Elections

Obama senior adviser Gibbs: Romney a ‘prep school bully’

Nicholas Ballasy Senior Video Reporter
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Senior adviser to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign Robert Gibbs said the Obama campaign is not going to allow GOP nominee Mitt Romney to keep playing his “tried-and-true role” of “prep school bully.”

During “This Week” on ABC News Sunday, Gibbs was asked about the recent ads run by both the Obama and Romney campaigns.

“The data that’s out in the last couple of weeks, 90 percent of ads that Barack Obama has run have been negative, 90 percent of ads that Mitt Romney has run in the last few weeks have been negative. And there was a poll out recently that just came out last week that showed we’re at an historic place where both candidates are viewed very negatively,” host Matthew Dowd said.

“Thirty-two percent Barack Obama, 24 percent Mitt Romney — are we at a place where the Mitt Romney strategy message is fire him, and the Barack Obama strategy is don’t hire him?” Dowd asked. “And it’s been all negative with no vision for the future?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s been true at all in our case. We spent the first month of the campaign, for four weeks, running nothing but a positive ad about what Barack Obama has done,” Gibbs, the former White House press secretary, responded.

“But let’s be clear, Mitt Romney had a strategy during the primaries. He used negative ads to destroy Rick Perry. He used negative ads to destroy Newt Gingrich. He used negative ads to destroy Rick Santorum.”

Dowd followed up, asking, “Are you saying that is an asset?”

Gibbs responded, “We’re not going to let him play his tried-and-true role as prep school bully. We’re going to certainly respond — and, look, the ad that you mentioned on what the president said selectively edited — the sentence previous to what you heard the president say is talking about infrastructure and roads and bridges.”

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