'I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant'

Another emotionally powerful ad from the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA, this one featuring the story of Joe Soptic, a former employee of the Bain-owned GST Steel plant who lost his job'and the health insurance that could have saved his wife from cancer'when Bain shut down the company:

Joe Soptic, former employee at GST Steel in Kansas City, Kansas.

I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant.

I don't think he realizes that people's lives completely changed.

When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my healthcare, and my family lost their healthcare.  And a short time after that my wife became ill.

I don't know how long she was sick and I think maybe she didn't say anything because she knew that we couldn't afford the insurance, and then one day she became ill and I took her up to the Jackson County Hospital and admitted her for pneumonia and that's when they found the cancer and by then it was stage four.  It was, there was nothing they could do for her.

And she passed away in 22 days.

I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he's done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.

ANNCR: Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this advertising.

Priorities USA says this is the last of five ads in their initial $20 million ad campaign introducing swing-state voters to Mitt Romney's record at Bain. Their initial buy was considerably smaller'just $4 million'but has since expanded thanks to additional fundraising.

While their first ad focused on Mitt Romney's "heads I win, tails you lose" business philosophy, this ad goes straight after Romney's lack of empathy and lack of understanding. That doesn't reflect a change in strategy so much as the fact that the earlier ads, by defining Romney's approach to business, laid the foundation for this sort of critique of Romney. To understand how effective it has been, you need not look beyond the fact that Mitt Romney spent a good chunk of June and July trying to distance himself from Bain.

Last week, Priorities USA announced it was reserving $30 million in ad time for the fall campaign.