WASHINGTON: Mitt Romney's campaign sought Sunday to neutralize attacks on his business career by framing his decision to leave Bain Capital to save the Salt Lake City Olympics as a bold act of patriotism.
Senior aide Ed Gillespie branded allegations that the White House hopeful oversaw the shipping of American jobs abroad as "baseless" and accused Barack Obama of demeaning the office of the presidency through such attacks.
"He left a life he loved to go to Salt Lake City to save the Olympics for a country he loves more," Gillespie told CNN, hitting back at an increasingly strident attempt at character assassination by the Obama campaign.
"In classic Chicago-style politics, the Obama campaign is trying to make this something sinister. It's not. It's patriotic and it's leadership."
The Obama camp alleges that Romney was still involved in running Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002 when the private equity firm chose to lay off US-based workers and "outsource" those jobs to plants in Mexico and China.
It has also stepped up attacks on the candidate's personal fortune, demanding that he release more tax returns and questioning his decision to keep millions in offshore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
An ad released by the Obama campaign on Saturday features Romney's off-key singing of the patriotic anthem "America the Beautiful" interspersed with scathing attacks about Bain and the candidate's hidden money.
The date when Romney left Bain is considered crucial as after 1999 the Boston-based investment firm he founded is said to have increasingly invested in companies that moved jobs abroad, a charge that Gillespie denied.
"I think Americans now know, you have got these baseless charges on moving jobs overseas, which independent fact checkers have said are not true, they're, indeed, a lie," Gillespie told CNN's "State of the Union" program.
"We now know this president will say or do anything to keep the highest office in the land even if it means demeaning the highest office in the land."
Romney became president and chief executive of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics organizing committee when arrangements for the games were in turmoil.
"He took a leave of absence and, in fact... he ended up not going back at all and retired retroactively to February of 1999 as a result," Gillespie said, reiterating that Romney was not running Bain in the ensuing years.
"He was not involved in the management. He was not involved in the day-to-day decisions, and wouldn't have had time."
Obama strategist David Axelrod, appearing on the same program, was unrelenting, repeating the tax avoidance charges and insisting that "Romney's firms were involved in outsourcing" jobs to foreign countries.
Axelrod said that despite Romney's claims of "no involvement with any of the entities Bain was involved in" between 1999 and 2002, he "came back for board meetings."
"The larger point is he was in charge when they bought these firms whose principal mission was to facilitate outsourcing and offshoring.
"What he's saying is, 'well, I left before they actually moved these jobs to China and to Mexico, and I'm not going to be held responsible for it," Axelrod said.
"If you're the head man, you have to take responsibility, and, you know, he's going to have to explain that to the American people."
Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, an outside shot for Romney's vice presidential pick, said Obama's negative strategy was a smokescreen, designed to obscure his economic failings since taking office in January 2009.
"No ad is going to decide this election, whether the president likes it or not. The economy and jobs are going decide this election, and his record on that is abysmal." Ayotte told ABC News.
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