Obama Campaign Juxtaposes Public and Private Romney

One of the biggest criticisms from the left on President Obama's debate performance last Wednesday night was that he did not bring up Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comments or anything else from the leaked fundraiser videos. David Axelrod suggested that it wasn't an oversight, but rather a conscious decision by the campaign to take the high road and focus on big issues rather than personal attacks.

If Mitt Romney had stuck by the hard-right ideology he displayed in that closed fundraiser, this strategy might have made sense. But since Romney Etch A Sketched so far to the center, denouncing the policies he's been running on in public for the last year, the Obama campaign has no choice but to point out his hypocrisy.

While it would have been smart for Obama to make this strategical shift during the debate while 70 million people were watching, that medium may not have proved terribly effective in making those points. But the online video format, at which the Obama campaign has always excelled, offers the perfect platform to juxtapose what Romney has said quietly in private with what he's now shouting loudly in public.

Tonight, Obama released two new videos that do just that, showing the inherent contradictions that Mitt Romney has made over the last week on both taxes and foreign policy.

These videos have the potential to reach a large number of people on YouTube, but unfortunately will not be seen by anywhere close to the number who watched the debate. We can expect these messages to appear in TV ads as well since at this point, they are the most effective way of showing voters how dishonest Mitt Romney really is.