Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus openly mocked David Axelrod, President Obama's campaign strategist, and the rest of Obama's campaign on Sunday over their reaction to a disastrous press conference in Massachusetts this week.
"For these tough guys from Chicago to cry about it, I just find it laughable," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday morning. "It's politics, and I think that rallies and protests and people getting out there and voicing their First Amendment rights is something that's pretty normal."
A feisty crowd of Mitt Romney supporters and campaign staff drowned out Axelrod's message in Boston on Thursday as he tried to highlight Romney's economic failures as governor of Massachusetts. When the Obama supporters shouted "Forward!", the Romney supporters chanted, "Off a cliff!"
A frustrated Axelrod told the crowd they "can't handle the truth," and Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith later lambasted the Romney campaign for employing "juvenile," "circus-like tactics" to ruin the event.
Priebus said the Axelrod press conference was "the height of a political stunt," and that Obama's team wants "us to believe that we’re not living on earth, and the president is not the president, and all these things that are going wrong have nothing to do with President Obama."
Axelrod said that it was the Romney campaign that had turned his event into a stunt.
"Look, we went up there to make a point about Governor Romney's economic record," he told "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer. "He had the wrong economic philosophy and he failed. I was disappointed that they chose to send a bunch of campaign staff to try and drown out the speakers, but you can't drown out the record, Bob. The record is very clear."