Obama attack ad refocus on the economy

(CBS News) With the presidential campaign having become focused on Medicare and tax returns in recent days, a group backing Mitt Romney has launched a massive ad buy to draw attention to what polls show is the top issue to voters: The economy.

"Who can turn around America's economy?" an announcer says in the spot before asserting that Mitt Romney's private sector experience created "thousands of jobs." The narrator then says President Obama "wasted $800 billion on a failed stimulus and the jobless rate went up."

The super PAC Restore Our Future is spending $10.5 million, its largest advertising buy, on the ads ahead of the Republican convention next week. The ad will be seen in 11 swing states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- starting tomorrow.

In an apparent reference to Romney's tenure as Massachusetts governor, the narrator says in the spot, "Romney cut spending and balanced budgets without raising taxes." There is debate on this point: As governor, Romney raised fees and closed some tax loopholes to fill a $700 million budget gap.

Restore Our Future has spent $70 million so far this campaign, most of it on Republican primary attacks on Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Since Romney clinched the nomination, the pro-Romney super PAC has spent $18 million targeting the president through June, according to the Center for Response Politics.