<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/5655674841/">Barack Obama</a>/Flickr
Hispanic voters are crucial to President Barack Obama’s bid to win a second term in office this November. To bolster the president’s Latino base, the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA Action and Service Employees International Union on Monday launched a $4 million Spanish-language ad campaign in Colorado, Florida, and Nevada slamming GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Priorities and SEIU unveiled a different TV ad for each state, though each are titled “Mitt Romney: En sus propias palabras” (Mitt Romney: In his own words). The ads pluck out quotes of Romney’s—”You can focus on the very poor; that’s not my focus”; “I’m also unemployed”; “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me”—then show Hispanic men and women reacting negatively to Romney’s remarks. “What about us? He’s not thinking about us,” one woman remarks. “He is…just thinking about those that have made money already,” says another woman. The ads end with the message: “Mitt Romney: His words say it all.”
Here are the three Priorities-SEIU ads:
Florida:
Colorado:
Nevada:
The Priorities-SEIU ad blitz comes as GOP-friendly super-PACs and shadowy nonprofits are spending tens of millions attacking Obama. A month ago, Crossroads GPS, founded by GOP political gurus Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, announced plans to spend $25 million on a monthlong ad blitz in 10 battleground states.
Priorities has struggled to keep pace in spending with other candidate-specific super-PACs. The pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future, which is run by Romney’s former political director Carl Forti, has spent $46.5 million so far this election cycle. Even the now-dormant Winning Our Future super-PAC, devoted to electing Newt Gingrich before he dropped out of the race in early May, spent $17 million.
The Priorities-SEIU ads are attempt to define Romney as someone who won’t work in Latinos’ best interests. “This ad is part of a broader effort to ensure Latino voters know the stakes in this election and who has been on the side of Latino families and who will continue to stand with them in the coming years,” SEIU national political director Brandon Davis said in a statement.
