Romney speaks directly to voters in new TV ad

WARSAW, Poland—As Mitt Romney heads back to the United States after his weeklong foreign trip, his campaign is out with a new television ad that aims to refute Democratic attacks on his record at Bain Capital and as governor of Massachusetts by having the candidate talk about those issues himself.

While the minute-long ad does not feature Romney speaking directly into the camera, the GOP candidate is filmed talking about his record while driving a car and, in separate clips, sitting with his wife, Ann.

"My own experience was I got the chance to start my own business," Romney tells a passenger in the car, who is never shown on camera. "I know what it's like to hire people and to wonder whether you're going to be able to make ends meet down the road."

Romney talks about his stewardship of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which were nearly derailed by a bribery scandal. "I came in and found that we had not only a scandal to deal with, but also a financial crisis to deal with," Romney says in the ad. "By the time the games were over, we had about a $100 million that we put into an endowment there for the future of Olympic sport."

In the ad, he touts his time as governor as "the real experience" and highlights balancing the budget and working with a Legislature that was almost entirely Democratic.

"I want to use those experiences to help Americans have a better future," Romney says.

The ad ends with a play on President Barack Obama's "you didn't build that" comment earlier this month. "Believe in the America you built," a narrator says. "Believe we can build it again."

The Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee are jointly paying for the spot. The campaign declined to say where the ad is airing or how much it is spending to air the ad.