>>> we are coming to you live tonight from the campus of ball state university in muncie, indiana. i was here to do an event earlier tonight with the great david letterman. we've had a great time. people have been awesome. muncie, indiana, is located right here. that's about an hour outside the capital of indiana. the city of indianapolis. if you drive about an hour north from here and slightly to the west, you will hit a town called marion, indiana. in the early 1990s, marion, indiana, was home to a big manufacturing plant owned by an office supply company called sem. that plant made paper produc products. 250 sem plant workers left their jobs for the july 4th weekend in 1993 and when they returned after the july 4th holiday weekend they found a notice at the plant informing them they had all been fired. on the spot. sem had been taken over by another company and they had all lost their jobs. that american economic tragedy was the basis for a series of what are some of the most devastating political ads ever run by a democrat against a republican. those plant workers in marion, indiana, were fired after mitt romney's firm, bane capital, help eed take over sem in 1993. a year later mitt romney decided to challenge ted kennedy for his u.s. senate seat in massachusetts. here's how ted kennedy ran against mitt romney that year.
>> mitt romney's ads claim he created jobs. what's the record? romney's firm bought a company called sem, fired all 350 workers are, told some they cowe could reapply at a 27% pay cut. many pregnant or older -- mitt romney, he's misled us twice, with negative ads distorting senator kennedy's record and the faulty claims about his own.
>> i worked there 30 years and i never dreamed that i'd lose my job.
>> mitt romney says he helped create 10,000 jobs. the former workers at sem in marion, indiana, stay something else.
>> if he's created jobs, i wish he could create some here. you know, instead of taking them waway away.
>> on sunday we were watching television and saw a commercial with mitt romney in it saying he was all for health care benefits and helping the middle class people get their jobs and i was just stunned because here we are, he has no job, we have no health care benefits and this mitt romney is trying to tell people that that's what he's all for and he's the one responsible for us not having any.
>> i would like to say to mitt romney, if you think you'd make such a good senator, come out here to marion, indiana, and see what your company has done to these people.
>> we had no rights anymore.
>> they cut the wages.
>> we no longer had insurance.
>> basically cut our throats.
>> i'd like to say to the people of massachusetts that if you think it can't happen to you, think again. because we thought it wouldn't happen here, either.
>> mitt romney lost that election and he lost badly after taking an early lead in that race against ted kennedy, mr. romney ended up losing by 17 points. if mitt romney becomes the republican nominee for president this year, i think you will probably hear that story from indiana and others like it again. as he travels around the country making the argument he's uniquely qualified for the presidency on the basis of his private sector experience, i think he can expect democrats to point out mitt romney's private sector success may have been very good for mitt romney but it really wasn't all that fogood for the regular people he threw out of work, whose americans jobs he shipped overseas. real people in real places like marion, indiana. mitt romney is not yet the nominee. he contends with newt gingrich to get the republican nomination, you're already seeing a variation of the 1994 indiana critique of mr. romney, except this time it's using 21st century language. this ad just started airing in iowa from the liberal group, moveon.org. incidentally, i have to say, i'd be surprised if lefty groups like moveon.org start running ads right now against newt gingrich because i think we're seeing more and more signs all the time that the left really wants newt gingrich to beat mitt romney because they really like the idea of obama running against gingrich. we're not seeing a lot of lefty ads against newt gingrich right now. but this is the anti- mitt romney ad moveon has just released.
>> according to the publisher of new hampshire's "union leader" which republican candidate represents the 1%? hint. he calls himself unemployed. while making plans to quadruple the size of his $12 million beach house. he thinks corporations are people. as head of a multimillion dollar firm, he shipped good american jobs overseas and cut thousands more. he's mitt romney. or as voters are starting to call him, mr. 1%.
>> moveon.org. political action is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
>> when you hear the line about cutting thousands of american jobs, think marion, indiana, right? interestingly, what moveon was referencing at the top of the ad was a critique of mitt romney from the conservative newspaper "the union leader" which andrea mitchell mentioned moments ago. the critique of mr. 1% is a critique of romney coming not just from the left but from the right.
>> gingrich is going to have a better time in the general election than mitt romney. i think it's going to be obama's 99% versus the 1% and romney sort of represents the 1%.
>> now, to be fair, "the union leader" has never really liked mitt romney. they basically ate him for lunch when he ran for president in 2008. it's not weird "the union leader" in new hampshire isn't endorsing mitt romney right now. what's weird is their criticism is they don't like mitt romney because he's mr. 1% and so they're supporting newt gingrich instead. that's amazing in part because newt gingrich is also a multimillionaire and in part because of the hilariously unsavory ways in which newt gingrich has made some of his money. i was a historian for freddie mac, but anybody else who took money off freddie mac should go to prison. mostly this is an amazing turn of events in the campaign because the whole translation of the 99%ers' idea into electoral politics is supposed to be that if you're running for office right now, you ought to have something to offer people who are not being served in this economy. people who are not making it because of the way our economy is structured. the way our political system is structured. even the frank luntz talking points for republican governors this week reported by yahoo! news, these were talking points for how republicans ought to talk about occupy wall street and the whole 99%ers concept. even frank luntz in his republican talking points generating machine had this as advice for republicans right now. quote, the three most important words you can say to an occupy are are, i get it. i get it. i get it. so even if you're not planning to do anything about the plight of the 99%, at least say, i get it. at least try to make it seem like you care. here's newt gingrich's version of "i get it" when it comes to the poor.
>> newt gingrich has long fancied himself one of the republican party's biggest new idea guys. his latest big idea, putting poor kids to work as janitors in their own schools.
>> they'd be dramatically less expensive than unionized janitors. and you'd begin to reestablish the dignity of work and in very poor neighborhoods you have to literally reestablish the dignity of work.
>> okay. now, this should be seen in part as bait. this sort of thing is usually designed to be deliberately provocative, to make liberals outraged. right? that's the way conservative politicians like to make themselves seem tough in front of conservative audiences. the conservative strategy of demonizing and dumping on poor people, attacking them for being lazy and mooching off the system and not understanding work, that's been a way for republican politicians to rally their conservative base and rile up liberals for a very long time. i mean, in 1976, when ronald reagan was campaigning for the presidency, he went around the country railing against welfare queens. people getting rich off welfare benefits, driving cadillacs, living in mansions with swimming pools because of welfare. the fact the welfare queens didn't seem to exist did not matter as much as the fact that conservativative audiences loved this idea. liberals, of course, were enraged by it. that was almost as valuable. republicans employed the eat the poor strategy for a long time to great political effect. newt gingrich, himself, has been doing this for a very long time.
>> in 1994, gingrich suggested that the government ship welfare children to orphanages and then even said first lady hillary clinton ought to rent the classic old movie " boys town," with spencer tracy and mickey rooney, to see how an orphanage is run.
>> newt gingrich's suggestion was that the children of welfare recipients should be taken away from them and shipped to orphan orphana orphanages. why do you say something like that in politics? do you think that's an actual policy that you plan on spinning out and implementing across the country? or is this just being provocative for political sake? this is a deliberate strategy. it's a strategy to bait liberals and to seem unpc and tough to conservatives. it's why last month newt gingrich proposed the 9-year-olds should be janitors and why gingrich is doubling down on the janitors idea in front of conservative audiences whenever he can.
>> we should contemplate very seriously that the poorest children in the poorest neighborhoods ought to actually have part-time jobs in the schools they have to go to. the trap, gingrich wants to trap the poor as janitors. then i was told janitors do really dangerous, hard work. well, the master janitor probably aught to do the dangerous, hard work, but i will tell you personally, i believe the kids could mop the floor and clean out the bathroom and get paid for it and it would be okay.
>> yay, the republican oaudience loves it and simultaneously cue the liberal outrage. we need that, too. notice how he puts that in there, light? i was promptly attacked. badge of honor. eat the poor strategy is the same thing behind newt gingrich's delicate language around the occupy wall street movement itself, right now.
>> all the occupy movement starts with the premise that we owe them everything. reassert something as simple as saying to them, go get a job right after you take a bath.
>> take a bath, that's hysterical. yay. cue the liberal outrage. newt gingrich and a certain extent the entire republican primary field is operating under an m.o. in which kicking the poor works. this is so great for republican audiences. it's not only an applause line. it's a laugh line. the problem is that they are operating under that strategy at the same time that even republican operatives are trying to warn them that this year in this economy, this is a bad idea. the ads against mitt romney featuring the indiana workers, those ads worked in 1994. the 99% thing didn't exist yet as a concept. how does mitt romney, how does newt gingrich think those types of ads are going to play now?
>> i'd like to say to the people of massachusetts that if you think it can't happen to you, think again. because we thought it wouldn't happen here, either. tdd# <d type ="phone" value="1-800-345-2550">1-800-345-2550
