| Date: 16/08/2012 Time: 10:57:00 PM |
Complaints by U.S. President Barack Obama's
Republican rival Mitt Romney that the president is running an "angry and
desperate" campaign shows Romney is losing the election debate, the White
House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday.
There was often a point in campaigns when one side would try to distract
media attention from one story, by trying to spin reporters on another one,
Carney argued.
"That is invariably because that side is losing the policy debate," said
Carney, arguing that Obama, just back from a three-day bus tour of Iowa, was
narrowing in on issues that matter to the economy and the American people.
Romney's campaign said the president is attacking Romney over business
record and tax returns to distract attention from high unemployment and a slow
economy.
Romney's campaign complained about the negative nature of an ad run by a
pro-Obama super PAC that attempted to tie Mr. Romney's work at Bain Capital to
a woman's death from cancer, a suggestion by a top Obama campaign staffer that
Mr. Romney may have committed a felony by claiming he left Bain earlier then
he did.
Carney suggested Romney was concerned about the president's examination of
his plans for Medicare, the state funded health plan for seniors.
Romney has come under scrutiny since he selected Republican congressman
Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan has backed turning some of the popular
plan into a voucher system -- which Democrats say would effectively end it.
Romney defended himself from critics while on the campaign trail Thursday
saying he has never paid less than 13 percent in taxes for the past decade.
But he declined anew to release the records that would prove it.
"I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid
less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like
that. So I paid taxes every single year," Romney told reporters after landing
in South Carolina for a fundraiser.
Romney has released his 2010 tax return and has pledged to release his 2011
return before the Nov. 6 election, but has refused to release returns from
earlier years. |