Wednesday's CBS Evening News finally mentioned the controversial ad -- produced by an Obama super PAC -- which blames Mitt Romney for former steel worker Joe Soptic's wife dying of cancer, as CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes filed a report recounting negative campaigning from both the GOP and Democratic sides.
But she only vaguely referred to the pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA, as an "outside group," even though it was founded by former Obama advisors to support the President's reelection. Covering the same inflammatory ad for CBS This Morning on Friday, Cordes had made the group's partisan affiliation clear, describing them as "a top outside group supporting the President."
Referring to complaints from the Romney campaign, Cordes related:
As evidence, his aides pointed to the Obama camp's refusal to denounce an ad by an outside group. The commercial linked Romney to an uninsured woman who died of cancer five years after Romney's former company, Bain Capital, shuttered her husband's steel plant.
While Cordes had discussed the ad on Friday's CBS This Morning, she chose not to raise the topic when she substitute hosted Sunday's Face the Nation show in spite of having current Obama advisor Stephanie Cutter as a guest.
Below is a complete transcript of the report from the Wednesday, August 15, CBS Evening News:
BOB SCHIEFFER: Good evening. Scott's off tonight. I'm Bob Schieffer. Well, who was it who said once Mitt Romney put Paul Ryan on the ticket it meant we'd finally have a campaign about two competing visions for the country, a campaign about substance? Actually, I was the one who said that, but what do I know? Today we have a campaign that is turning into one of the nastiest and most personal of modern times. One side accusing the other of coming unhinged, the other invoking charges of anger and hate. Nancy Cordes is in Iowa with the Obama campaign and has the latest.
NANCY CORDES: Bob, good evening. Governor Romney unleashed one of his harshest critiques of the President to date in Ohio last night, and it was intensely personal. He criticized the President for, as he put it, pandering to some Americans and demonizing others.
MITT ROMNEY: So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.
CORDES: Governor Romney's campaign said his long, simmering frustration boiled over Tuesday night after the Vice President leveled this charge against him in Danville, Virginia:
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: Romney wants to let the, he said in the first 100 days he's gonna let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. He gonna put y'all back in chains.
CORDES: On CBS This Morning, Mr. Romney said attacks like that demean the White House.
ANTHONY MASON, CBS THIS MORNING HOST: The Obama campaign said your remark seemed unhinged. Your reaction to that?
ROMNEY: Very measured. I can be much more dramatic, I think. I think unhinged would have to characterize what we've seen in the President's campaign.
CORDES: As evidence, his aides pointed to the Obama camp's refusal to denounce an ad by an outside group. The commercial linked Romney to an uninsured woman who died of cancer five years after Romney's former company, Bain Capital, shuttered her husband's steel plant.
CLIP OF AD WITH JOE SOPTIC, FORMER STEEL WORKER: She passed away in 22 days. I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he's done to anyone.
CORDES: The Romney campaign called Obama's accusations, quote, "particularly strange coming at a time when he's pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false."
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: These folks on the other side, I mean, they're just writing $10 million, Governor Romney has obviously got more friends than I do that can write $10 million checks.
CORDES: His campaign cited a pair of recent ads that accuse the President of gutting welfare.
CLIP OF AD: Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and you wouldn't have to train for a job.
CORDES: And they noted Romney had a different view of negative campaigning when he was accused of it during the primaries.
ROMNEY: You know, it's pretty warm in the political kitchen. And if you can't handle the heat that's on right now, just wait until we have a billion dollars of Barack Obama's hell's kitchen ads.
CORDES: The President did not address Romney's charges head on today, but his aides did. One called it a "crazy rant." Another, Bob, called it a "contrived fit of righteous indignation."
