Mitt Romney branded Barack Obama a "liar" as the smouldering US presidential election campaign finally caught fire.
On a day of bitter exchanges, Mr Romney, the Republican hopeful, attacked Mr Obama for his campaign's negative advertising blitz trashing the former management consultant's business career.
"It's time to set the record straight about Mitt's record and dispel
Obama's lies," the Romney campaign said.
"When a President doesn't tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead?",
said a new Romney television advertisement accusing Mr Obama of dishonesty
over repeated claims that Mr Romney was a profiteer responsible for
outsourcing jobs to China while at the helm of Bain Capital.
The fightback from Mr Romney – by far the toughest attacks of the election
campaign so far – came after several prominent Republicans and businessmen,
including Rupert Murdoch, had urged the Romney campaign to get on the
offensive against Mr Obama.
Just hours after Romney advert was released however the Obama team accused Mr
Romney of lying himself about when he finally stopped working for Bain
Capital.
Mr Romney has long contended that he stopped working at the Boston-based
venture capital firm in 1999 to go and rescue the Salt Lake City winter
Olympics. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
however show Mr Romney was nominally in control of Bain Capital until 2002.
The Obama campaign has targeted several Bain Capital deals that took place after 1999, blaming Mr Romney for outsourcing jobs and causing lay-offs, charges that two independent fact-checking groups have agreed are unfair or misleading.
"As Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point," said Andrea Saul, the Romney campaign spokesman.
Senior Obama campaign said the discrepancy between when Mr Romney actually left Bain and his official position at the company was another example of their opponents "penchant for secrecy".
Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for Mr Obama, said that Mr Romney should not be allowed to have it both ways over the date when he quit with Bain Capital.
"Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC – which is a felony – or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people, to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments," she said.
"And if that's the case, and he was lying to the American people, that's a real character and trust issue that the American people need to take very seriously."
The Obama campaign has mounted a full-frontal attack on Mr Romney's record at Bain in an attempt to undermine one of the former Massachusetts governor's key claims to the presidency – that as a turnaround CEO he can restore job growth in America.
Recent polls have shown that the Bain attacks appear to be having an impact with the voters, perhaps pricking Mr Romney into responding after several weeks of largely ignoring the attacks and focusing on America's high jobless numbers and stalling economic recovery.
"They say in politics, if you're responding, you're losing," Mr Romney said on Fox News when asked about his decision to hit back without rebutting specific charges in the Obama campaign ads.
"I think the better course for our campaign is to respond to the attacks as being completely off-base. For instance, independent fact checkers have found them to be false and misleading. We point that out."
Potentially far more damaging than the dispute over Bain Capital timings, however, are attacks on Mr Romney vast wealth and his use of Swiss bank accounts and investment vehicles in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that play badly with hard-pressed middle class voters.
Mr Romney is under daily pressure from the Obama campaign to release previous tax returns having thus far only released his filing for 2010, with a promise to release his 2011 return later this year.
The Obama campaign has targeted several Bain Capital deals that took place after 1999, blaming Mr Romney for outsourcing jobs and causing lay-offs, charges that two independent fact-checking groups have agreed are unfair or misleading.
"As Bain Capital has said, as Governor Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point," said Andrea Saul, the Romney campaign spokesman.
Senior Obama campaign said the discrepancy between when Mr Romney actually left Bain and his official position at the company was another example of their opponents "penchant for secrecy".
Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for Mr Obama, said that Mr Romney should not be allowed to have it both ways over the date when he quit with Bain Capital.
"Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC – which is a felony – or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people, to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments," she said.
"And if that's the case, and he was lying to the American people, that's a real character and trust issue that the American people need to take very seriously."
The Obama campaign has mounted a full-frontal attack on Mr Romney's record at Bain in an attempt to undermine one of the former Massachusetts governor's key claims to the presidency – that as a turnaround CEO he can restore job growth in America.
Recent polls have shown that the Bain attacks appear to be having an impact with the voters, perhaps pricking Mr Romney into responding after several weeks of largely ignoring the attacks and focusing on America's high jobless numbers and stalling economic recovery.
"They say in politics, if you're responding, you're losing," Mr Romney said on Fox News when asked about his decision to hit back without rebutting specific charges in the Obama campaign ads.
"I think the better course for our campaign is to respond to the attacks as being completely off-base. For instance, independent fact checkers have found them to be false and misleading. We point that out."
Potentially far more damaging than the dispute over Bain Capital timings, however, are attacks on Mr Romney vast wealth and his use of Swiss bank accounts and investment vehicles in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that play badly with hard-pressed middle class voters.
Mr Romney is under daily pressure from the Obama campaign to release previous tax returns having thus far only released his filing for 2010, with a promise to release his 2011 return later this year.
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