Romney has now joined the birther movement-jokes about his birth certificate

COMMERCE, Mich. — While campaigning here in his home state, Mitt Romney joked about his birth certificate, an apparent jab at President Barack Obama that drew immediate rebuke.
“Now I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital,” he said. “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

The crowd — that Romney pegged as between 5,000 and 10,000 — erupted in cheers.
Romney barely finished speaking before Obama’s campaign shot back.
“Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them,” said Ben LaBolt, Obama’s press secretary in a statement. “It’s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.”

Romney’s camp was quick to dismiss the idea that he was latching onto the birther movement, which claims that the president wasn’t born in the United States. A Romney spokesman said afterward that Romney was “just illustrating that he was born and raised here in Michigan” and that the GOP nominee has been “on the record a number of times” on the birther issue.
“The governor has always said, and has repeatedly said, he believes the president was born here in the United States,” spokesman Kevin Madden said. “He was only referencing that Michigan, where he is campaigning today, is the state where he himself was born and raised.”

The rally, which reunited Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan on the campaign trail, was expected to be a run-of-the-mill stump speech, with the added bonus that it was in the state where Romney and his wife were born.


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