In his continued attack on President Barack Obama’s relationship with the coal industry, Mitt Romney is up with a new ad using the president’s words against him.
The ad, titled “Bankrupt,” recycles video footage from then-candidate Obama’s interview with The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, where he said, “If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can – it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”
“Obama wages war on coal while we lose jobs to China, who’s using more coal every day,” the ad’s narrator says. “Now, your job is in danger. Mr. President, let us keep our jobs.”
The Romney camp is banking on the ads being effective in Southwest Virginia and parts of Ohio where the once-thriving coal industry is now struggling, due in part to more stringent EPA regulations.
“The truth is, while he now claims he supports coal, Mitt Romney has been a longtime critic of coal-fired power plants,” responded Obama campaign spokeswoman Joanne Peters. “When it helped him politically as governor of Massachusetts, he declared that coal-fired power plants kill people, and enforced strict regulations ‘without compromise.’”
