A controversial ad from Priorities USA, a Super PAC supporting President Obama, shows the story of Joe Soptic, a former worker from GST Steel.
GST Steel was a company that closed after being bought by Bain Capital, the investment firm that Mitt Romney helped build. In the ad, Soptic talks about how Mitt Romney and Bain closed GST Steel, causing him and his wife to lose his health care. The ad then states that shortly after that, it was discovered that his wife had stage four cancer, and died 22 days later.
The ad makes Romney look like Satan. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with it.
First of all, Romney left Bain in 1999 to take over the Salt Lake City Olympics. As noted by the Washington Post this week, GST filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Romney was not involved in the decision to close the plant.
Joe Soptic’s wife, Ranae Soptic, had health insurance through her own employer, a fact left out of the Priorities USA ad. She died in 2006, years after the plant was closed.
When asked about this ad, Stephanie Cutter, the deputy campaign manager for President Obama’s reelection campaign, said on CNN “I don’t know the facts about when Mr. Soptic’s wife got sick or the facts about his health insurance.”
Another Obama campaign advisor, Robert Gibbs, later echoed these statements on MSNBC Wednesday morning, saying that he did not “know the specifics.”
(Excerpt) Read more at policymic.com ...
