Workers ask Mitt Romney to keep Bain from sending their jobs to China

(Tim Shaffer/Reuters) Mitt Romney is running for president on lines like "My job is to bring jobs back to America." Workers at an Illinois plant are asking him to start with his own investments. Romney has $7.8 million in Bain Capital funds that control auto-sensor manufacturer Sensata Technologies, and with Sensata planning to move 170 jobs from Illinois to China, the workers are appealing to Romney to use his influence at Bain to save their jobs. "We're just asking him to do the right thing, and show how he really does care about working families," according to longtime worker Cheryl Randecker.

Romney's campaign's answer is, of course, that he knows nothing about any of this, because he's retired, blind trust, blah blah blah, others lies and excuses:

"Gov. Romney is not familiar with this issue and has not been involved in the management of Bain since 1999," said Romney campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg.

(Or 2002, but whatever. He knows nothing!)

Okey-dokey, how about we say this: He has millions of dollars in funds that control the company and those funds are managed by his former coworkers. No, actually, by his former underlings. There's really nothing he could do to influence Sensata's direction? The movement of these 170 jobs from Illinois to China stands right at the junction of Romney's old job, his current investments, and his desire to get a new job "bringing jobs back to America," and his answer is he knows nothing and has no power to affect anything? If he can't keep jobs in America when he personally owns a chunk of the company, what does that say about his likely success as president?

Sensata is not alone as a Bain investment actively engaged in shipping jobs overseas. Josh Eidelson rounds up evidence of several others:

Bombardier [Recreational Products] is 50 percent owned by Bain; this month Romney was photographed riding the company's signature Sea-Doo watercraft. In May, the company announced that 500 jobs would be eliminated in Canada as production shifts to Mexico. [...]

Filings also show other Bain-owned companies expanding their offshore facilities, which could be a sign of more offshoring under way or in the works. Filings show that since being acquired by Bain and fellow private equity firm KKR in 2005, the medical device company Accellent has eliminated a quarter of its U.S. facilities (from 24 down to 18), while acquiring a 61,000-square-foot facility in Malaysia.

Romney apparently owns a Sea-Doo. Does he own part of Bombardier? How many companies has Romney invested in that are cutting jobs in the U.S. and adding them overseas? Never mind when and how he left Bain and whether the people he once supervised who are still at Bain now would take his input on the wisdom of outsourcing, if Mitt Romney is personally profiting to the tune of millions of dollars a year from moving jobs to China, Mexico, Malaysia, Bulgaria, South Korea and more, does that not call into question his commitment to bringing jobs back to America if elected president?