New Obama ad salutes Mitt Romney's foreign policy experience: Swiss bank accounts and outsourcing

The Obama campaign's newest television ad serves up its toughest paid media attack yet, going after Romney's history of sending jobs overseas and saying his record of outsourcing is "exactly what you'd expect from a guy with a Swiss bank account." It'll air in Ohio, Virginia, and Iowa, and as Greg Sargent points out, it is part of an effort to brand Mitt Romney is the living embodiment of top-heavy trickle-down economics.

The ad goes after Romney's record as CEO and as governor as well as the positions he's taken during the campaign, but it isn't a purely a negative spot. It begins by rebutting a an anti-Obama attack ad from the pro-Romney Americans for Prosperity, arguing that the attack ad represents an effort by oil interests to defeat President Obama because he supports closing tax loopholes for big oil and favors green energy programs. That sets up with the contrast with Romney's top-down, corporate-centric economic plan. The basic story: one guy is on your side, the other guy isn't.

The ad is the second example in as many weeks of the Obama campaign taking the fight to Romney. Last week, it was the web video about the bin Laden raid and in the ensuing debate, Romney was reduced to trying to convince people that he would have done the same thing President Obama did. Now Romney will have to choose between ignoring this new line of attack, leaving the Obama campaign's characterization of his record uncontested, or trying to rebut it'which would risk making his personal background the focus of the campaign before he's had an opportunity to define himself in his own terms. Either way, it's a tough spot for him, which probably explains why he'll be praying for crappy economic news.