PITTSBURGH (AP) — Mitt Romney plans to stay on the attack in the race for the White House, but growing pressure from across the political spectrum to release his personal tax returns threatens to stunt the Republican presidential candidate’s momentum as he courts voters across key Midwestern battlegrounds.
The former Massachusetts governor takes his fight against President Barack Obama to Ohio today, building off fiery speeches in Pennsylvania the day before in which he accused his Democratic opponent of believing the government is more vital to a thriving economy than the nation’s workers and dreamers.
“I’m convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success,” Romney declared Tuesday in the Pittsburgh area as hundreds of supporters cheered him on.
Having spent most of Tuesday courting donors across Texas, Obama has a series of official meetings in Washington ahead of a two-day Florida campaign swing later in the week.
Democrats have pressed for the release of more of Romney’s tax returns and hounded the Republican candidate over discrepancies about when he left his private equity firm, Bain Capital. Obama has been trying to keep Romney focused on matters other than the sluggish economy, even releasing a single-shot TV ad Tuesday that suggests Romney gamed the system so well that he may not have paid any taxes at all for years.
Today, the Obama campaign released a web video questioning Romney’s claims that he had “no responsibility whatsoever” at Bain after February 1999, despite SEC filings that list him as sole owner and CEO through February 2001.
After being on his heels for several days, Romney launched an aggressive counterattack this week, punctuated by biting speeches, conference calls and a television ad released today that accuses Obama of “crony capitalism.” The ad says Obama sent stimulus money to “friends, donors, campaign supporters and special interest groups,” and charges that taxpayer dollars went to projects in Finland and China.
Romney has also seized on comments Obama made while campaigning in Virginia last week.
The president, making a point about the supportive role government plays in building the nation, said in part: “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Obama later added, “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
At a Pittsburgh fundraiser Tuesday evening, Romney lashed out at the remark, a strategy his campaign says will be a theme for the week, if not longer.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
