Video: Barack Obama turns Mitt Romney’s words against him

USING nothing more than the Republican challenger’s own words, the Obama campaign has released an advert the contents of which Mitt Romney will find hard to repudiate.

Romney’s now infamous “47 per cent” comments, captured at a private Republican fundraising dinner in Florida earlier this year by a hidden video camera, were first published by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine in the US earlier this month.

The remarks have assisted President Barack Obama’s portrayal of the millionaire Romney as out-of-touch with ordinary US citizens, as the country struggles through the worst recession since the inter-war years.

Rarely have a presidential candidate’s own words been used to such effect in an American election.

Recents polls show US pensioners, a key constituency for Romney, starting to turn against him over his policies, with some analysts pointing to the “47 per cent” comments as fuelling their disenchantment.