Pro-Obama group makes final case against Romney; Romney tries to win auto votes
Eight days from Election Day, the Obama and Romney teams are making a furious effort to woo voters in the critical battleground state of Ohio, and both sides are releasing new ads aimed at targeting the voters that could decide the election.
Today, the pro-Obama group American Bridge released a minute-long ad called "Romnopoly" targeting Mitt Romney's investment in the middle class.
The ad, which will air on television in Toledo, Ohio in a relatively modest $111,000 buy, casts Romney as wealthy and out-of-touch, to whom the presidency is akin to a board game.
"To Mitt Romney, your job and our economy are just a game: Romnopoly. You don't have to wait to find out what a Romney presidency would mean," the narrator says, before running a clip of the candidate saying "Let Detroit go bankrupt." "If you're Mitt, get rich with a little help from government, then you can tell everyone else they're on their own, like he did to these guys."
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The spot then showcases two former workers, who had been employed at GST Steel and AMPAD respectively, who lost their jobs when Bain Capital took over their companies.
"Mitt Romney acts like there are two sets of rules: One set for us and one for millionaires and billionaires," the narrator says. "It's not a game worth playing. Romnopoly. If Mitt Romney wins, the middle class loses."
The Romney campaign, meanwhile, released a new ad Sunday making a direct appeal for support from auto workers, apparently aiming to alleviate the relentless hits the Republican candidate has taken from Democrats as a result of of his 2008 op-ed, "Let Detroit go Bankrupt," in which he expressed his opposition to the auto bailout. The ad contends that Romney, not the president, would be better for the auto industry.
In "Who Will Do More?" the Romney campaign touts the endorsements of Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News, and claims that fact-checkers have deemed Mr. Obama's "attacks on Mitt Romney" as "false."
"Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama. Fact-checkers confirm his attacks on Mitt Romney are false," the ad says. "The truth? Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry. He's supported by Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News."
The ad, which was not released to the press, does not say which attacks fact-checkers deemed false, showing only a quote from Politifact reading "Mostly false" and the date 10/23/12. It also rehashes misleading claims about Chrysler taking American jobs to China.
"Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China," the ad's narrator says. "Mitt Romney will fight for every American job."
Last week, Romney cited an inaccurate source when telling attendees at a rally in Defiance, Ohio, site of a General Motors plant, that Jeep "is thinking of moving all production to China."
A Chrysler spokesman dismissed this claim - which was apparently based on a series of right-wing blog reports that incorrectly interpreted a Bloomberg story from earlier in the week -- as "a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats."
"Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It's simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world's largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation," Chrysler said.
At the time, CBSNews.com emailed the Romney campaign to ask whether they knew the blog reports were inaccurate and whether Romney will continue using the inaccurate story on the trail. The campaign did not respond to those questions.
The new Romney ad is fuzzier with the details - it does not say, as Romney did previously, that the company was "moving all production to China" but rather that the company plans to "build Jeeps in China" - but it evokes the sentiment that American jobs will be lost to China as a result of the president's actions, which according to Chrysler is not true. In fact, according to the Detroit Free Press, Chrysler is adding more than 1,000 new workers in Detroit this week to begin making the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
