The RNC is out with a new video accusing President Obama’s re-election team of covering up an attempt to pressure Newark Mayor Cory Booker into walking back his critique of their campaign tactics.

On Sunday, Booker told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “very uncomfortable with” some of the attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, a strategy he said he found “nauseating.” Within hours, Booker released a video on his YouTube page revising his remarks. “Mitt Romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign,” he says in the video. “And therefore it is reasonable — and in fact I encourage it — for the Obama campaign to examine that record and discuss it.”

Today’s RNC video, titled “Dishonest Attacks, Dishonest Cover-up,” shows a clip of Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt claiming that Booker was not asked to backtrack on his remarks, followed by a clip of Booker affirming that he had communicated with members of Obama’s campaign team after his “Meet the Press” interview.

Asked on CNN yesterday whether anyone in the Obama campaign “reached out to fix this,” LaBolt said Booker “released that video of his own volition…the campaign did not ask him to do so.”

A few hours later, Booker went on TV and explained that he had indeed spoken to Team Obama — although he didn’t say they explicitly asked him to “expand” on his comments:

“They had good conversations with me, and after having conversations with them — especially after hearing the president’s remarks on this issue — all of those things made me say, ‘I need to go on and clarify.’”

Watch the video, via the RNC:

New Jersey’s Republican governor, Chris Christie, and Newark’s Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, joined forces for a comic video they debuted last night at the New Jersey Press Association’s annual Legislative Correspondents Club Show.

The skit plays on Booker’s reputation for valiance (thanks to his famed rescue of a neighbor from fire and for shoveling snow for Newark residents), with Booker edging out Christie on one heroic good deed after another. “Booker!” grumbles Christie each time, echoing Jerry Seinfeld’s aggrieved “Newman!” But there’s one act of heroism only Christie, in the video, can do: join Romney as running mate.

Watch, via Christie’s YouTube page:

As Republicans this week extend their attacks on President Obama for the increasing federal debt, the RNC’s “rapid response” team has dredged up old video of then-Senate candidate Obama elaborating his views about the federal deficit during a 2004 debate.

In the course of his response to a moderator’s question about the “monstrous federal deficit,” Obama says it’s “an enormous problem” brought about by the Bush White House, which he calls “the most fiscally irresponsible administration in certainly my memory.”

“We have gone from trillion-dollar surpluses to trillion-dollar deficits in the blink of an eye,” Obama said. “Not all of those costs are the fault of the administration — obviously, 9/11 occurred and the decline in the economy. But what is also true is that it was aided and abetted by a set of fiscal policies that I think were on the wrong course.”

Watch, via the RNC (and h/t Buzzfeed):

President Obama is too closely tied to Wall Street, claims a new web video that takes the tone of Occupy Wall Street, though it was produced by a conservative group.

The video, released by the American Future Fund, an Iowa-based organization designed to be “a voice for conservative principles” and “free market ideals,” alleges that raising tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street gave Obama reason to let (presumably culpable) Wall Street executives off easy:

“Nearly four years after America’s financial collapse, not a single senior Wall Street executive has been charged with a crime. Not one. Why? Could it be because Obama raised $49 million from Wall Street – more than any candidate in history? He rewarded top Wall Street donors and supporters with senior jobs. His chief of staff made millions from Wall Street — after Wall Street received billions in bailout money.”

The ad names Jon Corzine, the former Democratic senator and New Jersey governor who headed MF Global until it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall, as a particular example. Corzine “lost $1.6 billion in customers’ money but hasn’t been charged” the narrator says.

“Under Obama, Wall Street keeps winning, and Obama keeps taking their cash. Tell Obama to stop protecting his Wall Street donors.”

Watch, via the American Future Fund:

Pro-Obama super PAC American Bridge has released a new web video outlining Mitt Romney’s various, and potentially incendiary, comments on a spectrum of gay-rights issues — marriage, child rearing, bullying — at different moments in his political career. “The more we learn about Mitt Romney’s attitude toward LGBT people, the worse it gets,” the ad declares.

The video — titled “Mitt Gets Worse,” presumably a play on the “It Gets Better” video project for LGBT youth — shows the presidential candidate repeatedly disavowing same-sex marriage, first as governor of Massachusetts (“Marriage in one state affects all of the states and therefore we have to have a federal standard that says marriage in this country is a relationship between one man and one woman,” he tells an audience) and, later, as a presidential candidate (“Calling it marriage creates a whole host of problems…three thousand years of human history shouldn’t be discarded so quickly”).

Romney’s concerns about the impact of same-sex marriage on “the development of children” are also highlighted: “The consequences of gay marriage fall far beyond just the relationship between a man and woman — they also relate to our kids,” he’s shown saying in one clip. “The development of a child in the history of civilization has been enhanced by the opportunity to learn from the gender characteristics of a mother and a father,” he says in another, although he doesn’t specify which “gender characteristics” he means.

The video ends with Romney’s reaction when questioned about a Washington Post report that as a high school student he bullied a classmate thought to be gay, holding him down and cutting his hair. “You know I don’t, I don’t remember that incident,” Romney told Fox with a laugh so peculiar that the ad plays it twice.

Watch, courtesy of American Bridge 21st Century:

Photo credit: Screenshot/American Bridge 21st Century

A pro-Romney Super PAC is out with a new ad resurrecting the frenzy over Hilary Rosen’s accusation last month that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.”

The ad, released by Restore our Future just in time for Mother’s Day, notes that Ann Romney raised five sons and survived breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. “But what does White House insider Hilary Rosen say about Ann Romney?” a narrator asks before playing a clip of Rosen’s remark.

Bill Maher is also featured in the ad, where he’s identified as an Obama donor and shown saying, “Ann Romney has never gotten her ass out of the house.” Maher made the comment during a larger discussion about the meaning of Rosen’s remarks on his show, “Real Time,” on April 13:

“But what she meant to say, I think, was that Ann Romney has never gotten her ass out of the house to work. No one is denying that being a mother is a tough job. I remember I was a handful. Okay, but there is a big difference in being a mother in that tough job, and getting your ass out of the door at 7am when it’s cold, having to deal with the boss, being in a workplace, and even if you’re unhappy you can’t show it for eight hours, that is kind of a different kind of tough thing.”

The ad ends with an image of a Mother’s Day card with photos of Obama, Rosen, and Maher on the inside: “Happy Mother’s Day, from Barack Obama’s team,” the narrator says.

Watch the ad, courtesy of Restore our Future:

Teachers unions are “bullies” that are “destroying our children’s future,” argues a new ad campaign developed by the State 
Government 
Leadership 
Foundation, a Republican group that works for conservative causes at the state level.

“These bullies make hundreds of thousands of dollars and protect failing teachers at the expense of children,” the narrator says as images of a “union official” counting twenty-dollar bills and intimidating schoolkids flash across the screen. “Teacher union bullies block education reform while American kids fall further behind the Chinese.”

According to the group’s press release, the ad, which debuts during Teacher Appreciation Week, “targets
 states
 where
 teachers
 unions
 have
 most 
onerously 
abused 
their 
influence
 over 
our
 nation’s
 public 
schools,
 including
 New 
York,
 New
 Mexico,
 Michigan,
 Illinois, 
New
 Jersey
 and
 Connecticut.”

“Although 
the 
typical 
teacher 
is 
hard
working 
and
 effective,
 teachers 
unions
 are 
more 
interested 
in 
maintaining
 the 
status 
quo 
and 
protecting 
the
 worst 
teachers,
 rather 
than 
incentivizing
 excellence
 and 
rewarding 
success,” Sarah 
Lenti,
 a senior 
policy 
advisor at the SGLF, said in a statement.

Watch the video, via the SGLF:

Photo credit: Screenshot/SGLF

The Obama reelection team is out with a new ad today defending itself against allegations, advanced last week in an ad from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, that billions of stimulus dollars meant to create “green energy” jobs in the U.S. had been spent instead on creating jobs abroad.

“Obama’s clean energy initiatives have helped create jobs for projects across America, not overseas,” the new ad insists, citing fact checks at Politifact and the Washington Post and suggesting that “Big Oil” was the force behind the AFP attack. The video, which will air in Ohio, Virginia, and Iowa, also alleges that Mitt Romney has outsourced jobs in the past, first as a CEO and then as governor of Massachusetts, and now supports tax breaks for companies that do the same. “It’s just what you’d expect from a guy who had a Swiss bank account,” the ad’s narrator says.

The Romney campaign called the ad “desperate”: “President Obama is trying to distract Americans from the real issues with a series of sideshows,” Romney spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said. “Unable to defend his failed record of 23 million Americans struggling for work, wasteful boondoggles like Solyndra, skyrocketing national debt, and unacceptably high energy prices, President Obama has once again resorted to attacking Mitt Romney.”

Watch, via Obama for America:

And here’s the original ad, via Americans for Prosperity:

At a campaign stop today in Portsmouth, NH, Mitt Romney portrayed President Obama as a foe — and himself a champion — of the poor, noting the “greater and greater gap between those that have the most and those that have the least” and accusing President Obama of being “focused on taking away from those that have the least.”

“I want to help everybody, particularly those that are being left behind,” said Romney, who memorably told CNN he’s “not concerned about the very poor” in February. “I want to help the poor. I want to help the middle class get the kinds of jobs that raise their income. Let’s focus on helping the people who need the help the most.”

With Senator Kelly Ayotte — whom Romney has said is on his short list of potential running mates — at his side, Romney told the audience the president was “trying to divert” attention away from the economy “with all the silliness day in and day out.”

“Over these last several days, we have seen this president go across the country and bring up all sorts of extraneous items,” he said. “Everything he can do to distract from the issue that people care about, which is a stronger economy, creating more enterprises, creating good jobs, and raising incomes.”

Watch a video of the comments below, via pbriand3:

Team Obama today introduced a new, one-word campaign slogan, “Forward,” in a seven-minute web video of the same name that lays out a case for the president’s reelection.

The ad suggests Obama fell heir to, in Alan Greenspan’s words, a “once in a half-century, probably in a century” economic crisis, but argues that things are improving: the stimulus “saved up to 4.2 million jobs” and the auto bailout another 1.1 million; manufacturing has seen its first increase in jobs “in a decade”; between March 2010 and March 2012, 4.1 million jobs were created in the private-sector. The president “took on” credit card companies and “the Wall Street banks,” the ad says, passing reforms to stop “unfair fees and hidden penalties” and ensure financial institutions “never again wreck our economy.”

The video also hits on Obama’s healthcare reforms — now, the narrator says, “insurance companies can’t deny children coverage for preexisting conditions [and] seniors pay less for prescriptions” — and claims wins, despite what the ad portrays as an obstructionist Republican opposition, in middle class tax cuts, wind and solar power, equal pay for women, the eradication of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” foreign policy, small business tax cuts, spending cuts, reproductive rights, stem cell research, fuel efficiency standards, domestic oil and natural gas production, science funding, and more.

The RNC responded with a list of “a few things Americans can look forward to because of Obama’s policies”: “more poverty, more ‘missing workers’ and more people on food stamps”; “$6.4 trillion in cumulative deficits between now and 2022″; and “never getting back the $535 million given to #Solyndra,” among others.

Watch the full video, via barackobama.com, below: