LOS ANGELES — In some of the toughest comments yet delivered on behalf of Mitt Romney’s campaign, former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu assailed President Barack Obama’s roots in the “political-slash-felon environment” of Chicago and suggested that Obama needed to “learn how to be an American.”
LOS ANGELES — In some of the toughest comments yet delivered on behalf of Mitt Romney’s campaign, former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu assailed President Barack Obama’s roots in the “political-slash-felon environment” of Chicago and suggested that Obama needed to “learn how to be an American.”
In a conference call arranged by the Romney campaign on Tuesday, Sununu attacked Obama over the president’s recent statement that business owners needed government help to succeed.
“These are the people who are the backbone of our economy and the president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the American economy functions,” Sununu said. “The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses — their businesses, from the ground up — is how our economy became the envy of the world.”
He added: “It is the American way, and I wish this president would learn how to be an American.”
Asked later if he could clarify that remark, Sununu didn’t exactly step back, saying that Obama “has to learn the American formula for creating business.”
The Obama campaign immediately fired back, with campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith issuing a statement in which she said: “The Romney campaign has officially gone off the deep end. The question is what else they’ll pull to avoid answering serious questions about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital and investments in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts. This meltdown and over-the-top rhetoric won’t make things better — it only calls attention to how desperate they are to change the conversation.”
The remarks by the former governor and White House chief of staff, followed by anti-Obama statements from four business owners, came as the Romney campaign fights back against attacks over the Republican’s record as the head of Bain Capital, the Boston-based venture capital firm. It is an increasingly nasty debate that touches on a fundamental issue: the relationship between business and government in the U.S.