By now, we know the story. While campaigning in Ohio, Romney began by passing on a false story right-wing blogs were circulating about Chrysler moving Jeep production to China. Then, rather than backing off the false claim, he put up an ad repeating the claim. If there was any chance he'd originally made a simple mistake, by now it was a lie told in knowledge of the truth. Then he made a radio ad, adding General Motors to his lies. He's been rebuked by both Chrysler and GM, and, as Cutter noted, by newspapers across Ohio and Michigan. With Romney's lies getting this kind of sustained local attention, Cutter said, "you can imagine how it's playing on the ground."
Cutter, Levin and Strickland all expressed strong confidence that Obama would win both Ohio and Michigan, repeatedly characterizing Romney's ads as "desperate." (Which is hard to argue.) As Strickland put it, "What we've seen in the last week from Mitt Romney is a desperate act by a desperate man'a dishonest end to a dishonest campaign."
Levin and Strickland emphasized that voters in their home states are too familiar with the auto industry to be fooled, and that voters will remember both that President Obama stood by the auto industry and its workers and that Romney famously wanted to "let Detroit go bankrupt." Cutter pointed to early voting numbers from Ohio, and all three pointed to polls, bolstering these claims as something more than spin. But really, the desperation argument stands on its own. If Romney thought he was winning, he wouldn't be telling new, easily disproven lies.
Click "continue reading" for extended notes from the call.
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