Politics
Election 2012: Obama, Romney spar on China, economy, jobs
The tit-for-tat on China started percolating late last week.
Romney released a television advertisement Thursday accusing Obama of “failing American workers” and ignoring unfair trade practices by China. Obama followed up a day later with a TV spot focused on its claims that Romney outsourced jobs to China while working in the private sector.
Those commercials are dominating the campaign conversation in key states where the race will be decided even as the national campaign conversation focuses on foreign policy in the aftermath of unrest at U.S. embassies that left an American ambassador and three others dead.
China, and through it the economy, has become Romney’s core argument as he woos voters in battleground states; it’s the only spot Romney’s campaign was running over the weekend in the eight states likely to decide the election: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina. The campaign no longer is running the 15 state-specific ads it rolled out in a US$4.5 million ad blitz the day after the Democratic convention, according to officials who track campaign advertising.
Both candidates left it to their advisers to haggle over China on Saturday.
Romney conferred with advisers at the Belmont, Mass., home of his son Tagg, then watched his grandson’s soccer game. The president spent the day at the White House and had no public events.
But his campaign got a jump on the day with an early morning launch of the new ad that claims Romney’s economic plan caters to multimillionaires over the middle class.
