SALON

Thursday, Aug 9, 2012 7:15 AM UTC

Obama pushes economic fairness; ad draws derision

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Obama pushes economic fairness; ad draws derisionPresident Barack Obama speaks to supporters at a campaign stop in Grand Junction Colo., Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/William Woody)(Credit: AP)

PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — President Barack Obama is pushing an economic fairness argument to voters in Colorado while Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign protests a tough attack ad aired by a super PAC supporting the president.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul labeled the ad linking Romney to a woman’s death from cancer “despicable,” but the Obama campaign refused to call on Priorities USA Action to pull the TV spot. Bill Burton, a former White House aide and co-founder of the group, defended the ad.

In the ad, a steelworker suggests that Romney and the private equity firm he founded might bear some responsibility for his wife’s death from cancer because the firm closed the plant and he lost his health insurance.

Obama was rallying supporters in Pueblo and Colorado Springs on Thursday after making a pitch to female voters in Denver and reaching out to Republican-leaning Grand Junction. He carried Colorado in 2008, but he and Romney are engaged in a tight contest for the state’s nine electoral votes.

Romney was raising money in New York on Thursday as his campaign prepares for a bus trip through battleground states and a decision on a running mate.

In Colorado, Obama is trying to undermine Romney’s arguments that Obama has failed to revitalize the economy nearly four years after the economic downturn. The president told voters in Grand Junction that Romney is struggling to explain how proposed tax cuts could continue without adding to the deficit or forcing Americans with moderate incomes to pay more.

“There was a whole different kind of gymnastics being performed by Mr. Romney than what’s been happening in the Olympics,” Obama said. He accused his opponent of “twisting” and “turning” and “doing backflips” over a report by a think tank that found his tax plan could force middle-class workers to lose tax breaks and pay more.

A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Obama and Romney tied among voters in Colorado households earning between $30,000 and $50,000 per year — an important target. Obama leads among voters with lower incomes while Romney is favored by those making more.

Romney campaigned Wednesday in Iowa, where he drew a standing ovation for promising to repeal “Obamacare,” the label Republicans have used to deride Obama’s health care law.

“That doesn’t mean that health care is perfect,” Romney said. “We’ve got to do some reforms in health care. And I have some experiences doing that, as you know.”

Obama, campaigning in Denver before an audience largely made up of women, said he liked the “Obamacare” tag.

“I actually like the name because I do care,” he said. “That’s why we fought so hard to make it happen.”

Romney’s spokeswoman drew expressions of dismay from some conservatives when she cited Romney’s own health care law from his days as governor of Massachusetts in criticizing the steelworker ad.

“If people had been in Massachusetts under Gov. Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Saul said in an interview on Fox News. Romney himself rarely mentions the law, which contains a requirement to purchase health coverage similar to the one in the federal law that conservatives despise and Romney has vowed to repeal.

More Julie Pace.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations