Obama ad slams Romney as "Outsourcer-in-Chief"
(CBS News) President Obama's re-election campaign is slamming Republican Mitt Romney as the potential "Outsourcer-in-Chief" in a trio of new ads to run in swing states.
The new Obama ads respond to Romney's own series of swing state ads, in which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee promises to create jobs and stand up to China. After playing a clip of the Romney ads, the Obama spot counters the claims by pointing to a Washington Post report that suggested Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, played a large role in developing the trend of outsourcing American jobs overseas.
In the ad tailored for the state of Virginia, a narrator caps off the 30-second spot by asking, "Does Virginia really want an Outsourcer-in-Chief in the White House?"
Similar ads are running in Iowa and Ohio. At the end of the Ohio version, the narrator says, "Romney's never stood up to China. All he's ever done is send them our jobs."
The Romney campaign argues that the Washington Post story ignores some important nuance - such as the difference between "offshoring" and "outsourcing," or the expansion into export markets -- but the Obama campaign is ignoring whatever difference there may be. In fact, at a campaign event Monday, Mr. Obama mocked the Romney campaign for trying to make a distinction between the terms.
"They tried to clear this up by telling us there's actually a difference between 'outsourcing' and 'off-shoring,'" Mr. Obama said at the Massachusetts campaign event, eliciting laughter from his supporters. "That's what they said. You cannot make this stuff up."
The president continued, "Now, what Governor Romney and his advisers don't seem to understand is this: If you're a worker whose job went overseas, you don't need somebody trying to explain to you the difference between outsourcing and offshoring. You need somebody who's going to wake up every single day and fight for American jobs and investment here in the United States... Governor Romney's commitment to outsourcing is not just part of his record, it's part of an overall economic vision that he and Republicans in Congress want to implement if they win this election."
Vice President Joe Biden today will campaign in Waterloo, Iowa, and the Obama campaign tells CBS News that he will continue the attack on Romney's alleged record as an outsourcer.
"There's a very simple difference between outsourcing and offshoring," he said. "Outsourcing is what the Obama campaign does when they hire an outside telemarketing vendor to provide telemarketing services... Offshoring is the shipment of American jobs overseas and in that Washington Post story... there are no examples of jobs being taken from the United States and shipped overseas. What you have are companies that are expanding into new markets. We should be encouraging that not attacking it."
Calling the Post story a "shoddy piece of journalism," Ferhnstrom said, "The jobs that were cited by the Washington Post and which the Obama administration is now attacking were created to support exports overseas. When companies like Coca-Cola, for example, build a bottling plant in China so they can sell more soft drinks to the Chinese, we should be applauding that, because that type of entrance into new markets is what makes our companies stronger, more profitable, and more successful."
