis of his agenda, which assumes globalisation is a good thing that America can better exploit. It is an argument worth owning. Alas his campaign has embraced the reverse by accusing Mr Obama of being “outsourcer-in-chief”.

Finally, Mr Romney continues to resist calls to release his tax returns. To date, he has published only one year (2010) and estimates for another (2011). His secretiveness contrasts with most candidates, including his father, George Romney, who released more than a decade’s worth. Perhaps the years after 2000 would show how much Romney junior profited from companies with global operations. All the more reason then to tout, rather than run away from, his experience of a cross-border world. Either Mr Romney has the business savvy and character to be president or he does not. At the moment the doubts linger.