Hispanic voters targeted in new ad blitz for Obama

[June 11, 2012]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- One of the nation's largest unions and a Democratic super PAC supporting President Barack Obama launched a joint $4 million Spanish-language advertising campaign on Monday, targeting Hispanic voters.

The ads, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and Priorities USA Action, argue that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's policies would benefit the wealthiest Americans at the expense of Hispanics and other working families.

Priorities USA Action, founded by two former Obama White House aides, has struggled in fundraising compared with Republican-leaning super PACs like American Crossroads and its nonprofit arm, Crossroads GPS. But the super PAC's partnerships with SEIU and other organizations, including the League of Conservation Voters and the United Auto Workers, help the group compete with the better funded GOP-leaning political action committees.

The political wing of SEIU has given a combined $1 million to Priorities USA Action during the current election cycle.

The Priorities USA advertising partnerships with SEIU have focused primary on Hispanic voters, a key election-year constituency for Obama. The ads released Monday use past statements made by Romney, including his assertion that the very poor were not his focus, to try to make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee would be harmful to Hispanics.

The ads will run on television and radio stations in Colorado, Nevada and Florida -- all battleground states with sizeable Hispanic populations -- throughout the summer.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign on Monday also released a new online video today on what it says is a Romney plan to eliminate police officer, firefighter and teacher positions.

The video asserts that "this approach is nothing new to Mitt Romney -- it's the same one he pursued in Massachusetts."

The video charges that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney cut funding for education and first responders and says that lead to layoffs, even though he expanded the size of state government overall.

The new web video features interviews with Massachusetts elected officials who served during Romney's tenure --and highlights the local impact of the cuts he made at the state level to teachers, firefighters and police.

[Associated Press; By JULIE PACE]

Associated Press writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

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