In an effort to right the ship after a turbulent week of stumbles and gaffes, the Romney camp is trying again to soften the candidate’s image, scheduling media appearances aimed at groups Mitt Romney typically struggles with, including women and Latino voters.
They’ve also pivoted to pointed offense, embracing the 47 percent comments as evidence of their principled stand against Obama’s plans to “redistribute” wealth.
After the initial complaint that the secretly recorded “47 percent” tape was taken out of context, the Romney team has released a campaign ad that takes president Obama’s own comments on redistribution — from 14 years ago! — entirely out of context. See below:
The video combines many of the GOP’s favorite doctored sound bites from the Obama campaign — including the infamous “you didn’t build that” line — and the Romney-Ryan team is running with this new claim at campaign rallies.
“President Obama said that he believes in redistribution,” Paul Ryan told a crowd yesterday in Virginia. “Mitt Romney and I are not running to redistribute the wealth, Mitt Romney and I are running to help Americans create wealth.”
Here’s the original audio, in context, from then state Senator Barack Obama:
Not to be outdone, the Obama campaign released its own ad playing fast and loose with Romney’s public statements, to hilarious effect.
Of course, at the end of the day there are obfuscations and then are the distortions bordering on the bizarre.
You may have missed it, but Wednesday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. President Obama even got into the act, tweeting swashbuckling lingo to his campaign supporters, with an accompanying image. But Thursday morning, Fox & Friends missed a step. They cited the image with the headline “TOO BUSY FOR ISRAEL / PRESIDENT FINDS TIME FOR PIRATE, LETTERMAN,” as damning evidence that the president had taken time for pirates but not for a key U.S. ally.
Except the thing about the pirate image? It’s from 2009.
“There are so many days, you can’t keep them all straight,” notes Gretchen Carlson.
The same goes for years, it seems.
Tonight on “The War Room,” guests Mark Viser, Mickey Edwards and Jim Graves join us to talk about the intense campaign fundraising cycle, escaping the political party trap and — is the Michelle Bachmann campaign faltering?
Find out this and more on Current TV weeknights at 10E/7P.
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