Romney Spokesman Denies Campaign Outsourcing

A spokesman dismisses a widespread Twitter rumor that they were employing canvassers in the Philippines.

U.S. Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney laughs as he sits down to dinner at a restaurant in Delray Beach, Florida, October 21, 2012. Image by Jim Young / Reuters

The Romney campaign flatly rejected a widely-spread online rumor Sunday night that it had outsourced some of its call centers.

The rumor, which has been percolating on Twitter in recent days, appears to be fueled by anecdotal accounts from people who say they’ve received cold calls from Romney campaign canvassers located in the Philippines.

The latest proponent of the rumor is a liberal stand-up comedian named Mark Agee, who tweeted Saturday, “TRUE STORY: A friend got called by a Romney canvasser. She asked, and he was in the Phillipines. Mitt outsourced his own f*cking campaign.” The story was retweeted more than 1,000 times, and has its way into the liberal blogosphere.

But senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden said it wasn’t true.

“Our phone contact vendors do not use call centers outside of the U.S.,” Madden told BuzzFeed.

Another campaign official noted that there are outside vendors “raising money off us,” and said if people really are receiving calls from outside the country, they have nothing to do with the campaign.