New GOP ads warn of disappointment, "dead" economy under second Obama term

A pair of Republican-aligned super PACs have each unveiled a blistering new ad a week before the election, blasting President Obama's first-term record and warning viewers that a second Obama term can only bring four more years of disappointment and a "dead" economy.

A new spot from Karl Rove's outfit American Crossroads, "Debate," kicks off with a news clip in which an analyst explains, "In the debate, [Obama] said, I need another term to keep doing what I did in the first term."

The actress onscreen, responding to the clip, says, "Mr. President, I was hoping to hear you had a new plan, but all I heard was, 'Keep spending. I haven't made any mistakes.'"

She continues, "But your spending hasn't done a thing for my family. What do I tell my kids about the debt they'll pay for, about finding jobs?"

The ad closes by asking the president, "What about your first term tells me another four years would be better?"

"Debate" is part of a larger $17.7 million buy in Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio by American Crossroads and its partner organization, Crossroads GPS.

A second new ad, "Flatline", from Romney-aligned super PAC Restore Our Future, delivers a pointed message: a vote for Mr. Obama means "your economy stays dead four more years."

The ad begins with a shot of an EKG monitor flatlining as a narrator explains, "If you saw this line in the ER, you'd be panicked. Well this flatline is Barack Obama's economy. Twenty-three million looking for full time work. Middle class incomes falling. Spending and debt, exploding."

After trashing the Obama economy, the narrator warns that Americans will fare little better under a second Obama term: "And Obama's second-term agenda is the same as the first. If you don't jumpstart America's economy now, your economy stays dead four more years. Demand better."

"Flatline", backed by a sizable $20.1 million ad buy, will run in eight swing states and a competitive congressional district in Maine (which apportions its electoral votes on a district-by-district basis.) Restore Our Future also reserved about a quarter of the $20.1 million to air the ad nationally.

The ad's caustic message, equating a vote for Mr. Obama with the death of the American economy, is par for the course as the campaign heads into the final stretch - both campaigns have amped up the vitriol as Election Day draws near.

A widely-debunked ad from Mitt Romney that implied Chrysler was shipping American jobs to China drew a heated condemnation from Vice President Joe Biden, who told a campaign crowd in Ohio yesterday, "I have never seen anything like that. It's an absolutely patently false assertion."

Biden continued, underscoring the Obama campaign's closing message about the importance of trustworthiness in leaders: "[Romney] pirouettes more than a ballerina...Ladies and gentlemen, have they no shame? Romney will say anything - absolutely anything - to win."

Former President Bill Clinton, who also spoke at the Ohio event, was more pithy in his appraisal of Romney's Chrysler ad: "That's the biggest load of bull in the world."