Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who jumped into the Democratic presidential race Thursday, was immediately fending off questions about his ties to Bain Capital, the same investment firm that was a major liability for Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid.

Mr. Patrick has resigned from the firm, but his connections could make liberal activists wary of a candidate with such deep ties to private equity in a race where villainizing capitalism and the wealthy has become mainstream.

In 2012, President Obama and his allies used Mr. Romney’s experience at the firm, which also engaged in corporate takeovers, as fodder to attack Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat who wouldn’t hesitate to shut down factories or ship jobs overseas if it improved the company’s bottom line.

Mr. Patrick, who counts Mr. Obama as a close ally and who was a key surrogate during his 2012 reelection bid, actually got crosswise with the campaign’s messaging at one point by defending the firm.

Mr. Patrick’s past business ties could end up out of place in a race that features Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernard Sanders of Vermont, who have enthralled far-left activists by running on anti-corporate platforms and calls to impose significant new taxes on the wealthy.

“They’re already going after it anyway, whether or not they use the word ‘Bain,’” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell.

Mr. Patrick, the first black governor of Massachusetts who served as the commonwealth’s chief executive from 2007-2015, announced his presidential bid on Thursday after he had said last December he would not run for president in 2020, citing the “cruelty” of the process that would affect people close to him.

Read more from David Sherfinski at The Washington Times

Political observers are asking whether Mitt Romney could pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate a day after a story on the Drudge Report said she has emerged as the front-runner.

Strategists acknowledge picking the former Bush administration secretary of State would be a bold, unconventional choice that could broaden support for Romney among independents.

Yet many questioned whether floating Rice’s name as a front-runner was really aimed at shifting the political discussion from Romney’s tenure at the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Skeptics pointed to reasons why Rice could hurt a Romney ticket.

Count Republican strategist Ford O'Connell among the skeptics when it comes to Romney picking Rice.

“Team Romney appears to be looking for a running mate who is an experienced officeholder, can rally the base and play well in the suburbs. Given that Rice has ties to President George W. Bush, has never held elected office and her positions on abortion and immigration are to the left of Romney, I just don’t see how she fits that bill,” he said in an interview. “I think this is a clever diversion by the Romney folks to change the subject on what has clearly been an off-week for them.”

Read more from Justin Sink at The Hill

On the facts, nothing terribly new was added to the Bain equation by the Boston Globe story charging that Mitt Romney controlled the company for three years longer than he previously claimed. Several fact-checking organizations said the charges aren’t exactly breaking news and Romney’s denials have some validity.

The problem for the Romney campaign, when it comes to the Bain issue, is that things are reaching the point where the facts don’t really matter. The bigger problem is that the Bain cloud now hanging over the former Massachusetts governor is growing daily, and the Romney campaign still hasn’t found a compelling way to respond to what’s becoming the driving narrative, fairly or unfairly, of the 2012 campaign.

President Barack Obama and Democrats say Bain’s companies, and by extension Romney, laid off workers and outsourced jobs, shipping them overseas. But many of those acts happened after 1999, when Romney says he wasn’t responsible because he was no longer truly running Bain. But the Globe report showing Romney linked to the private equity firm as late as 2002 could contradict those claims, at least in the eyes of voters.

Romney’s business experience is his strongest selling point as he frequently argues his time in the private sector makes him more qualified than Obama to fix the economy. The Democratic attacks are starting to get labeled as the equivalent of the “Swift Boat” offensive that sunk John Kerry’s presidential campaign over his Vietnam war record.

Romney is violating a basic rule of politics, GOP strategist Ford O’Connell warns: Define yourself before your opponent does it for you.

“He needs to get out ahead of this and put this issue to rest before it becomes a major distraction,” O’Connell said. “He has yet to do it and if he doesn’t do it, Obama is going to do it for him.”

Not answering has the potential to eat away at Romney’s support in swing states.

“We’re starting to see evidence in some of the battleground states that this is working in the favor of the president,” O’Connell said. “There are only so many more of these chinks in the armor Romney can take.”

Banking on voters casting their ballots against Obama without Romney providing his own vision or plan is a “fool’s errand,” O’Connell said. “The key for Romney is to define himself and provide a bold, clear vision for the future,” he said.

Read more from Ginger Gibson at Politico

Team Obama went after Mitt Romney on his home turf Thursday, criticizing his tenure as governor of Massachusetts from the steps of the State House and in a video that features local Democrats taking apart Mr. Romney’s record.

Supporters for both campaigns gave the event a carnival-like atmosphere. Obama supporters carried signs saying “Romney Economics: It Didn’t Work Then, It Won’t Work Now,” a line Axelrod repeated in his remarks. The pro-Romney supporters shouted “We want Mitt!” and “Solyndra! Solyndra!” – a reference to the solar manufacturer that received more than $500 million in loan guarantees authorized by the Obama administration, only to go bankrupt. In a bit of counterprogramming Thursday, Romney criticized Obama’s energy policies from the steps of the shuttered Solyndra plant in Fremont, Calif. 

The Obama campaign’s focus on Romney’s Massachusetts tenure represented a pivot away from the carpet-bombing of Romney’s time as CEO of Bain Capital, a private-equity firm. Republicans argue Team Obama is simply throwing dirt wherever it can, in the hopes that some of it sticks. The challenge for Romney, they say, is to explain all the underlying factors marking his time as governor.

“Romney has to say, ‘I inherited a mess in the Bay State like the companies we turned around at Bain and I improved the situation,’ ” says Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “That is the Bain tie-in. Obama doesn't want voters to make that causal link.”

It’s telling that Obama has gone so negative in this opening round of the general-election campaign, he says. “It indicates that they know they are in trouble,” says Mr. O’Connell. “And it is cutting into the one item that Obama has a clear advantage on – likability.”

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Romney still trailing Obama on favorability, but he has closed the gap, as Romney has gained among women and Obama’s popularity has slipped. Obama still beats Romney on favorability by 11 points, 52 percent to 41 percent, but last month the gap was 21 points.

Read more from Linda Feldmann at The Christian Science Monitor

Ford O'Connell and Democratic pollster Margie Omero join Fox News' Chris Stirewalt on Fox News Live's Power Play to discuss whether Syria could become an issue in the 2012 battle for the White House and the ongoing debate between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney concerning Bain (private equity) and Solyndra (public equity).

Ford O'Connell and Democratic strategist Penny Lee join Fox News' Clayton Morris on Fox & Friends to discuss President Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital, and whether the president should be criticizing Romney's record given that Obama is presiding over a soaring deficit.

Clearly Team Romney is driving Team Obama bananas. From Mike Allen and Jim Vanderhei at Politico:

Nothing inspires Democrats like the Barack Obama swagger — the supreme self-confidence on stage, the self-certainty in private.

So nothing inspires more angst than when that same Obama stumbles, as he has leaving the gate in 2012.

That’s the unmistakable reality for Democrats since Obama officially launched his reelection campaign three weeks ago. Obama, not Mitt Romney, is the one with the muddled message — and the one who often comes across as baldly political. Obama, not Romney, is the one facing blowback from his own party on the central issue of the campaign so far — Romney’s history with BainCapital. And most remarkably, Obama, not Romney, is the one falling behind in fundraising.

National polls, which had shown Obama with a slight but steady lead over Romney through April, moved into a virtual tie this month — despite Romney’s clumsy conclusion to the GOP race.

Ford O'Connell and Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene join Fox News' Eric Shawn on Fox News Live to discuss the latest polling the 2012 battle for the White House between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the 2012 battleground states, the role that the Hispanic vote will likely play, Romney's record at Bain Capital and as governor of Massachusetts.

Outsiders may see President Obama's decision to go after Mitt Romney's private equity record at Bain Capital as a high-risk, high-reward strategy that ultimately could cost him—or win him—the presidential election.

But it's not hard to figure out why the president will pursue this tactic. He doesn't have much else to run on, and he's seen it work.

The White House is there for the taking. Voters continue to tell pollsters they like President Obama but worry about the frightening amounts of debt he has piled on with little to show for it. His numbers, says ABC News political director Amy Walter, "are like a ticking time bomb. If the economy doesn't improve, and if Romney can present himself as a reasonable alternative, there's nowhere for Obama's numbers to go but down."

Chris Stirewalt of Fox News says, "Romney and Bain were widely seen as very good at what they did, not plunderers but responsible corporate citizens." That's the Bain Romney needs to present. That's the Bain Newark Mayor Cory Booker could not bring himself to criticize Sunday on Meet the Press. And that's a Bain that won't drag down Romney's chances at the White House, no matter how hard President Obama pushes.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at U.S. News & World Report

Update: Article mentioned at The Week as a top opinion pick

Ford O'Connell and Democratic strategist Penny Lee join Current TV's Eliot Spitzer on Viewpoint to discuss the latest polling in the 2012 battle for the White House, President Obama's decision to go after Republican challenger Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital and what could result from the Supreme Court's summer ruling on ObamaCare.