In a comedy of errors, Johnson's campaign is now distancing itself from a 1979 government grant (about a quarter of a million dollars in today's dollars) that paid for a rail line to be built from a new plastics facility in Oshkosh to the nearest rail road.
The new company would be built by Johnson's brother-in-law, Pat Curler, with the strong backing from his father, billionaire plastics titan, Howard Curler. The company would be named after company President Pat Curler and be called PACUR and the company's primary customers would be others businesses controlled by the Curler family-- something that hasn't changed in the 30 year life of PACUR.
Humorously, at the same time Johnson is running an ad attacking Feingold for "never being a job creator" he is at the same time saying that he never created PACUR-- "the job creator" -- and, therefore, cannot be held accountable for getting the government loan that helped build PACUR:
This grant was secured in March of 1979 by Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supplies in exchange for a substantial business investment for the City of Oshkosh. Ron Johnson moved to Wisconsin in June of 1979.
Of course what the Johnson campaign does not mention is that Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supplies was in New London, WI and was building a new plant in Oshkosh that would expand into plastics production, that they would call this new plant PACUR, and that the rail line in question was being built to this new plant.
Johnson is trying to have it both ways, but if he didn't create the job-creating PACUR, then he can't claim the mantle of "job creator."
All of Johnson's not-so-fancy-footwork is only shining light on two truths that erode away the foundation of his campaign: 1) The job-creating PACUR was (and is) almost entirely the creation of the Curler family (not Johnson) and 2) PACUR was created with government assistance.