CNN 2012-07-20

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We begin tonight "Keeping Them Honest" on the campaign trail, where attack ads are flying and so's the spin. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee³ Mitt⁴ Romney today demanded that President Obama back off his attacks on Romney's record at Bain Capital, the private equity⁵ firm where he made his fortune.

 

Recently, those attacks have focused on when Romney actually left the firm. The Obama camp claimed Romney lied about his end date at Bain, even suggesting his actions could be criminal. 

 

Now in a series of network and cable interviews on Friday, Romney accused the Obama campaign of stooping to new lows. In an interview that aired today on CBS this morning, President Obama was asked about the negative ads his campaign has been running. Here's what he said. 

 

First of all, we have done a whole slew of positive ads that talked exactly about how we need to change our education system, how we need to change our tax code, how we need to rebuild America, how we need to promote American energy. So those just don't get attention in the news. 

 

Now, the president said they have run a whole slew of ads, positive ads. We wanted to, we wanted to check and see if maybe we'd overlooked a slew of ads either candidate was running. So, "Keeping Them Honest," we checked with CMAG, the consultants⁶ who track political ad spending for us. They told us that last week the Obama campaign aired negative ads more than 19,000 times and positive ads fewer than 150 times. In other words, less than 1 percent of their ads were positive. 

 

According to other reports, since the general campaign began, as many as three in four of President Obama's campaign ads have been negative, three in four. Now to be sure, both campaigns are playing hardball(采取强硬的态度和手段，动真格). During the two weeks ending July 9, about 89 percent of Obama's ads carried an anti-Romney message and 94 percent of Romney's ads criticized President Obama. That's, again, according to CMAG. 

 

Those are the numbers. The Obama campaign, however, is spinning a very different narrative⁷, where the word negative doesn't really exist. Over the weekend, Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said they wanted to have a quote "highbrow debate about what the Americans really care about." But "Keeping Them Honest," all weekend long, they instead focused on attacking Romney's ties to Bain and his personal finances. 

 

He's taken advantage of every single conceivable attack shelter and loophole. 

 

Mr. Romney attested⁸ to the SEC multiple times that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital. That company also was investing in companies that "The Washington Post" called pioneers of outsourcing. 

 

If you're telling the SEC that you're in charge but you're telling the American people that you bear no responsibility, one of those things is not true. 

 

Stop whining⁹. Defend if you want to claim Bain Capital as your calling card to the White House, then defend what happened to Bain Capital and what happened to those jobs that went overseas, those jobs that were actually cut and eliminated. 

 

I don't want a pioneer in outsourcing. I want some in-sourcing. I want to bring companies back. 

 

Now these attacks continued on paper as well. Virtually all the press releases and statements they issued on Saturday and Sunday hammered Romney on those fronts. The Obama campaign also released a new attack ad. 

 

I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message. 

 

Oh, beautiful for spacious¹⁰ skies, for amber¹¹ waves of grain, for purple mountain majesty¹² above the fruited plain.

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