Romney: Obama allies should pull cancer ad

Mitt Romney said Thursday that President Obama and his allies should be embarrassed over a controversial ad from a super-PAC supporting the president that links the death of a cancer patient to the GOP contender's tenure at Bain Capital.

"You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on Bill Bennett's radio show. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact-checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”

Independent fact-checkers have noted that the woman — whose husband lost his job and health insurance after Bain took over the company where he was employed — died six years after Romney left the company, and had her own health insurance, and that Romney was not in charge of the investment firm when her husband was let go.

Romney added that he believed the Obama campaign has "focused almost exclusively on personal attacks."

Obama's campaign has distanced itself from the ad, saying they were not involved in the production of the commercial and were unaware of the family featured in the campaign. They also pointed out that legally they are not allowed to coordinate with Priorities USA, the super-PAC behind the ad.

"We have nothing — no involvement with any ads that are done by Priorities USA. We don’t have any knowledge of the story of the family," said campaign traveling press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday. "As you know, campaign finance rules in that regard are in place for a reason."

But Republicans have noted that the same widower in the ad was also featured in Obama campaign materials, and the Republican National Committee released a new Web ad Thursday accusing the president's campaign of lying about having no knowledge of the ad.

Still, it may be a struggle for Republicans to seize the high ground on the issue. The Romney campaign admitted earlier this year it deliberately took the president's words out of context for a campaign ad, and recent attacks on Obama's decision to grant waivers to states on welfare requirements have also been cited by independent fact-checkers as misrepresenting the president's position.

Campaigning in Colorado Thursday, Obama swiped at super-PAC spending — but from Republicans.

"Over the next three months, you will see more negative ads, more money spent than you've ever seen in your life. I mean, these super-PACs, these guys are writing $10 million checks and giving them to Mr. Romney's supporters," Obama said.

---