The battle of the political ads is in full swing as President Obama's reelection team Monday unveiled a new video bashing Republican nominee Mitt Romney for a commercial that mocks the president's comment — later clarified — that the private sector economy was "doing fine."
"Mitt Romney and his billionaire allies can spend millions to distort the president's words," the ad's narrator says. "But they're not interested in rebuilding the middle class."
The ad will run in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Florida, according to an Obama spokesperson.
The commercial emphasizes the president's economic bona fides, with images of Obama meeting with workers and touring factories accompanied by optimistic music.
"He has fought to pull us out of economic crisis for three years and he still is. President Obama's plan keeps taxes down for the middle class, invests in education and asks the wealthy to pay their fair share," the narrator says.
The ad, titled “Rebuild,” is a response to a Romney campaign commercial released last week that highlighted Obama’s comment on the private sector, which the administration later walked back.
Republicans are using the remark to paint the president as out of touch, while Obama has said he meant to express that the private sector was adding jobs, albeit at a slow rate, and that public sector workers needed assistance as well.
“President Obama has had over three years to turn around our economy, but his big-government policies have not helped the middle class like he promised," said Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg in a statement Monday. "President Obama said that the private sector is ‘doing fine’ just as middle-class Americans are struggling to make ends meet, find good work, and stay in their homes. Mitt Romney knows we can do better, and he will put in place policies that will unleash the private sector and spur job creation.”
The Romney ad released last week features a series of discouraging statistics about the nation's economy superimposed over black-and-white images of workers standing in unemployment lines. After on-screen text reads, "The President's Response?" and a clip of the president's "doing fine" comment plays repeatedly.
Obama himself referenced the Romney attack during a campaign speech Friday in Florida.
"All that money is going to be spent on ads telling you that the economy is bad, that it's all my fault, that I can't fix it because government is always the answer — according to me — or because I didn't make a lot of money in the private sector or because I'm in over my head, or because I think everyone is doing 'just fine,' " Obama said.
"They will have ad after ad and all of them will have scary voices. They'll have pictures of me looking all old and broke down. ... That might be their plan to win the election, but it's not a plan to win back jobs."
