Mitt Romney’s Jeep Ad Wins Lie Of The Year Award [Video]
During the final days of the 2012 election Mitt Romney’s campaign released an ad claiming that Jeep was moving its U.S. production to China. The claim was refuted by bloggers, President Obama and Jeep. PolitiFact has now given the ad the dubious honor of being the Lie Of The Year.
PolitiFact writes:
“PolitiFact has selected Romney’s claim that Barack Obama “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China” at the cost of American jobs as the 2012 Lie of the Year.”
PolitiFact notes that the Obama campaign told its share of lies during the 2012 Election season but Mitt Romney’s Jeep ad was a step above the rest. The fact checker site says that not only was the ad a blatant lie, but the Romney campaign repeatedly stood by the claim.
Romney first made the claim that Jeep was moving production overseas during a speech in Ohio. Several reporters noted the mistake and Chrysler spokesman Gualberto Ranieri responded on the company blog, saying:
“Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China … A careful and unbiased reading of the Bloomberg take would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.”
But the Romney campaign didn’t back down. Instead of saying that they made a mistake they released a television ad in Ohio.
“Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama .. Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”
Chrysler refuted the claim again, as well as fact checking sites like PolitiFact and Factcheck.org, and eventually Obama’s campaign ran an ad to counter Romney’s Jeep ad.
“Chrysler itself has refuted Romney’s lie. The truth? Jeep is adding jobs in Ohio.”
Do you think Mitt Rommey’s claim deserved the Lie Of The Year Award?
Here’s Mitt Romney’s Jeep ad.
Here’s President Obama’s counter ad.
