Pro-Gingrich Super PAC Airs Ads Attacking Romney's Business Career (VIDEO)
WASHINGTON -- A super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich began airing TV and radio ads Thursday attacking Mitt Romney for his career in the private equity world.
The 30-second and 60-second TV ads label Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, a "corporate raider" and calls his company, Bain Capital, "more ruthless than Wall Street."
It quotes a number of people who claim to have lost their jobs after their companies were acquired by Bain, which Romney led from 1984 through 1998.
"He pulled the rug out from under our plant," one man says. Another man says, "Mitt Romney and them guys, they don't care who I am."
And the 30-second ad closes with a woman saying, "I feel that is the man that destroyed us."
Some had speculated that the super PAC, Winning Our Future, might not run the ads, given the enormous backlash that had come from all corners of the conservative movement against the criticisms.
But Winning Our Future spokesman Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide, said that the ads began running at 11 a.m. in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Jan. 21.
Winning Our Future has set aside $3.4 million to spend on TV ads in South Carolina, but Tyler would not say how much of that is going toward running the ads hitting Bain.
Update: 7:10 p.m. Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul sent HuffPost a statement responding to the ads:
"It is sad to see Speaker Gingrich and his allies so desperate to try and revive his campaign that they've resorted to blatant falsehoods and fabrications," Saul said. "These facts have been proven untrue and Speaker Gingrich himself said the ads should be taken down."
Saul sent along a clip of Gingrich saying in a radio interview that a portion of the super PAC's 28-minute film attacking Romney from which the ads were created is wrong. One of the women says Romney "has 15 homes," which is inaccurate.
"It is not accurate, and if that’s true they should take down the ad," Gingrich told WRKO's Howie Carr. "And I'm glad to say publicly they should take that out of the ad if that's in the ad.â€
Of course, the 30-second and 60-second ads airing on TV don't include that assertion, and so Gingrich will have to clarify whether he is calling on the super PAC to pull its TV spots, or whether he wants it to pull the 28-minute film off the Web, or neither of those things.
Saul also sent along a report from CNN Money that highlights numerous other inaccuracies in the anti-Romney film.
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told HuffPost, "We acknowledge that Romney does not own 16 homes, and our suggestion is for either the group to correct it, or perhaps they could put up a flashing banner that says the Romneys only own four homes."
Hammond sidestepped questions of whether the film should be taken down entirely if, as the CNN Money column indicates, it is shot through with inaccuracies. He directed questions about the film to Tyler.
View the 30-minute ad below:
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First Posted: 01/12/12 06:26 PM ET Updated: 01/12/12 08:01 PM ET