Politico finds it important that a man who appeared in Mitt Romney’s video was convicted of “assault on a peace officer” in 2005. Their research indicates the man served his sentence.
He appears to be a carpenter, working on staircase repair at a hotel; he refers to an anecdote of writing his daughter’s name underneath a stair that appeared in the Des Moines Register.
So… why is this important?
The Register wrote about the ad, and did not mention the man as some local troublemaker or ne’er-do-well.
I suppose an argument could be made that the man’s run-ins with the law contribute to his long-term unemployment and under-employment. But the man’s need for a job, and ability to support himself and pay his child support, is real. Iowa’s unemployment is a relatively low 5.2 percent, but that still adds up to 86,978 Iowans looking for work. It’s unlikely that the other 86,977 currently unemployed are all struggling to find work because of criminal records.
Over at Ace of Spades, Drew M. writes:
The bigger issues is [Politico reporter Maggie] Haberman appears to have taken it upon herself to do background checks on people appearing in Romney videos. There are no links or sources in her piece so it’s either original reporting or she’s just running opposition research dumps for the Obama campaign.
I wonder if Haberman has done background searches on everyone who appears in an Obama ad. If not, why not?
The rules are clear, if the media isn’t going to do this stuff conservatives will have to. No more playing a gentleman’s game when the other side is playing for keeps. Everyone who appears in a Team Obama ad better be prepared.
I guess we know why Obama prefers to cite “composites” like “Julia.” They never found the little girl whose family couldn’t afford a winter coat that John Edwards kept citing again and again.