Well, it doesn’t sound like the Wanxiang rescue of A123 Systems is happening as The New York Times reports that A123 Systems says that the $465 million Wanxian investment was never completed. A123 couldn’t make its $75 million debt payment this week and filed for bankruptcy. It turns out the new winner is Johnson Controls, which gets A123’s automotive assets and factories for $125 million, a much smaller number than the $465 million that Wanxiang was outlining to try and revive the company. (Apparently Wanxiang remains interested in the remaining A123 assets, primarily its electric-grid technology and products for commercial and government entities.)

The Romney campaign is already out with a statement:

“A123’s bankruptcy is yet another failure for the president’s disastrous strategy of gambling away billions of taxpayer dollars on a strategy of government-led growth that simply does not work,” said Andrea Saul, Mr. Romney’s press secretary, in a statement on Tuesday.

With the presidential election getting increasingly tight and energy policy front and center in the election, tied to the perceived success or failure of the stimulus package, A123’s bankruptcy is not welcome news for the Obama campaign. It’s an unfortunate reality that the administration did the more difficult thing by trying to help cleantech companies scale, rather than merely intervening in end markets with subsidies for consumers.

That latter strategy, in hindsight, didn’t carry as much political liability. But also wouldn’t have given the industry much of a chance to produce companies that could innovate the energy sector. And it doesn’t take a VC to remind you that many of the companies in this high risk game weren’t going to make it.