rnc

Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack

Their most powerful weapon, a top aide says. “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” says Newhouse.

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Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack
Ben Smith

Source: youtube.com

Mitt Romney’s aides explained with unusual political bluntness today why they are spending heavily — and ignoring media criticism — to air an add accusing President Barack Obama of “gutting” the work requirement for welfare, a marginal political issue since the mid-1990s that Romney pushed back to center stage.

“Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”

The welfare ad has been the center of intense dispute, with Democrats accusing Romney of unearthing old racial ghosts and Romney pointing out that the Obama Administration has offered states waivers that could, in fact, lighten work requirements in welfare, a central issue in Bill Clinton’s 1996 revamping of public assistance.

The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” awarded Romney’s ad “four Pinocchios,” a measure Romney pollster Neil Newhouse dismissed.

“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” he said. The fact-checkers — whose institutional rise has been a feature of the cycle — have “jumped the shark,” he added after the panel.

Romney’s aides have brushed off suggestions the welfare fight has a racial edge.

His longtime spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said it was simply a policy fight: “We’re having an argument about welfare reform,” he said, noting that Obama’s administration had chosen to offer the waivers, and that the Administration had overstated the roles of Republican governors in seeking alternatives to the work requirement.

The election, Fehrnstrom said, “will be a referendum on the president’s handling of the economy.”

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    • michelem8   Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack  about 7 months ago
    • elleng4   Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack  about 8 months ago
    • jeremytaoko   Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack and thinks it’s Trashy, Fail & WTF  about 8 months ago
    • bobbyman87   Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack and thinks it’s Trashy, Fail & WTF  about 8 months ago
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    • emmag2 thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail  about 8 months ago
    • travizz thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Trashy, Fail & WTF  about 8 months ago
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    • matthewg16 thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail  about 8 months ago
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    • 1stLadyRita thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail, Trashy & Ew  about 8 months ago
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    • Steve D'Ambrosio thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail & Trashy  about 8 months ago
    • JeremiahJohnson1 8 months ago

      There you go again, Mitt, there you go again.

    • Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is starting to get hot on Twitter Tweet It  about 8 months ago
    • deaddrift thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail & Old  about 8 months ago
    • deaddrift 8 months ago

      If Republicans couldn’t lie they wouldn’t have anything to say at all.

    • danr25 thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is WTF, Trashy & Fail  about 8 months ago
    • billb19 thinks Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack is Fail  about 8 months ago
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