Obama Campaign Blasts Romney Over Failed Kansas City Steel Mill

(Kansas City, MO) -- While neither of the major presidential candidates are expected to spend significant time campaigning in Missouri, discussion of the state will not be completely absent from the national discussion.

In a new web and ad campaign targeting swing state voters, the Obama campaign is highlighting Romney's involvement in the failed GS Technologies Kansas City Steel mill during his time at Bain Capitol.

Bain took over the Kansas City facility in October 1993. After nearly a decade of being impeded by an underfunded pension program, the mill was closed, leaving 750 people unemployed, without severance, and pensions cut by $400 a month.

Bain, which invested $8 million in the beginning, received $12 million in profit from the plant, in addition to nearly $4.5 million in consulting fees. Romney, who left Bain in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, continued to receive personal income, even after the plant closed.

"GST workers really lost out, and Romney and his partners did not," said Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager. "Romney economics aren't a prescription for a stronger economy."

Cutter said the issue is not private equity firms or Romney's ability to profit, but instead "about the values Romney lived by as a businessman and the value Romney would live by as a president."

In a statement Monday morning, the Romney campaign said they "welcome" the Obama campaign's move back to talking about jobs and the economy. the issue their campaign hopes to focus on instead of the social issues that drove the conversation in recent weeks.

"If the Obama Administration was less concerned with pleasing its wealthy donors and more concerned with creating jobs, America would be much better off," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.