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Romney's latest problem with conservatives flowed from a spokeswoman's reflections this week on the benefits of the Massachusetts health care law. That Romney-proposed law remains a touchy topic, since it was a model for President Barack Obama's health care overhaul — which Romney now condemns. In criticizing an outside group's ad linking Romney to the cancer death of a laid-off steelworker's wife, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told Fox News, "If people had been in Massachusetts under Gov. Romney's health care plan, they would have had health care."

“The Obama administration, working with the Republican governors of states like Nevada and Utah, is giving states additional flexibility only if they move more people from welfare to work – not fewer," said spokeswoman Lis Smith, adding that Romney, as governor, "petitioned the federal government for waivers that would have let people stay on welfare for an indefinite period, ending welfare reform as we know it."

Despite several visits from President Obama and Mitt Romney since then, a barrage of ads and the state’s recent mass shooting, Obama’s lead remains essentially unchanged at 49 percent to 43 percent.

The main super PAC helping President Obama is out with an emotional ad today slamming Mitt Romney's business record, featuring an ex-steelworker talking about his wife's death after the couple lost their health insurance.

Candidates may raise the unprecedented sums of political cash being funneled through Super PACs this year, and media strategists may decide how to spend them – but the people who actually wind up pocketing much of the money are America's television broadcasters. Since the Supreme Court voided limits on political donations in Citizens United, more money than ever is being devoted to negative TV ads. Industry analysts predict that upwards of $3 billion will be spent on political advertising this year – a surge of more than $500 million over 2008.

The Mitt Romney campaign released a new television ad Sunday using the words of pundits and journalists to knock President Barack Obama for running negative ads. “[W]hen the president was elected, he talked about hope and change," CBS's Bob Schieffer says in the first clip. "Whatever happened to hope and change? Now it seems he’s just coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned, negative ads."

Citing a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group in the battleground states of Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, Priorities USA claimed that more voters say Romney’s experience at Bain makes them less likely to vote for him, 37% to 27%. Claiming that its own anti-Bain ads are working, Priorities USA pointed out that in the 11 markets they’ve advertised in within those five states, Obama leads Romney by eight points (49% to 41%) compared with a three-point lead in those without the ads (46% to 43%).

...And that will all come on top of the barrage of negative ads from Republican groups. Despite the conventional wisdom that Obama would attack Romney to distract from the poor state of the economy, the Post finds that 100 percent of the ad spending from GOP-aligned groups Americans for Prosperity, the American Energy Alliance, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have been negative. 58 percent of Romney’s spending has been on negative ads, compared to only 44 percent of Obama’s. If anyone can win this election on the strength of a barrage of misleading negative ads, it won’t be Obama, it will be his opponent.

A Rick Santorum TV ad morphs an image of Obama into Romney, making the point that there are no policy differences between the two.

A harsh new ad from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney uses news footage from 1997 to remind voters of then-House speaker Newt Gingrich’s ethics violations. “History Lesson” is unusual in that neither Romney nor Gingrich appears. The entire 30-second spot consists of an NBC News report from Jan. 21, 1997, the day Gingrich was reprimanded by Congress for using tax-exempt money for political purposes and giving the House Ethics Committee false information.