Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh charged that Mitt Romney's spokeswoman may have inadvertently handed over a potential “gold mine” of material to the Obama campaign when she flatly declared that a cancer-stricken woman discussed in a Democratic TV ad would have had healthcare under her boss’s old plan in Massachusetts.
“That's a potential goldmine for the Obamaites, because they can say, ‘Well, yeah, and Romneycare's the foundation for our plan, Obamacare,’ which they are already out there saying,” snapped Limbaugh on Wednesday’s show.
During an earlier Fox News interview, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said the candidate’s Massachusetts plan would have covered a woman who lost her health insurance after her husband was laid off from a company taken over by the private equity firm Romney once led.
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The woman’s story is featured in an ad by Priorities USA Action, a group aligned with President Barack Obama.
Saul’s remarks reopened old wounds among conservatives, who have expressed concern throughout the campaign that Romney would have difficulty in attacking Obamacare based on his role in creating the Massachusetts plan. That plan, much like Obamacare, requires people to buy health insurance.
“Priorities USA was damaging itself and Barack Obama over its mind-numbingly insane ad painting Mitt Romney as a killer,” opined conservative blogger Erick Erickson of RedState. “Then the Romney campaign decided to sabotage itself with a mind-numbing bit of spin that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.”
Romney has avoided discussing his health plan on the campaign trail, though he says it was the right plan for Massachusetts.
Had he been responding on behalf of the Romney campaign, Limbaugh said he would have pointed out that the steel company the woman’s husband worked at was failing — before Bain Capital was invited in to help save it.
"Bain Capital gave Joe Soptic an additional two or three years of work with health insurance that he would not have had were it not for Bain Capital," said Limbaugh. “Why can't they tell their own story? I know the story. Why can't they tell their story?”
Moreover, the talk show host said he would have attacked Obama’s record on jobs. “You know, there are two million people who do not have jobs that did have jobs when Obama was inaugurated — two million fewer jobs since Obama took office,” according to Limbaugh.
“How many of those people have died of cancer? You guys want to start talking about death squads? When are you gonna give the money from Planned Parenthood back? You want [to talk] about death squads, how about NARAL, whatever that stands for, Abortion Rights Action League," asked Limbaugh. “I would throw it right back at 'em.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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