Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is charging that President Barack Obama has gone beyond the bounds of acceptable campaign speech with a TV ad linking him to a woman's death from cancer.
Without directly citing an ad run by the pro-Obama group Priorities USA Action, Romney says, quote, "I don't know what happened to a campaign of hope and change. I thought he was a new kind of politician."
Romney says on Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" radio show Thursday that Obama has been airing factually incorrect charges. Yet, he says the ads "just keep on running" and officials "just blast ahead."
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul labeled the ad linking Romney to a woman's death "despicable." But the Obama campaign refused to pull the TV spot off the air.
Pollster and Newsmax columnist Douglas Schoen said that while the Obama campaign doesn't have a legal relationship with Priorities, the PAC is drawn from a very small circle of Democratic activists who know each other well.
“They have trusted people running the PAC, but there are legal requirements that separate them at the same time. The people running the PAC typically reflect the campaign’s ideas and values. While there is a formal legal separation, there cannot be coordination," Schoen told Newsmax. "It typically is the case that the PACS do not take approach that are completely at variance with what the candidate or groups they are advocating for would believe themselves.
“I have no evidence there is coordination or violation of the law, but I have absolutely confidence that Priorities USA is an organization that reflects the overarching approach of the Obama campaign and administration," Schoen said. "Having heard what Stephanie cutter has said, there’s been no disavowal--formally or informally--of the aforementioned ad..”
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.