Mitt Romney’s allusion to doubts raised by some of Barack Obama’s opponents that the president was born in the U.S. prompted a fundraising pitch from Obama’s campaign, as the Republican challenger later termed his comment “humor.”Romney set off the political flap at a rally Friday in Commerce, Mich. “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” Romney, standing with his wife, Ann, told his crowd after noting he was born in Harper Hospital in Detroit, about 25 miles away. “They know that this is the place that we were born and raised,” he added.Obama, the son of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, has provided a long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii in 1961.
Romney, in later saying his remark was meant as a joke, also said that Obama “was born in the U.S.”
Still, the birth certificate comment marked a departure for the former Massachusetts governor, who previously kept his distance from so-called birthers who question whether Obama was born an American citizen and thus may not be qualified to serve as president. Obama’s campaign pounced, linking Romney to the birthers.
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