GAFFNEY, S.C. ? Ghost towns full of empty store fronts and padlocked factories. Unhappy workers who lost their jobs and are still bitter about it. And plenty of blame for the cause of all that misery ? Bain Capital and its former CEO, Mitt Romney.
That?s the grim narrative that Romney rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry brought to South Carolina this week. A pro-Gingrich Super PAC released a 30-minute documentary-style film portraying Romney as a ruthless Wall Street job-killer in communities around the country. Then Perry put a South Carolina face on the charge by denouncing Bain?s 1992 closure of a photo album manufacturing plant here in Gaffney as ?vulture capitalism.?
Continue ReadingBut a visit to Gaffney makes clear there?s a problem with trying to shape the Bain story line dogging Romney to fit the all-important primary state of South Carolina: Here, at least, it?s not true.
This town?s doing just fine, thank you very much. There?s a factory outlet mall (complete with Tommy Hilfiger for kids), an industrial sector anchored by a Nestle plant that employs more than 1,000 people, and the very symbol of creature comfort: a Starbucks. Not far from the landmark peach-styled water tower here, the Greenville-Spartanburg corridor is thriving.
And Bain and its short-lived ownership of the Holson Burnes Co., along with the 170 or so jobs here connected with it, seem - for most people anyway - a pretty distant memory.
In fact, the story that played out here two decades ago seems a relic of a distant economic era when China?s rise to dominance in global manufacturing was just gathering steam and photos came from film. It involved Bain?s promise to turn Holson Burnes into something big, and a gamble by local officials ? in the form of bond assistance and utilities improvements ? that the relationship would be good for Gaffney?s future.
It was a bet that failed when Bain shuttered the plant only four years later. But the closure has left little apparent fodder here for Romney opponents.
?Any good company that produces jobs, big or small, is important to the economy, but I don?t know but one person that worked for that company,? said Mayor Henry Jolly, a Democrat whose post has recently become non-partisan.
?I don?t think that?s going to play well in our community ? persecuting Mr. Romney for having an interest in that company,? Jolly said.
Not that there aren?t those for whom Bain?s brief romance with Gaffney left a bad feeling.
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