President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign announced new television ads in three key swing states 6/26, each targeting Mitt Romney. The 30-second spots, set to air in Iowa, Virginia and Ohio, slam Romney as an advocate for outsourcing.
The ad’s premise pulls from a Washington Post story on 6/22 that claims Romney’s former private equity firm, Bain Capital, owned companies that were “pioneers” in outsourcing, particularly in low-wage countries such as China and India.
Romney’s campaign dismissed the story as “fundamentally flawed,” arguing that the newspaper report failed to differentiate between domestic “outsourcing” and “offshoring.” They said the president was using “false and discredited attacks” to distract from his own economic record: “If President Obama had even half of Mitt Romney’s record on jobs, he’d be running on it. But President Obama has the worst record on jobs and the economy of any president in modern history, which is why he is running a campaign based on distractions, not solutions,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement.
The report also said one of Bain’s former companies invested heavily in international call centers. But a fact-check by the American Enterprise Institute showed that the call centers and manufacturing plants were meant to service international customers, not American customers.
While the new Obama spots are largely the same commercial, “Revealed,” each is slightly tweaked to cater to the state in which it’s airing. The ads respond directly to claims Romney made in his own state-specific ad rollout last week, when he pushed commercials in Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina, reported CNN.
In Tuesday’s Obama ad for Iowa, for example, the spot takes a claim from Romney’s Iowa commercial last week that said a Romney presidency would mean “fewer worries” about the future for Iowans.
“Fewer worries?” the male narrator in the Obama spot says. He then goes on to highlight the Washington Post story. “Does Iowa really want an outsourcer-in-chief in the White House?”
Each ad takes an almost identical storyline, with only the first few seconds differing depending on which state it airs. The Ohio ad, for example, features Romney claiming he would “stand up to China,” reports CNN.
“But would he?” the male narrator in the Obama ad says, before moving on to the Washington Post report.
The third ad, airing in Virginia, asks the same question over Romney’s promise to create thousands of new jobs in the state. Its release coincides with Romney’s campaign visit to Virginia on 6/27.
