Priorities USA Action is up with a brutal 30 second spot called "Scrap Steel," which profiles Joe Whitley, a 29-year employee of GST Steel in Kansas City, Kan. In the ad, Whitley criticizes Romney and Bain Capital for shuttering the company and walking away with a profit:
That plant was my life, I mean, my livelihood… It fed me as a kid and fed my whole family as an adult. I depended on that plant, and I felt like it depended on me. Romney and Bain, they were businessmen, they had no idea how to make steel. They knew how to make money. They used us just like we were the scrap steel that we melted, you know, we were just a means to an end.
There is no word yet as to how much money Priorities USA Action is putting behind the spot, though co-founder Bill Burton noted in a press release that it is part of a "$20 million television and online project to educate voters about Mitt Romney’s business record and their impact on middle class families."
Bill Burton said Friday that the ad was not intended to replace the controversial ad featuring Joe Soptic, which has not aired yet but is available online, and will ship to television stations next week.
Burton noted it has seen huge Web traction in swing states, saying that four of the top five states where people have viewed the ad are Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.