***UPDATE: Wife died in 2006***
I’ve not seen a more despicable ad than one from a SuperPAC run by the slimeball that is Bill Burton, former press secretary to Obama. It crosses the line so far that I don’t think anyone but gullible lefties who are already voting for Obama will even believe it:
Leftist hack Tommy Christopher over at Mediaite thinks this ad will be difficult for Republicans to respond to:
It’s also a tough ad to respond to if you’re a Republican, because any counter-argument hits the tripwire that is health care policy. Romney can argue that he had “left Bain” when Soptic’s plant closed, or dig up someone with a similar story to hit back at President Obama, but the fact is that, no matter who is responsible for this guy losing his health insurance, only one of these candidates has a health care plan that would have helped.
No Tommy, it’s not difficult to respond to if you have common sense. People lose their jobs (and healthcare) all the time when companies layoff people or close steel plants due to stubborn unions and market forces. But to suggest that Bain closing down a plant for whatever reason makes Romney complicit in the death of a woman who had stage 4 cancer is preposterous, and every one with any inkling of common sense knows it.
Even by the husband’s own admission he had no idea that his wife was sick because she never said anything. His assertion is that she knew all the time, but that’s just conjecture. Furthermore he has no idea if this was a quick onset of cancer.
Ugh, even having to defend against such an absurd ad is ridiculous. But hey, it’s the Obama show now and this is the kind of gutter politics he thrives in.
I seriously doubt Romney will even address the claims in this ad because he knows that the AmericaN people are smarter than this ad.
UPDATE: According to Politico, the wife referred to in the ad died in 2006, 6 years after Romney even left Bain and years after the factor closed:
The man speaking in the ad, Joe Soptic, says, “Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that my wife became ill.” Soptic explains he’s not exactly sure when his wife became sick, but that when he took her to the hospital she had undetected, advanced cancer and died 22 days later.
The Romney campaign has pushed back on other GST Steel-related attacks by arguing that the plant in Kansas City closed after he stepped away from his management job at Bain. …
In the case of this particularly jarring super PAC ad, it may also be relevant that Soptic’s wife died in 2006, years after the GST factory closed down.
A 2006 story in the Kansas City Star reported the death of Ranae Soptic, a former champion roller skater: “Soptic went to the hospital for pneumonia, but doctors found signs of very advanced cancer, and she died two weeks later on June 22.”
Maybe this man should have gotten off his ass and got a job so his wife had the healthcare he thinks would have prevented her death. Sounds like he’s more complicit than Mitt Romney ever was. Normally I wouldn’t say this, but if he’s going to use his wife’s death to attack Mitt Romney, then the gloves are off.