Romney accuses Obama of dismantling welfare reform

JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Repub­li­can Mitt Rom­ney is mak­ing a new push to cast Pres­i­dent Barack Obama as a big gov­ern­ment lib­eral, accus­ing him of dis­man­tling wel­fare reform, while Democ­rats renew efforts to paint Rom­ney as a profit-driven businessman.

The Rom­ney cam­paign released a new tele­vi­sion ad Tues­day bash­ing Obama for his deci­sion last month to change the wel­fare require­ments. The White House said Obama wanted to give states the flex­i­bil­ity they had been seek­ing to tai­lor the pro­gram to their needs.

But some con­ser­v­a­tives fear the increased lat­i­tude could allow states to get around the work require­ments, which were a key ele­ment of the wel­fare over­haul leg­is­la­tion that Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton signed into law in 1996.

Rom­ney was among sev­eral Repub­li­can gov­er­nors who signed a let­ter in 2005 ask­ing for more “waiver author­ity.” Rom­ney is a for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts governor.

Obama cam­paign spokesman Lis Smith said Rom­ney was “not telling the truth” in his attacks on Obama’s posi­tion on welfare.

“By falsely attack­ing a pol­icy that both he and his Repub­li­can allies have sup­ported for years, Rom­ney is once again flip flop­ping on a posi­tion he took in Mass­a­chu­setts, and demon­strat­ing that he lacks the core strength and prin­ci­ples the nation needs in a pres­i­dent,” Smith said.

The Rom­ney cam­paign sees Obama’s move as an oppor­tu­nity to argue that the pres­i­dent is a lib­eral who wants to give the poor a free pass at the expense of the mid­dle class.

“His poli­cies will take Amer­ica back­ward — back to the dis­cred­ited lib­er­al­ism of a bygone era where big­ger gov­ern­ment pro­grams and big­ger gov­ern­ment checks were the answer to every prob­lem, and account­abil­ity was not on the agenda,” said Lan­hee Chen, Romney’s pol­icy director.

The wel­fare push also aims to drive a wedge between Obama and Clin­ton, who has taken on an increas­ingly promi­nent role in the president’s re-election bid. The Obama cam­paign, seek­ing to take advan­tage of Clinton’s pop­u­lar­ity and strong eco­nomic record while in office, gave Clin­ton a high-profile, prime-time speak­ing role at the Demo­c­ra­tic con­ven­tion, which starts Sept. 4.

Clin­ton is also help­ing the Democratic-leaning super PAC Pri­or­i­ties USA Action boost its slug­gish fundrais­ing. The for­mer pres­i­dent will host an event for the group in New York next week to help it raise money.

Pri­or­i­ties USA Action released a new tele­vi­sion adver­tise­ment Mon­day tar­get­ing Romney’s busi­ness record at Bain Cap­i­tal, the pri­vate equity fund he ran. The ad fea­tures a for­mer employee at GST Steel who lost his job and health insur­ance when Bain closed the Kansas-based steel plant in 2001. The man says he doesn’t think Rom­ney “under­stands what he’s done to people’s lives” by clos­ing the plant.

The ad is the fifth in a series by the group tar­get­ing Romney’s busi­ness record, the cen­ter­piece of the pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nominee’s cam­paign. The spot is run­ning in five bat­tle­ground states: Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Vir­ginia and Pennsylvania.

Both Rom­ney and Obama were focused Tues­day on rais­ing money. Obama was attend­ing a pair of pri­vate fundrais­ers near the White House, while Rom­ney was rais­ing money in Illinois.

The can­di­dates were to turn their focus on bat­tle­ground state vot­ers later in the week.

Obama will embark on a two-day swing through Col­orado start­ing Wednes­day. A cam­paign offi­cial said the pres­i­dent would be intro­duced dur­ing an event in Den­ver by San­dra Fluke. The George­town Uni­ver­sity grad­u­ate stu­dent gained noto­ri­ety ear­lier this year when con­ser­v­a­tive talk show host Rush Lim­baugh called her a slut for back­ing an ele­ment in Obama’s health care over­haul that requires health insur­ance com­pa­nies to cover contraception.

Fluke’s appear­ance at the Den­ver rally under­scores the Obama campaign’s focus in Col­orado on female vot­ers, who could deter­mine the out­come of the pres­i­den­tial race in the state.

Rom­ney, who is nar­row­ing in on his vice pres­i­den­tial pick, will launch a four-state bus tour later this week that will take him to Vir­ginia, North Car­olina, Florida and Ohio.

Mean­while, Repub­li­cans announced more speak­ers for the con­ven­tion open­ing Aug. 27 in Tampa, Fla., where Rom­ney will offi­cially accept the GOP nom­i­na­tion. For­mer Penn­syl­va­nia Sen. Rick San­to­rum, who chal­lenged Rom­ney dur­ing the pri­maries, for­mer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ken­tucky Sen. Rand Paul are among them.

Democ­rats announced Tues­day that for­mer Pres­i­dent Jimmy Carter will tape a video mes­sage that will be aired in prime time at their convention.

Posted by AP News on Aug 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.