Issue? Cancer Ad

The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA ran an ad which states that Bain Capital closed down a plant which led to the death of one steel worker's wife. When the plant closed the steel worker lost his insurance which was paying for his wife's cancer treatments. They even interviewed that steel worker in the ad.

I don't think this important because that information is not accurate. After the plant closed, the wife had her own insurance for 5 years and then died.

- Savannah

 The Romney campaign turned a cancer ad against President Obama, questioning the president’s character. The Romney campaign believes they’ve seized the moral high ground, and by hammering the president over the cancer ad, hopes that they can get some of the likability gap within the president's lead in the polls. This ad moved some of the undecided voters toward Romney’s side. The Romney campaign criticizes Obama of trying "to use the tragedy of a woman’s death for political gain."

I don’t think that the death of a cancer patient is relevant in this election or campaign.

- Anye

                In a campaigning ad, Obama linked Romney in with a woman who died from cancer. In the ad, former steelworker Joe Soptic recounts how he lost his family health benefits when Bain Capital, a company Romney headed, shut down his steel plant in 2001. His wife died of cancer five years later. Republican critics didn’t take too lightly to the action when Romney refused to pull the ad. The Obama campaign tries to distance itself from the ad, wanting nothing to do with it. Republicans still accuse the democrats of lying for even establishing the ad.

                I think that both parties had something to do with this that I don’t like. I don’t think that either candidate should have even thought about bringing life threatening illnesses into it. They should make their ads a bit less ‘cruel’. They shouldn’t pin things on ads that no one has control over. I think that they should put more social issues in ads that might catch the attention of people in a good way, not in the life threatening, cancer way.

- Karisa, Lexi

Obama can use this topic against Romney. It was a commercial that was aired on local channels that the Democratic party put on the air. The commercial was about a women that lost her life to cancer after her husband lost his job due to Romney’s choices. The women lost her life because she couldn’t afford to pay for health insurance so instead of going to the doctor for her cancer she just died. Her husband got on the screen and blamed Mitt Romney for shutting down the plant that he worked at; which caused this grave tragedy.

I think this is very low blow from Obama’s administration to use. Although the man’s wife did die, fact checkers point out that she didn’t die until years after the man lost his job. Technically the man did lose his job due to Romney shutting down his plant, but not to the extent the commercial laid it out to be. I understand that Obama wants more votes but I don’t think he should be focused on lying and stretching the truth this far to get those votes.

- Katie, Troy

This was an attack ad on Romney because a Bain Capital factory closed leaving a family without health insurance. So a workers wife died of cancer. But the truth of the story is the woman died 5 years after the plant closed. Plus, Bain Capital gave the workers a full year of health insurance after they closed down the plant.

I don’t think this is an issue in the election because it is a lie. The family had health insurance for a year after the plant closed so it is not Romney’s fault that his wife died five years later. If he needed health insurance than he should of acquired a new job.

- Riley, Nate, Michael