Cast as Romney's Victim, Gaffney, S.C., Says, "Huh?" Raymond McCrea Jones for The New York Times Gaffney, S.C., a small Southern town that once boomed with peaches and cotton mills, has found itself the center of the latest fight in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. GAFFNEY, S.C. - This small Southern town that once boomed with peaches and cotton mills has found itself the unexpected star of the latest bruising fight in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. It was here in a corner of the state not far from the North Carolina border that Bain Capital, the private equity firm led by Mitt Romney, closed a factory that produced photo scrapbooks. The decision put 150 people out of work. Mr. Romney's company profited. In a new barrage of political advertisements and speeches here, three of Mr. Romney's opponents in South Carolina's primary on Jan. 21 have used Gaffney and Bain's business practices in other communities across the country as a kind of battering ram to portray him as a job-destroying robber baron. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas picked up the theme this week, calling Mr. Romney a "vulture capitalist" and pointing to Gaffney as an example of the depths to which Mr. Romney will stoop to make a profit. There is a problem, though. Here in Gaffney, where deeply held Christian beliefs often matter more than jobs, few remember the Holson Burnes photo album plant, let alone the devastation its closing is alleged to have caused back in 1992. "I have been here all my life," said Ed Elliott, who sells insurance. I'm 59 years old, and I've never heard of the plant. That Bain's actions carry little resonance in a community whose woes have been seized on by presidential candidates testifies to the impact of the campaigns" opposition research and their willingness to exploit a convenient storyline. Here in Gaffney, the focus is a little embarrassing for residents who do not know what all the fuss is about. At The Gaffney Ledger, a newspaper established in 1894 that seems to cover everything from stolen mopeds to the Y.M.C.A. basketball league, the publisher, Cody Sossamon, looked through old microfilm to refresh his memory. He could not find one drop of ink that was spent on the factory closing. Nobody here really cares about that. It wasn't a big deal," Mr. Sossamon said. We're looking for a new school superintendent. That and the economy are what people really care about right now. Others are similarly mystified. "I have to be honest with you, and I feel bad saying this, but I had to go look it up when all this started to come out," said Kayla Robbs, the executive director of the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, which hosted an after-hours business mixer on Thursday. "Most people around town were a little surprised because it happened so long ago," Ms. Robbs said. That is not to say the loss of any job does not matter here. This city of 12,000 people has been brought to its knees first by the loss of the agricultural sector and then by the slow collapse of the textile industry. Cherokee County, where Gaffney is located, is struggling with a 12 percent unemployment rate. But there is work to be had. The photo album plant that was abandoned by Bain soon became home to a Bic pen factory that employs 80 people. Nestlé has a large factory here, where a thousand workers make frozen dinners and other packaged food. The Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, with 500 employees, fashions chassis for school buses and mobile homes. About 700 people work at Timken producing steel roller bearings. "We're not Appalachia here," Mr. Elliott said. We're not in poverty. Although many mills have closed since the late 1990s, some still churn out fabric. Hamrick Mills turns raw cotton and polyester fiber into pants pockets and blackout curtains. And the company has jobs that can be hard to fill. Kim Phillips, human resources director, said it sometimes takes 100 interviews to find 10 workers to hire. People either are not qualified or cannot pass drug tests. It is not always marijuana or other street drugs, but drugs that are used without a valid prescription, he said. Here in a slice of the South so deeply religious that a copy of the Ten Commandments hangs in the local McDonald's, the discussion about the presidential race is as much about preserving a certain culture based on "family Christian values" as it is about jobs, Mr. Phillips said. And that could hurt Mr. Romney more than his opponents" attempts to portray him as a job-killing corporate raider. "It's the Mormon thing, that and the Northern thing along with the wealth issue," said Steve Moss, a retired banker who three years ago became the state representative for the region. Newt Gingrich does not fare much better with many, he said.