Continuing its attack from last week, the Obama campaign is hitting Mitt Romney on his record as the governor of Massachusetts in a stinging new television ad.
The ad, called “Heard it Before,” focuses on Romney’s campaign promise to bring new jobs to struggling economies, a line from both his gubernatorial and presidential elections. While he was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th in job creation and lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs, the Obama campaign says. The ad also hits Romney on exporting call center jobs to India.
“He cut taxes for millionaires like himself, while raising them on the middle class, and left the state two point six billion deeper in debt,” the narrator says. “So now, when Mitt Romney talks about what he’d do as President … remember, we've heard it all before.”
"Romney economics: It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now," the ad concludes.
Last week, the Obama campaign tried to shift its attacks on Romney from his time at Bain Capital to his time in the Bay State. On Thursday, David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, held a press conference at the State House in Boston, a symbolic gesture that was drowned out by hecklers sent by the Romney campaign.
The Romney campaign responded to the ad, defending the former governor's record of getting Massachusetts's unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent.
"Having abandoned ‘Hope and Change,' the Obama campaign only ‘Hopes To Change The Subject' from an abysmal jobs report," Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said in an email to National Journal. "We're happy to compare the 4.7% unemployment rate Mitt Romney achieved in Massachusetts to President Obama’s weak record any day. President Obama's policies have failed to get Americans back to work – it’s time for a president who has worked in the real world economy and understands how to get this economy moving again."
The new ad is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox. Sign up for National Journal's morning alert, Wake-Up Call, and afternoon newsletter, The Edge. Subscribe here.
Leave A Comment