Obama’s campaign is up with a new campaign ad, running in Florida and other battleground states, that says Romney "backed a bill that outlaws all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest." That’s false.

And, yes, Romney’s campaign and Republicans have taken Obama out of context over his remarks that seemed to say to private business owners “you didn’t build that.” The “that” in context was infrastructure (specifically government-built roads and bridges) upon which commerce relies.

Now Romney’s folks are saying “the context is worse than the quote.” That’s a paradigm Obama folks espouse when it comes to Romney’s stances on immigration, gay marriage or abortion.

The abortion ad is just another attempt to remind voters that the now anti-abortion Romney flip-flopped and that the Republican is, in the words of the woman narrating the ad, “just so out of touch."

Remember that Bush was the guy who was supposed to be the in-touch candidate with whom voters preferred to have a beer. Obama’s that guy now.

Of course, there are major differences between the ’04 and ’12 elections. Romney’s tax and budget policies closely resemble Bush’s. And campaign-wise, Romney is also reaching out to nontraditional Republican voters — namely the Jewish electorate — in the hope of eroding Obama’s base.

To hold his own, Obama’s using a Bush-like strategy that attacks his opponent at his strong points, not just his weaknesses. Aided by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Bush attacked Kerry’s war record, which was perceived as the Democrat’s strength in 2004. Obama’s doing the same with Bain.

So Romney ran a profitable business and Obama, presiding over an economy the electorate hated, has no private-sector experience? Well, Kerry had a war record when Bush, presiding over an unpopular war, didn’t. Bush won.

Some Romney-ites, namely his wife, just don’t seem to understand the purpose of the Bain attacks.

"For me it’s an irony that they’re trying to attack him on — in an area where he actually shines the brightest,” Ann Romney told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview last week. “And I don’t think that’s an area where people would ever understand that."

Democrats don’t want people to “ever understand that.” Right now, they’re running a campaign that’s designed not to make voters love Obama more, just like Romney less. Republicans, relying heavily on third-party groups (just like Democrats did in ’04) are doing the same to Obama.

If that type of campaign didn’t have a good record, surely President Kerry would have said something about it.