Thursday, August 09, 2012

Fallout From 'Romney Murdered My Wife' Ad Becomes Increasingly Toxic For Obama



The ad run by the Obama super Pac Priorities USA has shocked even some of the usual suspects in its blatant dishonesty..especially since the Obama campaign has refused to condemn it and there's increasing evidence that they knew all about it.

On Wednesday, as outrage over the ad grew,President Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter told CNN on Wednesday "I don't know the facts about when Mr. Soptic's wife got sick, or the facts about his health insurance."

That's funny, since the man in the ad, Joe Soptic told essentially the same story in a May 14, 2012, conference call hosted by the Obama campaign...with Ms. Cutter moderating.

If she actually doesn't remember something that occurred only three months ago, she deserves polite sympathy and treatment.But what's more likely is that she saw Soptic's tale of woe as an ideal campaign ad and told Priorities USA she had a real gem for them. Which is illegal, by the way.

The ad itself is so full of outright lies that only the most cynical of political operatives would have okayed it.

Soptic's steel plant was shut down in 2001, long after Mitt Romney left the management of Bain Capital in 1999 to run the Olympics. Soptic obtained another job but chose not to insure his wife, since she was employed at a store called Savers and had her own plan, which she kept until 2003. Mitt Romney formally left Bain Capital and severed all ties with them in early 2002.

In 2003, Mrs. Soptic left her job after what was claimed to be a rotator cuff injury. As I pointed out earlier, Mrs. Soptic could have retained her healthcare coverage until 2005 under COBRA regulations, but chose not to. She and her husband also apparently chose not to enroll in Missouri's MedicAid program, which would have covered their healthcare costs if they were unable to afford private coverage. She wasn't diagnosed with cancer until 2006.

So far, the Obama campaign and its surrogates have accused Mitt Romney of being a tax cheat, a felon, and a heartless capitalist out to become president for his personal enrichment. And now, of course, a murderer.

The ironic thing is that if you look at the political careers of Mitt Romney and the Obamas side by side, it's quite obvious who went into politics out of public spiritedness and who went into politics to enrich themselves, Chicago-style. There's no one remotely like Tony Rezco, Alexi Giannoulias or Nadhni Auchi in Mitt Romney's background.

The good thing about this is the timing. It's August, the Olympics are winding down and this is the time most Americans who aren't political junkies start perking up and paying attention to the presidential campaign.

Being caught in an egregious lie like this, a whopper even loyal surrogates like CNN and Huffington Post can't swallow is not a good place fo rth eObama campaign to be, especially given th eamount of money they've already spent demonizing someone who is essentially a decent person and a successful businessman, regardless of what you might think about his politics.

In fact, the polls are already showing a shift.

-selah-

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