It’s normal during the political season to have attack ads and mud slinging, but some ads go beyond the pale and shine a light on the worst among us. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union that doggedly supports President Obama, came out with an ad that dealt with an issue that has gone unexplored thus far in the 2012 Presidential cycle.
The ad features Mitt Romney’s garbage man. Who says in a 60 second character smear that somehow Romney does not care about him or any working Americans. He says that after loading garbage all his life, his body will be worn down and somehow Mitt Romney “doesn’t care about that”. One might ask how someone could make such an outrageous claim. Your answer is a complete and total misreading of the infamous ‘47 percent’ video.
When Mitt Romney was speaking to that fundraiser, he was talking electoral strategy. Of course both candidates are likely to get at least 47 percent of the vote. The remaining six percent are what always decides elections. So when Romney said he wasn’t going to worry about those people, he meant he’s not going to stump for votes in Harlem. Just like President Obama won’t stump for votes in rural Kansas. It’s just a waste of time and resources.
And while we’re on the topic of insulting a good portion of America, it was actually Barack Obama that four years ago said at a fundraiser of “small towns in the Midwest… They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” That was not said in the context of electoral strategy. Barack Obama literally called the middle of America gun-toting, Bible-thumping, racists. That received far less attention than Romney’s innocent moment of ‘Campaigning 101’ honesty.
It could be media bias. It could be something else. But if the Obama campaign’s new mission is to assassinate Mitt Romney’s character by saying that he lacks empathy, they would be insulting the intelligence of all Americans. So far this year, top Democrats have smeared Ann Romney, an MS and breast cancer survivor, as having an overly privileged life. Now they expect us to believe that a man who has given tens of millions of dollars to charity, that participates regularly in philanthropy for his church, and that is a committed father of five and to his wife of over 40 years, is somehow a heartless, cruel, scoundrel? Give me a break. Mitt Romney should call the President out on this disgraceful line of attack in the debate Wednesday night. He would produce quite a moment if he does.
*The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.
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