SALON

Monday, Sep 24, 2012 9:45 PM UTC

Candidates fight for working-class voters in ads

Both sides run ads in swing states aimed at courting working class voters

By

Topics: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, From the Wires, Paul Ryan, 2012 Elections, ,

Candidates fight for working-class voters in adsRepublican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at D’Evelyn High School in Denver, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

CHICAGO (AP) — The presidential candidates are criticizing each other in new television commercials aimed at winning working-class voters who could help swing the election, pitting Republican Mitt Romney’s wealth against the loss of American jobs to China on President Barack Obama’s watch.

As Romney dispatched running mate Paul Ryan to kick off a three-day bus tour in the critical battleground of Ohio, Obama began running an ad in the state trying to use his GOP rival’s own words against him.

It’s the campaign’s first spot using Romney’s comments that 47 percent of voters pay no income tax, and believe they are victims and entitled to government assistance. The 30-second ad also points out that Romney paid just 14.1 percent in federal taxes last year on $13.7 million in income and refuses to release his returns before 2010.

“Maybe instead of attacking others on taxes, he should come clean on his,” the ad says.

Romney is trying to shift the debate off his personal wealth and private comments to donors to worker resentment over jobs moving to China. His new ad released Monday is his latest salvo in a string of criticism against Obama’s handling of the rising Asian power.

The commercial showed a photo of a shuttered factory and says fewer Americans are working as China steals the country’s ideas and technology. “Obama had years to stand up to China. We can’t afford four more,” the spot concludes.

Six weeks out from the election, Obama holds a slim lead over Romney in most battleground states. The Republican is seeking to right his campaign following a rough stretch that included the release of his secretly recorded remarks about the 47 percent and criticism that he’s not campaigning hard enough for the White House.

Romney acknowledged Sunday that he was trailing the president in several key states. But he promised to spend less time courting donors and more time with voters.

“I know that in the coming six weeks they’re very unlikely to stay where they are today,” Romney said of the polls.

The Republican was scheduled to campaign Monday in Colorado, where aides added a rally in an attempt to deflect the criticism from within his own party. Romney was to join Ryan in Ohio on Tuesday for the final two days of bus tour.

Obama will spend Monday and Tuesday tending to official duties at the United Nations. But his condensed schedule at the annual gathering of world leaders underscored that his focus is largely on the campaign.

Voters in more than two dozen states are already casting ballots in early voting for the presidential election, meaning everything the candidates do now could influence votes already being cast.

___

Pickler reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Denver contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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

 4 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