And it was against that backdrop that Mr. Gingrich launched his harsh, 11th-hour attack on Mr. Romney's Bain Capital record.
In fact, the Inca were a bit like Mitt Romney's Bain Capital: They had a knack for taking control of long-established things and making them their own.
Gartcosh United's Adam Bain fell ill during his side's home match against Drumchapel FP at the Eastgate ground in North Lanarkshire on Saturday.
BBC: Tributes to tragic Gartcosh United footballer Adam Bain
Some of Bain's purchases became more efficient and successful businesses, while others, loaded with debt from Bain's fees, were forced into bankruptcy, costing more jobs.
Michigan University's Kenneth Lieberthal and Bain's Geoffrey Lieberthal, a father and son writing in the Harvard Business Review, blame weak management.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal in April last year Chris Zook, a colleague of Mr Rigby's at Bain, drew a comparison between Amazon, a diversified Internet retailer, and American Express, a company that had stuck to its core business of providing financial services.
Check.org ruled that outsourcing by Romney's company, Bain Capital, occurred after he gave up daily management responsibilities in 1999.
In attacking Romney's background at Bain Capital, the Obama campaign is following the example of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich from the Republican primary campaign.
Beyond the boom in unconventional oil in the U.S., Bain points out the increase in Iraqi and African production and, most importantly, the high levels of Saudi output.
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"We know that mobile is how people access Twitter, it's where people are overall, and we know it's where the business is, " said Adam Bain, Twitter's president of global revenue.
Without knowing what would have happened in the absence of Bain's intervention, one can only guess.
Relatives and supporters spoke of their devastation at Mr Bain's death on Facebook and Twitter.
BBC: Tributes to tragic Gartcosh United footballer Adam Bain
Moreover, the vast majority of Bain's investments did not yield such dire results for the companies involved.
Nor does it mention Bain's other steel investment in the early 1990s, in an Indiana start-up called Steel Dynamics.
Bain's lawyer successfully argued that Rangers may be unable to pay anything if it loses the tax tribunal in November.
Some unionists believe Mr Bain's multiple roles constitute a conflict of interest.
Mr. Santorum has so far refused to join rivals Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich in attacking Mitt Romney's business career at Bain Capital.
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What is more, Mr Romney is being disingenuous: not all the firms that foundered after Bain's involvement were simply down on their luck.
More than 100 women, most of them mothers, have returned to the firm since 2000, says Russ Hagey, Bain's global chief talent officer and a senior partner.
It might be possible to argue that Bain's financial engineers miscalculated in some instances, extracting too much profit from firms under their control and saddling them with ultimately ruinous debts.
Queen's Vice Chancellor Sir George Bain said the university felt it was achieving its goals.
Top employers for Dartmouth's 2008 graduating class include Bain, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, which are almost all high-paying posts.
The club's chief executive, Martin Bain, discussed a new deal with Bosnian left-back Sasa Papac on Thursday, but a contract has not yet been signed.
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These ads are unfair, of course, ignoring as they do Bain Capital's many successful investments, fudging Mr Romney's role and leaving out many mitigating details.
However it was supported by Labour's shadow DEFRA minister Willie Bain who said it could lead to future food security and a reduction in carbon emissions.
At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has been making noises that the Bain report's 11% rise with strings, already rejected out of hand by the FBU, need not be the last word on the issue.
In the 1990s, when the "old-technology" steel industry in the U.S. was failing, Bain Capital helped build a new steel company, Steel Dynamics, which has grown into one of the largest steel producers in America today, holding its own against Chinese producers.
We still continue to believe that Mitt Romney's experience and time at Bain, the deals he was or wasn't involved in depending on how long he was there, his investments, the short span of which we know about, are important because it offers a prism for the American people into what he's all about and what kind of a President he will be.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats want to make this a small election over small things -- Mitt's taxes, his wealth, Bain Capital.
Bain says KB's creditors have only themselves to blame because they undermined the toy retailer by selling supercheap toys exclusively to Wal-Mart during the 2003 Christmas season.
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