Jim Messina dismissed reports of last minute "map expanding," advertising buys by Team Romney as desperate "head fakes," and a "long-bomb Hail Mary pass," motivated by the fact that the Romney's forces haven't been able to find traction in any of the more plausible paths to 270 electoral college votes. Matt Viser, of the Boston Globe, reports the Romney campaign bought $120,000 of ads (a pittance,) while the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore or Future announced they will spend $2.1 million on ads in Pennsylvania, in Mitt Romney expands ad campaign into Pennsylvania.
Romney's political director, Rich Beeson, released a memo today illustrating the classic Karl Rove "spin trick" of saying exactly the opposite of what is actually true to reposition a losing position, as a sigh of stregth:
“Pennsylvania presents a unique opportunity for the Romney campaign,” ... “This expansion of the electoral map demonstrates that Governor Romney’s momentum has jumped containment from the usual target states and has spread to deeper blue states that Chicago never anticipated defending,” Beeson wrote. ... “The Romney campaign has the resources to expand the map in ways that weren’t possible in past cycles,”
Speaking for the Obama campaign Jim Messina counters:
President Obama’s campaign counters that Republicans are making a Hail Mary pass because they are unable to win in other battleground states, such as Ohio, and need to find another way to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win.
“The Romney campaign has found itself with a tremendously narrow and improbable path to 270 electoral votes,” Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager, said in a statement. “Now, like Republicans did in 2008, they are throwing money at states where they never built an organization and have been losing for two years. Let’s be very clear, the Romney campaign and its allies decision to go up with advertising in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota is a decision made out of weakness, not strength.”
One of the new Romney ads focuses on his coal strategy saying that "people in the coal industry feel like they are getting crushed," by President Obama's policies.
Matt Viser notes that most of the slow down in coal operations in PA, as well as OH, that Mitt Romney is trying to blame on President Obamaj, have been displaced by falling natural gas prices due to expansion of fracking operations in the same regions.
I wonder if another possible explanation is that Restore Our Future is stuck with extra money it failed to spend more strategically, and now can not find enough opportunities in real swing states and doesn't want to look bad after a loss by being seen as leaving resources on the sidelines? So, by comparison, spending $2.1 million to set a false "expanding the battlefield" meme may appear strategic?