The controversial video ad from the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action trying to link GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to a woman’s cancer death appeared on television for the first time Tuesday – in Ohio.
But Priorities USA suggested the airing was accidental. “Station error is all,” Priorities USA senior strategist Bill Burton told
ABC News. ”Kind of like when the Florida station accidentally aired Restore Our Future’s anti-Gingrich ad in June.”
The Priorities USA ad shows a worker, Joe Soptic, who was laid off from a company owned by Bain Capital and lost his healthcare coverage. He then watched his wife die of cancer. Bain is the private equity firm co-founded by Romney.
However, reports indicate that Soptic’s wife died six years after Bain bought her husband’s company and that she had health coverage through her own employer. In addition, Romney wasn’t working at Bain when Soptic lost his job.
The ad first appeared on the Internet eight days ago. But amid strong criticism of the spot from Republicans, and even some Democrats, Priorities USA has been evasive about whether it would actually run on TV.
Officials from the super PAC say only that the ad has been “shipped to television stations” and would air on demand. The spot has been viewed more than 700,000 times on the web.
The Obama campaign refuses to renounce the ad, saying it has no connection to the super PAC, even though former administration officials are in charge of it, and other White House staffers have solicited donations for it.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.