Democratic super PAC targets Romney’s wealth in new ad

The top Democratic super PAC supporting President Obama’s reelection campaign is going up with a new ad casting Mitt Romney as the candidate of the wealthy.

The Priorities USA Action ad, which the group is running in swing states Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia, features a single picture of Romney and his business partners posing with money between their teeth and bursting out of their suits and notes that Romney made $21 million last year.

“His tax return from last year reveals he made $21 million, yet paid a lower tax rate than many middle class families,” the narrator says. “Now Romney’s proposing a huge new $150,000 tax cut for the wealthiest one percent, while cutting Medicare and education for us.”

The group will spend $500,000 on the ad and says it will spend “millions” in the weeks ahead.

Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said the ad is an attempt to distract people from Obama’s poor record on the economy.

“President Obama realizes that he can’t campaign on his failed policies and abysmal economic agenda, so he is willing to do and say anything to change the subject,” Henneberg said. “Middle class families are smart enough to see through the president’s dishonesty, and they are ready to replace him with a leader like Mitt Romney who can turn around our struggling economy.”

The ad borrows heavily on the emerging populist tone of the Obama campaign and piggybacks well on the President’s rollout last week of the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which would require the wealthy to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

Priorities USA, at last check, had about one-tenth as much cash on hand as American Crossroads, its conservative super PAC counterpart.

Crossroads recently went up with $1.7 million ad buy in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia.