Tales from the Trail

A super PAC supporting Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and the nation’s largest health care and property services labor union on Monday launched a Spanish language television advertisement campaign highlighting “working Latinos’ reactions” to certain statements presumptive nominee Mitt Romney has made on the campaign trail.

The $4 million campaign, “Mitt Romney: En Sus Propias Palabras” (Mitt Romney: In His Own Words), is billed by Priorities USA Action and the Service Employees International Union as one of “the largest ever independent Spanish-language campaigns” and will run on TV and radio in Colorado, Nevada, and Florida.

The Nevada ad features Romney describing himself as “unemployed” as he seeks to oust the incumbent Democrat Obama from the White House in the general election in November.

“I like being able to fire people that provide services to me,” the ad shows Romney, a former private equity executive, saying in a speech. It then cuts to voters expressing displeasure over his rhetoric, including a young woman who says in Spanish: “Absolutely not, I’d never support someone with that type of thinking, values or theories.”

The ads are meant to counter a push by Romney to appeal to Hispanic voters that has included television ads of his own.

The head of the largest U.S. labor federation went to Alaska, “The Last Frontier,” to address local members Thursday and take on a self-proclaimed “Mama Grizzly” — Sarah Palin.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka mocked the former Alaska governor, a 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee who is seen as a conservative power broker and potential 2012 White House hopeful.

“Sometimes — about Sarah Palin — you just have to laugh. But it’s not really funny,” Trumka said.

Twenty-seven U.S. labor unions warn that the healthcare bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee is deeply flawed and they want to see some changes — or else they will oppose it.

The coalition of major unions, who support healthcare reform, issued its warning in a full-page ad in Wednesday’s Washington Post.
“Unless the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate makes substantial progress to address the concerns of working men and women,  we will oppose it,” the ad says.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ healthcare plan does not include a government-run “public” insurance option backed by President Barack Obama.