First TV advertisement and questions about context In his previous campaign, Romney had begun television advertising in March 2007. In the 2012 cycle, however, his first advertisement did not air until November 2011. The 60-second spot, which was broadcast in
New Hampshire, was widely criticized for using a quotation from Obama out of context. It included a clip of Obama apparently saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." It did not disclose that Obama, speaking in the 2008 campaign, had been quoting an email from an aide to his opponent,
John McCain, which concerned McCain's campaign strategy, not Obama's. The Romney campaign defended the ad. According to
The Boston Globe, "Romney aides even said they were proud of the reaction and suggested that the ad was deliberately misleading to garner attention." Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom stated: "It was all very deliberate. We want to engage him on the subject he wants to avoid, which is his failure to create jobs and get this economy moving again." Fact checking organization
Politifact gave the Romney campaign a "pants on fire" rating for "distorting Obama's words, which have been taken out of context in a ridiculously misleading way," while another
fact-checking organization,
FactCheck.org, declined to assess whether that particular clip in the Romney ad was misleading, and instead said: "We won't quibble with the spot's main message, which is that Obama has failed to fix the economy. That's true enough." According to
The New York Times, when the Obama camp put material on television that made "no effort to put any of Mr. Romney's statements into context", the Romney campaign responded by saying that Obama was trying to distract Americans from real issues such as high unemployment.
Work requirement for welfare In July and August 2012, Romney ran a recurring ad claiming that President Obama wanted to remove the work requirement for welfare recipients. Multiple news outlets and fact checking agencies rated the Romney ad false, Politifact assigning it the rating of "pants on fire".
FactCheck.org stated: "A Mitt Romney TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted 'a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.' The plan does neither of those things." Factcheck.org elaborated that the waivers will not "inherently" gut the work requirements, because a lot will depend upon what kind of waivers states propose; moreover, "the way the administration implemented the new policy has not helped", because of questions about whether Congress ever granted to the president any legal authority to issue the waivers. while
Rick Santorum stated it was relevant as an issue of character.
Etch A Sketch Eric Fehrnstrom, a top aide to Romney, was asked by comedian and political commentator
John Fugelsang on CNN how their campaigning would change if and when Romney wins the Republican nomination. He answered it would be like an
Etch A Sketch to shake-up and start over. Immediately, Santorum and Gingrich took the opportunity to say Romney
flip-flops and was not a true conservative. Each held up an Etch A Sketch toy as a visual aid to their audiences. Ron Paul created a short ad saying "this is petty when we have $15 trillion in debt, 12 million unemployed, and USA at war." Following the incident the
Ohio Art Company saw a 30% increase in sales of Etch A Sketches. Mitt Romney explained the words of his advisor by saying, "A general election campaign takes on a different profile. The issues I'm running on will be exactly the same. I was a conservative Republican governor, and I'll be running as a conservative Republican nominee." A poll by
Pew Research Center taken in the days after the event found that a majority of voters were unaware that the comment had even been said, with a plurality of those that had heard of it saying that it had no effect on their opinion of Romney.
Little Face Mitt and other memes Many called the 2012 presidential election the first real social media election, and the number of
memes it engendered reflects that. Notable contributions included a
Bad Lip Reading video, a campaign similar in scope to the
campaign for the neologism "santorum" which aimed to create an alternate definition (or
homophone) for "romney" that referred to "defecating in terror", and also the
binders full of women gaffe. Perhaps most popular was the "Little Face Mitt" meme, which was created on August 22 by humorist
Reuben Glaser. It showed a depiction of Romney with his facial features "shrunken" within an ordinary-scale blank outline of his face; the result resembled a
Dick Tracy comic-strip villain. Within its first four days it had garnered the attention of
Gawker,
UPROXX,
Complex magazine,
Mashable,
Boing Boing and many local print publications and online news websites. Glaser was also interviewed by the
Washington Examiner,
The New York Times,
The Daily Dot,
The Young Turks and in articles from as far away as
France and
Germany. The
International Business Times credited Little Face Mitt and its images as being one of the best political memes ever and described its notoriety as a "foray into the internet's lexicon" for Mitt Romney, and as "immortality".
Tax returns Due to pressure from political rivals during the Republican primary campaign, Romney released an incomplete 2010 tax return in early January 2012, along with an estimate of the 2011 return. Republicans who urged Romney to release his tax returns include former Mississippi governor
Haley Barbour,
Michael Steele and
Bill Kristol.
George Will said "The cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them." Republican strategist
Matthew Dowd said, "There's obviously something there, because if there was nothing there, he would say, 'Have at it.' So there's obviously something there that compromises what he said in the past about something." In response to claims made to the contrary, Romney said that he never paid less than 13% in taxes over the past 10 years. Romney stated in a
Parade magazine interview that he didn't want to release his tax returns because he would like to keep his
tithing to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints private, though he has publicly released his tithing percentages for 2010 (7%) and 2011 (12%). For their 2011 tax returns, the Romneys paid nearly $2 million in taxes on an income of $13.7 million for an effective tax rate of 14.1%. They gave almost $4 million to charity, but only claimed $2.25 million in deductions in order to maintain his campaign pledge to pay at least 13% of his income in federal taxes. The summary prepared by PwC stated the Romney's effective tax rate paid had averaged 20.2% from 1990 to 2009.
Doctored Video Controversy MSNBC anchor
Andrea Mitchell showed an edited video clip of Romney at a rally in
Pennsylvania. In the edited version, Romney says how amazing ordering a sandwich with a touch screen device at a
Wawa convenience store is. Andrea Mitchell claimed that his apparent enthusiasm belied that he might be out of touch with many Americans who would eat at a restaurant like Wawa's very regularly. Controversy arose when it was revealed that the clip was edited to remove the portion which showed Romney relating the story of an optometrist he met, who had faced an extensive amount of paperwork from the post office to change his address. Romney was commenting on his efficient experience at Wawa's to highlight his belief that the private sector is often more efficient than government, a point that was not evident without the full context of his remarks.
Video of private fundraiser On September 17, excerpts from a video recorded on hidden camera were published by
Mother Jones showing Romney speaking at a private $50,000-a-plate fundraiser held at hedge fund manager
Marc Leder's mansion in
Boca Raton, Florida. The magazine learned of the video from
James Earl Carter IV, a Democratic
opposition researcher (and a grandson of former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter), who found the video online and got the videographer in touch with a writer at the magazine. On March 13, 2013, on
MSNBC's
The Ed Show, Scott Prouty, a bartender at the event, revealed himself as the videographer.
47% comment In the video, recorded May 17, Romney responded to a question about his campaign strategy, saying:
Responses In a press conference convened the night of the video's publication, Romney told reporters that while his "off the cuff" remarks could have been more eloquently stated, he had been conveying an important message: that his proposals to lower the Federal Income Tax would not be as persuasive to those who are not paying that particular tax. "The president believes in what I've described as a government-centered society, where government plays a larger and larger role, provides for more and more of the needs of individuals. And I happen to believe instead in a free enterprise, free individual society where people pursuing their dreams are able to employ one another, build enterprises, build the strongest economy in the world." Several weeks later, Romney commented, "I was completely wrong". Conservative columnist
Peggy Noonan called the Romney campaign "incompetent" and "a rolling calamity", and argued that the Romney campaign "needs a new CEO". Conservative writer
Bill Kristol initially described Romney's remarks as "arrogant and stupid" (a comment he later said "might have been a tad harsh"), but ultimately stood by Romney, saying, "It remains important for the country that Romney wins in November (unless he chooses to step down and we get the Ryan-Rubio ticket we deserve!)." Several Republicans campaigning for seats in the 2012 election disputed or criticized Romney's remarks, including Senate candidates
Linda McMahon (CT),
George Allen (VA), Sen.
Dean Heller (NV), Sen.
Scott Brown (MA), and Gov.
Susana Martinez (NM). Some conservative Republicans, such as
Erick Erickson and
Rush Limbaugh, defended Romney's 47% remark.
PolitiFact has rated the 47% remark as factually true, assuming Romney was referring to the federal income tax—the reasons being that many Americans were so poor as to be exempt from it, and others qualified for enough breaks and other exemptions that their tax liability amounted to zero. During the vice presidential debate, after
Joe Biden criticized Romney's comments, Ryan responded, "With respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way", referring to Biden's reputation for gaffes. President Obama stated in an interview with
David Letterman, "My expectation is if you want to be president, you've got to work for everybody, not just for some". Several commentators noted that 47% was also Romney's share of the popular vote (rounded to the nearest percentage point), a result some considered ironic. Obama had led 50%–48% on election night, but the results edged toward 51%–47% as counting continued over the following weeks.
Israeli–Palestinian peace process The video also showed Romney expressing doubt over whether the Palestinians were fully invested in working toward the success of the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He said the Palestinians are "committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel". In response, Chief Palestinian Negotiator
Saeb Erekat said "only those who want to maintain the Israeli occupation will claim the Palestinians are not interested in peace."
Iran Another part of the video shows Romney saying: Analysts noted that a dirty bomb requires only
radioactive materials, not
fissile materials like those from a nuclear weapons program.
Candidate statements and campaign ads on GM and Chrysler auto production in China Statements by Romney and his campaign have been called false by automakers
Chrysler and
General Motors (GM). During the final weeks of the campaign, the Romney campaign began to promote the idea that as a result of the Obama Administration's bailout of the automotive industry, U.S.-based auto manufacturing jobs would be outsourced to China.
Bloomberg News had reported on October 21 that
Fiat, the majority owner of Chrysler (the maker of
Jeeps), was considering restarting production lines in China that had been idle since 2009. The article quoted Fiat/Chrysler's chief operating officer for Asia as saying that Jeep production sites would be added to China rather than shifted from current production sites in North America. On October 25, Romney said at a rally in the key battleground state of Ohio, "I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state Jeep — now owned by the Italians — is thinking of moving all production to China." Two days later, on October 27, Romney began airing a television ad in Ohio that said, "Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China." The radio ad also said that the other auto manufacturer that had received government assistance during the auto manufacturer crisis, GM, was moving 15,000 American jobs to China. A GM representative denounced the Romney ad, saying, "We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days.... No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country." In December, Politifact described Romney's Jeep comments as their "Lie of the Year" for 2012. As of 2018, the Ohio automobile factory at the center of the dispute,
Toledo Complex, remains open and employs more workers than it did in 2009. Nonetheless, Chrysler has moved some of its production elsewhere; its
Jeep Cherokee line was moved into
Belvidere, Illinois and
Changsha, China. The Changsha factory has begun production on 8 lines of Jeep-branded vehicles, partly as a response to rising demand from China's market. ==General election debates==