Colorado voters are still being shielded from campaign ads in the wake of the massive Aurora shooting. But the rest of the country is wading back into the presidential campaign — and that means Mitt Romney is quickly reviving his go-to attack against President Obama: an out-of-context quote he has wielded as evidence Obama doesn’t understand the American capitalist system.
Until the early Friday morning shooting ground the campaign to a halt, the GOP had been aggressively pouncing on the “you didn’t build that” line — selectively editing Obama’s words to suggest he doesn’t believe businesspeople are responsible for their own success.
Initially, the attack was a handy way for Romney to deflect questions over his tax returns and confusion over his tenure at Bain that had dogged his campaign for weeks. But the line seemed to boost Romney’s confidence the more he used it, and Republicans are continuing to make it the centerpiece of their attacks. On Monday, Romney resumed harping on “you didn’t build that” by issuing a press release doubling down on the attack. The RNC scheduled a conference call with small business owners to attack the line, and Romney debuted a new backdrop for a “small business roundtable” in California, suggesting the event will be all about that one single quote:
Backdrop at Romney’s business roundtable in CA: “We Did Build It!” #campaign2012 twitter.com/Rebecca_CBSNJ/…
— Rebecca Kaplan (@Rebecca_CBSNJ) July 23, 2012
Democrats are back to campaigning, too. On Monday, Obama adviser David Axelrod tweeted links to several stories decrying the Romney campaign’s penchant for secrecy.
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