The White House responded Wednesday by saying Romney’s camp was adopting “desperate” tactics that were examples of a campaign “having a very bad day or a very bad week.”
“You sometimes witness an effort — that seems desperate — to change the subject. We might be witnessing that now,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Romney, who held a series of fundraisers in California, Utah and Texas, and then Wednesday’s in Georgia that netted $2 million, according to aides, flew to swing state Florida to hold his first public event since late last week.
In Miami, sounding a note of inclusion that belied the socioeconomic tension coursing through the campaign in recent days, Romney courted Hispanic voters saying he would be president “for the 100 percent” of Americans.
“I care about the 100 percent,” he told viewers of Spanish language network Univision. “People in America are going to have a better future if they elect me the next president.”
Hispanics comprise the largest minority in the country, and with Romney trailing slightly according to several polls, peeling Latino voters away from Obama is crucial, particularly in key states such as Florida.
It has been a difficult period for the nominee, who has fended off a backlash from Republicans worried about his gaffe-plagued campaign.
Last week, Romney sparked a furor by criticizing the administration as being too sympathetic to Islamic militants just as the nation learned that its ambassador to Libya and three other citizens had been killed in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.
The controversial fundraising video, and reports of internal campaign disarray, plunged team Romney into deeper turmoil, but their decision to embrace the anti-dependency message appears to have steadied the ship.
Romney’s White House running mate Paul Ryan moved to back-up the Republican economic strategy going into the race’s home stretch.
“Mitt Romney and I are not running to redistribute the wealth. Mitt Romney and I are running to help Americans create wealth,” Ryan told supporters in Virginia, another election battleground state.
But bad headlines for Romney dominated newspaper editorials.
Colorado’s Denver Post said:”Given the caricature he has drawn of himself as a tone-deaf plutocrat, he may have a hard time convincing them and other voters he’s worth supporting in November.”
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