A conservative Super PAC backed by billionaire Joe Ricketts may have thought they could take down President Barack Obama with a $10 million ad campaign resurrecting 2008′s Jeremiah Wright scandal, but the Obama campaign is gleefully using the so-called “Ricketts Plan” as an opportunity to paint Mitt Romney as immoral and rally their supporters.
Though Mr. Romney disavowed the Super PAC’s strategy, President Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, issued a statement earlier this afternoon saying the strategy “revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney” and accusing Mr. Romney of “reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.” A few hours later, Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt sent out a nearly identical statement.
“Today, Mitt Romney had the opportunity to distance himself from his previous attempts to inject the divisive politics of character assassination into the presidential race. It was a moment that required moral leadership, and once again he didn’t rise to the occasion,” Mr. LaBolt said. “Throughout the course of the campaign, he has repeatedly refused to stand up to the most extreme voices in the Republican Party. If this is the ‘leadership’ he has shown on the campaign trail, what can the American people expect of him President of the United States?”
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