Mitt Romney's First Ad Drives Forward Campaign While Misquoting and Attacking US President
In a welcome of sorts to President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released a television attack advertisement that goes directly at the President and his policies.
The ad is to be aired in New Hampshire on Tuesday, as Obama visits the state to push for an extension and expansion of the payroll tax.
The first television ad by the Mitt Romney campaign opens up with President Obama behind a podium welcoming a crowd on Oct. 16, 2008 during campaign visit in New Hampshire.
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As the ad, it questions the President's handling of the economy with the statement narrating: “He promised he would fix the economy. He failed.”
It continued to criticize the President on issues like the national debt, unemployment and foreclosures, with a quote from Obama saying, “If we continue to talk about the economy we lose,” playing in the background.
When the attacks on the President subside, Mitt Romney appears and proposes a “smaller, simpler and smarter approach to government.”
The 2012 Presidential candidate then goes to advocate the cutting of government programs and repealing initiatives set forth by the President like “Obamacare” and the Dodd Frank bill.
Representatives of the Obama camp are not too pleased with the advertisement.
The Obama camp called out the ad for misquoting Obama with the line: “If we continue to talk about government we lose.”
When President Obama made that statement, he was quoting an aide to John McCain, his 2008 rival for the presidency. "Senator McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose,’" said the President.
"Just last week fact checkers scolded Mitt Romney for distorting a comment the President made about creating American jobs and now Romney launches a deceitful and dishonest attack rather than outline his own record or plans for the future," Obama’s reelection campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt said to CBS News.
As the election season heats up, Romney is focusing all of his time and money attacking President Obama solely, while bypassing criticisms of his GOP primary contenders.
"We used that quote intentionally to show that President Obama is doing exactly what he criticized McCain of doing four years ago," said Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to CBS News. "Obama doesn't want to talk about the economy because of his failed record."
Besides the ad, Mitt Romney wrote a letter to the President that will be printed in the four major newspapers. The letter further critics the President and his policies.
