5:11 p.m. | Updated CHICAGO — President Obama said that he considered attacks on Mitt Romney’s experience at Bain Capital to be fair game, declaring that the former chief executive’s claims to being a strong business leader made his background at the private equity firm worthy of a serious debate.
“This is not a distraction,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference at the end of the NATO summit in Chicago on Monday, referring to Mr. Romney’s Bain record. “This is what this campaign is going to be about.”
The president has come under criticism from some of his Democratic allies for the Bain attacks. On Sunday, Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, and a top supporter of Mr. Obama, called the president’s attacks on Bain a “nauseating” part of negative campaigning on both sides.
Mr. Booker said the attacks on Bain Capital in campaign advertisements were unfair, though he later issued an about-face on Twitter and in a video, during which he said that Mr. Romney’s record at Bain was actually fair game.
Mr. Obama refused to concede that the attacks were unfair or unjustified, saying that Mr. Romney’s limited experience buying and selling companies for profit leaves him with little understanding of the job that a president needs to do.
“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about,” Mr. Obama said, stressing the words “this job” in his answer.
“It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity,” Mr. Obama added. “But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”
Mr. Obama said he views private equity firms like Bain Capital as a “healthy part of the free market” designed to “maximize profits.” He said there are “folks who do good work” in that line of work.
But he made clear that he views those who work in private equity — and Mr. Romney in particular — as limited by a view of the economy that prioritizes profits above all else. The president said that view was too limited at a time of economic struggles in the country.
“Their priority is to maximize profits, and that’s not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers,” he said.
Referencing the videos his campaign has released in the past two weeks that featured workers laid off by Bain companies, Mr. Obama said: “I’ve got to think about those workers in that video just as much as I’m thinking about folks who have been much more successful.”
“The reason why this is relevant,” Mr. Obama said, “is Romney’s main calling card for why he should be elected is his business experience.”
Mr. Obama’s advisers insist that their full-throated assault on Bain Capital, now in its second full week, is intended as a critique of Mr. Romney’s claims to be a jobs creator. But much of the commentary on Mr. Obama’s behalf describes Mr. Romney in highly personal and unflattering ways.
That approach has begun to have consequences. On Sunday, Mr. Booker said both campaigns should stop the “crap” they have been offering the public.
“This, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with,” Mr. Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.
A few hours later, Mr. Booker released a three-minute video backing off his criticism and trying to draw a distinction between personal attacks and legitimate criticisms of Mr. Romney’s time at Bain. In the video, he said it is “reasonable” for Mr. Obama’s campaign to examine his rival’s business record.
Mr. Booker’s first instinct may have been influenced by his ties with Wall Street executives, many of whom are his supporters. Other Democrats who have criticized the Bain attacks — like Steven Rattner, Mr. Obama’s former auto czar — are also close to the private equity world.
But the episode involving Mr. Booker suggests that Mr. Obama is walking a fine line as he tries to make Bain Capital a central issue in the presidential campaign. Both candidates are eager to attract independent voters who may be turned off by attacks they think cross a line of decency. And Mr. Romney has jumped at the chance to argue that the president has done just that.
Last week, Mr. Romney said the Bain attacks from Mr. Obama were intended to suggest that “I’m not a good person, or a good guy.”
The Republican party sought to stoke the issue further on Monday, using video of Mr. Booker’s “Meet the Press” comments to raise money with an e-mail that says, “I Stand With Cory.” The Republican National Committee also launched an “I Stand With Cory” petition drive and began using the #StandWithCory hashtag on Twitter.
And Mr. Romney’s campaign produced a video alleging that Mr. Obama’s supporters have “had enough of President Obama’s attacks on free enterprise.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign has dismissed that criticism, saying its Web site — RomneyEconomics.com — is an effort to describe how the values Mr. Romney pursued at Bain would color his actions as president.
“This is not about private equity or how Romney ran his company,” Stephanie Cutter, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama, told reporters recently. “It’s about whether his business experience there qualifies him to be president.”
But the campaign advertisements and conference calls are frequently platforms to question Mr. Romney’s personal qualities.
A video released Monday by Mr. Obama’s campaign highlights an office supply company whose workers were fired when it was bought by a Bain company. In the ad, the workers deride Mr. Romney’s personal ethics.
One says that Mr. Romney “did not care about us as workers.” Another says that Mr. Romney “takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich. He’s just the opposite of Robin Hood.”
A third says flatly: “You can tell by the way he acts, the way he talks. He doesn’t care anything about the middle-class or the lower-class people.”
In another ad, set at a Kansas City, Mo., steel plant, Joe Soptic, a former worker there, says that as president, Mr. Romney “would be so out of touch with the average person in this country.”
“How could you care? How could you care for the average, working person if you feel that way?” Mr. Soptic says.
He went even further in a conference call with reporters, saying that Mr. Romney “is only worried about one group of people, and that’s people like him, people at the top.”
The personal criticisms of Mr. Romney also come directly from Mr. Obama’s campaign officials. In the conference call with Mr. Soptic, Ms. Cutter said the issue was Mr. Romney’s personal values.
“Romney didn’t care about rewarding hard work or responsibilities,” she said. “It’s absolutely on the table as an indication of Romney’s values.”
That message is being echoed in “super PAC” advertisements on the campaign’s behalf. An ad by Priorities USA Action concludes with a worker saying that Mr. Romney “promised us the same things he’s promising the United States. He’ll give you the same thing he gave us. Nothing. He’ll take it all.”
To be sure, Mr. Romney’s campaign has been aggressive in describing Mr. Obama in personal ways. Mr. Romney repeatedly says that the president “doesn’t get it,” painting Mr. Obama as a kind of slow-learning neophyte in the Oval Office. His campaign often describes the president as a liar, saying he personally broke promises he made to the American people.
And the Republican super PACs have targeted Mr. Obama personally. The Times reported last week on a plan by one of them to link Mr. Obama to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr..
The question may be whether either campaign is making progress with voters by making the race more about the candidates and less about the policies they pursue.
Mr. Booker said on “Meet the Press” that the trash talk was crowding out more serious conversations about the economy and other issues. And in his video clarification, he continued to urge the candidates to stay away from the personal attacks.
“My concern is we are about to go into a significant political campaign that will affect the destiny of our nation,” he said. “I am, indeed, upset. I am, indeed, frustrated. But I believe the American public, working together, we can begin to more and more denounce this type of campaigning.”
“Ultimately,” he added, “my hope is that this election will not therefore be about the small things, will not be about divisiveness, will not be about denigrating, will not be about painting with a broad brush.”
Bain Capital issued a statement Monday in response to the new video from Mr. Obama’s campaign. Charlyn Lusk, a spokeswoman for the firm, said it has always tried to grow businesses.
“Our control of Ampad ended in 1996, fully four years before it encountered financial difficulties due to overwhelming pressure from ‘big box’ retailers, declines in paper demand, and intense foreign price pressures,” she said. “During Bain Capital’s ownership, revenues grew in 80 percent of the more than 350 companies in which we have invested.”
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 21, 2012
An earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to Cory A. Booker. He is the mayor of Newark, N.J., not the mayor of New Jersey. It also misspelled the name of President Obama's former auto czar. He is Steven Rattner, not Stephen.
