The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is making hay out of the “Etch A Sketch” remark made Wednesday by a Mitt Romney campaign aide.
The DNC released a second ad Thursday playing off Eric Fehrnstrom’s remark that the Romney campaign is "almost like an Etch A Sketch” as it moves forward to November, because "you can kind of shake it up and restart it all over again.
On-screen text for the new ad brands the GOP front-runner as "unshakably extreme," and shows video of Romney, stylized as if it were drawn on an Etch a Sketch, pledging not to abandon his conservative principles.
"The issues I’m running on will be exactly the same," Romney says in the ad. "I’m running as a conservative Republican, I was a conservative Republican governor, I’ll be running as a conservative Republican nominee, excuse me, at that point hopefully, nominee for president. The policies and positions are the same."
The ad closely resembles videos released by the DNC and a liberal super-PAC Wednesday.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party also said Thursday that they would deliver a "backup" Etch A Sketch to Romney headquarters in Boston Thursday afternoon, while donating a correspondent batch to an area children's charity.
The Romney campaign is looking to put the remark behind them, with Fehrnstrom joking about the incident Thursday on Twitter.
Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul mocked GOP rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich for bringing the toy on the campaign trail Wednesday.
"You know you have reached the end of a long, hard-fought campaign when your opponents are waving around children’s toys at campaign events," Saul said in a memo to reporters.
Santorum was undeterred, again producing the toy while campaigning Thursday in Texas.
“You win by giving people a choice. You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future,” Santorum said to supporters in San Antonio.
