Obama Drops $25M on New Ads, Vows Tough Response to Attacks

The Obama campaign is spending a significant $25 million on its new flight of positive, battleground-state TV ads, senior strategist David Axelrod told reporters today.

"We're very proud of what this country has accomplished together, the president and the American people who fought their way through a difficult time… this ad speaks to it," he said.

Axelrod claims the ad buy will mean that the Obama campaign has "spent more money offering people a positive vision for the future talking about the president's record and the nation's record under his leadership and where we're going than Gov. Romney has in his entire campaign."

He sharply criticized Romney and his super PAC for running almost exclusively negative ads - with little to no mention of his record as a businessman with Bain Capital or as governor of Massachusetts.

"Mitt Romney truly has no record to run on. He has a private sector record of loading up companies with debt, laying off workers, and shipping their jobs oversees and making off with millions. He has a public sector record of increasing debts, raising taxes and fees, growing government and shrinking jobs," Axelrod said.  "We probably won't see any ads this cycle that talk accurately about his record because he has nothing to say."

While the Obama campaign's first four TV ads of the election cycle were negative - two of them taking swipes at Romney - aides say those were simply responses to attacks on the president launched by Romney and Romney-affiliated groups.  And they warned today there's more where that came from.

"We're also going to be prepared - and I want to be clear - to respond to the attacks that we expect to continue from not just from the Romney campaign but from the Karl and Koch brothers 'contract killers' over there in 'super PAC land' who are going to continue to pound away on behalf of Gov. Romney," said Axelrod. "We will respond vigorously. We will treat every ad that comes from those entities as ads from Gov. Romney and we will compare our record and vision with his and let the American people decide."

The Romney campaign responded to Axelrod and the new Obama ad saying in an email that neither presents a full or accurate picture of the president's record during the past three and a half years.

"Americans are disappointed in President Obama's liberal policies that haven't made their lives any better," said Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. "President Obama just hasn't lived up to his promises. It's harder to get a job, buy or sell a home, and those fortunate enough to have jobs often have less in their paychecks. Mitt Romney will get our country back on track and stop the middle-class squeeze of the Obama economy."