Excerpt, 'The Real Romney': Romney's Exit from Bain Capital

Excerpt, 'The Real Romney': Romney's Exit from Bain Capital

Thursday morning the Boston Globe published a story alleging that Mitt Romney worked at Bain Capital three years longer thanhe has publicly claimed. The Obama campaign jumped on this with a conference call for reporters during which a senior campaign manager suggested Romney may be a felon.

Meanwhile, Fortune magazine revealed new documents which support Mitt Romney’s contention that he was not an active part of the company after early 1999.Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post‘s fact checker, noted that he hasalready looked at the underlying issue and found nothing in the Globestory that would shift his opinion. He also mentioned another source that supported Romney’s claim: “Interestingly,  ‘The Real Romney,’ a book on the former Massachusetts governor, by Boston Globe reporters,states clearly that he left Bain when he went to run the Olympics anddetails the turmoil that ensued when he suddenly quit, nearly breakingup the partnership.”

The Real Romneydevotes one chapter to the story of Romney’s involvement with the 2002Olympics. Romney’s involvement with the Games began after anembarrassing public scandal in which international executives receivedgifts from organizers. Utah civic leaders decided the Games needed aand above board. 

The search quickly came down to two men, Mitt Romneyand Jon Huntsman Jr. Huntsman eventually dropped out and Romney seizedthe opportunity, seeing it as a way to serve his state and alsotransition himself from a successful business career to public service.This paragraph describes Romney’s rocky transition away from Bain:

His departure from Bain Capital, though, was not so neat. Thepartners squabbled over how the firm would operate without him. A powerstruggle ensued. Several partners made plans to leave. Suddenly, acompany that relied on loyalty, long-term relationships, and Romney’spersonal courtship of investors seemed to be at risk. And such a breakupcould be messy. A Bain meltdown might mean lawsuits with tens ofmillions of dollars at stake. The potential existed for embarrassingdisclosures of how much money Romney had made on certain deals. “Itwould have been a circus, and circuses over money are not good forpoliticians,” one Romney associate said. Romney grew worried that thecompany he had worked so hard to build would be destroyed. The anxietyescalated until finally, one Sunday afternoon, Romney and one of hisfellow Mormons at Bain Capital, Bob Gay, knelt on the floor together andprayed for its survival. “We were facing a crucial event thatthreatened the very existence [of] our firm’s partnership,” Gay saidlater. In the end, the crisis abated. Romney left the firm, retaining afinancial interest in it, and Bain Capital continued to thrive.

A couple pages later, having accepted the job, Romney is beingintroduced to the public — “on February 11, 1999.” The Obama campaign ishoping people don’t care that this 1999 “departure” ever happened.

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