FOXNews.com: Obama rolls out hard-hitting ads as campaign looks to buck up battleground numbers

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Obama rolls out hard-hitting ads as campaign looks to buck up battleground numbers Aug 8th 2012, 13:26 President Obama, aiming to pull up his numbers in key swing states, is along with his super PAC releasing a wave of vicious ads that cast Mitt Romney as uncaring and anti-woman.  They come as the president launches a two-day tour through the Colorado battleground. The Romney campaign has pushed back hard on the ads, one of which labels Romney as "extreme" on the issue of women's health and another of which ties him to a woman's death.   Obama plans to highlight the women's health issue at a campaign stop Wednesday in Denver, where he will tout the health care overhaul's impact on women -- and, to drive the point home, be introduced by the Georgetown University student who drew national attention after Rush Limbaugh called her a slut for supporting the so-called contraception mandate.  The push, combined with the raft of hard-hitting ads, comes as polling shows Obama faring well among women but not so well among white working-class voters in general -- voters considered critical in the November election.  A new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll showed Romney leading by double-digits among that constituency in Colorado, Wisconsin and Virginia.  Obama, who held the lead among women in all three states, is trying to build that gender advantage to whatever extent he can. A recent Obama campaign ad released over the weekend included a woman saying she can't remember "anyone as extreme as Mitt Romney."  A new web video released by the campaign showed actress Elizabeth Banks touting Planned Parenthood, and criticizing Romney for his efforts to de-fund it. "He's going to take away cancer screenings? What is he doing?" she asked.  The ad coincided with a controversial ad from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA that sought to tie Romney to the death of a Kansas City steelworker's wife.  The ad focuses on the story of Joe Soptic, a former worker at GST Steel. He was among those affected when the firm declared bankruptcy in 2001, following the takeover by Romney's Bain Capital firm and other companies.  "I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant," Soptic said in the ad. He recalled how when "Mitt Romney and Bain" closed the plant, his family lost their health care.  "A short time after that, my wife became ill," he said. Soptic said that one day he took her to the hospital, where doctors found she had Stage 4 cancer.  "There was nothing they could do for her. And she passed away in 22 days," he said. "I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he's done to anyone."  The ad condenses a series of events that took place over several years, and Romney's ties to the situation are not clear.  Before the GST Steel closure, Romney left Bain in 1999 to work on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. There have been ongoing disputes about his involvement with Bain during that period, since he was still listed as CEO in financial documents, but the campaign has maintained he effectively left the company in 1999.  Further, Soptic's wife died in 2006, according to a Kansas City Star article from the time. This would have been several years after the plant closed down, several years after Romney left Bain and as Romney was finishing his term as Massachusetts governor.  Soptic's wife also reportedly had health insurance for a while through her own employer.  Romney spokesman Ryan Williams rejected the premise of the ad in a written statement Tuesday.  "President Obama's allies continue to use discredited and dishonest attacks in a contemptible effort to conceal the administration's deplorable economic record. After 42 months of unemployment above 8 percent, it is clear that the president and his campaign do not have a rationale for reelection," he said.

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