Romney's new ads: one positive, one negative

Updated 10:42 p.m. ET

(CBS News) Mitt Romney's campaign is out with two new ads Monday, one hammering President Obama on the economy and the other is a rare positive ad.

"The Romney Plan" does not mention his rival nor does it criticize Mr. Obama's policies. Instead, it features Romney talking optimistically about his plan "to help the middle class" with upbeat music and images of American workers.

The ad is meant to introduce parts of his five-point plan to revive the economy. Romney speaks to the camera saying, "Trade has to work for America. That means crack down on cheaters like China. It means open up new markets."

The other priorities he mentions are reducing the deficit and promoting small businesses. "Have tax policies, regulations, and healthcare policies that help small business," Romney said.

"We put those in place, we'll add 12 million new jobs in four years," the Republican presidential candidate concludes.

The second ad, "Failing American Families," is a more typical campaign ad that uses a brooding narrator and music and criticizes Mr. Obama for falling median household income and a rising deficit.

"Under Obama, families have lost over $4,000 a year in income," the narrator says, referring to an independent study that showed median household income dropped $4,019 between January 2009 and June 2012, from $54,983 to $50,964. What the ad doesn't mention is the broader context that Mr. Obama inherited a recession when he took office in January 2009, a recession began under former President George W. Bush. Even if Mr. Obama is cut some slack for the first six months of his term, the study revealed income still fell over $2,500 from June 2009 through June 2012, a 5 percent drop.

"More spending, more debt... Failing American families," the ad concludes.

[RollotheNorman]

The ad is meant to introduce parts of his five-point plan to revive the economy. Romney speaks to the camera saying, "Trade has to work for America. That means crack down on cheaters like China. It means open up new markets."

The other priorities he mentions are reducing the deficit and promoting small businesses. "Have tax policies, regulations, and healthcare policies that help small business," Romney said.

"We put those in place, we'll add 12 million new jobs in four years," the Republican presidential candidate concludes."

1. Whether you use 59 points or 5, this just samey-samey Dubyanomics. Trickle-down repackaged and claimed to be "new and improved."

2. The only way 12M new jobs will be created is to use real world economics (no chance of that under Willard) vigorously applied. Maybe this will happen by throwing the RepubliCON House bums out.

[RollotheNorman]

"Under Obama, families have lost over $4,000 a year in income," the narrator says, referring to an independent study that showed median household income dropped $4,019 between January 2009 and June 2012, from $54,983 to $50,964."

Can anybody tell me where this comes from. It's certainly not the same figures found at the Bureau of the Census. There are no figures from 2012 yet:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf

Neither does the 2009 Census show

a real median income of 54K+

http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf

It shows a real median household income of $49,777 (p. 4)

These are the official U. S. Census figures, easily consulted on the given URLs. Looks like Willard has been doing RepubliCON arithmetic again. Always beware of RepubliCONs bearing tables.

[RollotheNorman]

"It shows a real median household income of $49,777 (p. 4)"
in 2009.

"http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf" on pg 7.
2011 real household median income.

[john92021]

I doubt that Mitt can close the deal, he will probably stick his foot in his mouth at the debates and lose by a nose. We will have 4 years of the Republicans trying to destroy the country at any cost so they can get elected next time. Hopefully the Republicans can finally find someone that is electable.

[BILLYSNAP]

Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up.
Ignore the man behind the curtain.

[logic-101]

It is not Romney's wealth, it is not his religion, Huntsman is wealthy, a Mormon and has led a life of both businessman and statesman. His businees expertise was never questioned because he built a business up, leaving a growing concern as those of my age use to call it. There in lies the difference from one who thinks business is taking as much as possible and running with the money and those who think tat a business is about leaving something bigger and better than you started with. Romney's appeal to raw republicans was significantly higher than Huntsman's. Romney's sons have not demonstrated any need to give back (except to push the candidacy of Mitt) Huntsman's son is at Annapolis. Romney was a governor who left for federal office almost immediately to run for president, Huntsman who AFTER his term as governor went the China as out ambassador. Huntsman who worked to build peace and prosperity, Romney who went to build off-shore tax shelters. Romney's campaign reflects that party, a party that gave a formidable candidate like Huntsman the short stick in favor of a glib, light weight who cannot believe that anything he says is not taken as the truth, and that anything the opposition says against his ultimate coronation must be a lie. The Congressional Research Service, "Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945." . The lies are catching up with Romney, (Ryan's acquaintance with the truth has always been nodding). We need to preserve the two part system, one can only hope that Romney, Ryan McConnell, Cantor, Smith, Limbaugh and the rest leave enough of a party for the Huntsmans and Crists of their ranks. The day of the party of no, the party racism, the party of hatred of all others is over. Whatever remains has to leave the dregs, (what Limbaugh would call the core) on the dung heap where they belong.

[arthanyel]

Hear hear. Well said.

[sjc_1]

People have NO reason to vote for Romney, he is NOT Reagan and President Obama is NOT Carter. People keep trying to make comparisons and they miss the mark EVERY time!

This is 2012 NOT 1980, wake up, it is a different time and a different world. The Tea Party did not exist in 1980 and Reagan was yet to TRIPLE the national debt in 8 years by wasting a ton on the Pentagon.

[arthanyel]

Barry-been-inhalin: Obama is far more succesful than Carter, and is a far better choice than Romney so that's what we're going to do - give the President four more years and some additional support to help get some of the VERY GOOD things he has been trying to do through the GOP_blocked Congress.

[sjc_1]

arth,

Absolutely, but were will people like "inhalin" go when President Obama wins? Will they join the Tea Party and follow Sarah Palin? Will they keep hoping for a Ron Paul resurgence?

I got an idea, why don't people like that get real and start helping this country get back on track by creating good jobs, rather than sending them to other countries.

[Mikexxxxxxx]

STILL... No specifics, No specifics, No specifics, No specifics,...

[nancy_naive]

Hey! It's a secret plan to solve the economic crisis. If he let the details out, then more than just his buddies will profit.

I don't mind the lack of specificity so much as that I know that Mitt made his fortune in using tax loopholes combined with the Bankruptcy Laws.

[Nikos_Retsos]

Obviously, Romney staffers throw new ads at everything, hoping that some of them will stick and provide Romney some breathing space at a time that his campaign seems on the verge of slipping into a coma!

Someone called Mitt Romney "a wimp" last week, and I said then that stand-alone wimps are excused because they don't have an army of staff and experts to advice them. Now we read here that his staff decided -again- to re-shift his campaign focus. And that tells us that Romney is not driving his campaign. He is a rich and nerdy passenger who is using his wealth to hire the "so-called experts" as campaign chauffeurs, and pays them to drive him to the White House! They rehearse his speeches, they fill his mouth, they shift his campaign transmission, and they collect people to stand and give him applauses.

What leadership should America expect from a rich person who cannot do better that a circus animal which just perform acts demanded by its handlers! Do Americans want to send to the white house another George W. Bush-like clone who didn't know who the presidents of major powers were before his election? When George W. Bush was re-elected, the British newspaper Daily Mirror featured this headline: "How can 56 million people [those who had voted for Bush's reelection] be so stupid!" Do we need another such headline with Romney in the midst of a 5 years recession?

The political incompetence of Romney flows like muddy storm water across the political spectrum. Example: The local Chicago Tribune is a republican newspaper, but 75% of its political cartoons ridicule him! Romney is the embodiment or cluelessness and nerdiness with deep pockets to afford public relations gurus who groom and present him as "the leader to be!" The only question remaining is this: "Would Americans stuff their heads with his newly minted Romney chaff and vote for him?" Nikos Retsos, retired professor

[arthanyel]

Barry-been-inhalin: Utter nonsense. Who do you think wrote his speeches and his books before he was President? "Refuses to take quesitons off the cuff" - utter drivel. I know YOU don't attend any of the hundreds of town hall type sessions Obama has held over the last 5 years, but some of us have and he has no issues with answering quesitons - and your statement he "never lets the press ask questions" is a PANTS ON FIRE LIE as anyone who actually WATCHES any of his press conferences could tell you.

As for asnwering tough questions off the cuff, Romney would be better served to keep his mouth shut because every time he opens it he either flip flops or sticks his foot in.

However, I know you are blindly rabid Faux News follower so all I can say to you is - we EAGERLY await the debates. We'll see who performs better off the cuff then *grins wickedly*