BY WESLEY P. HESTER

On the heels of fresh attacks from President Barack Obama’s campaign, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is out with a new ad in Virginia and other battleground states noting the negative tone of the president’s message.

The 30-second ad titled “Hope and Change?” features a series of clips showing reporters and analysts describing the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney.

“When the president was elected, he talked about hope and change. Whatever happened to hope and change? Now it seems he’s just coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned, negative ads,” says Bob Schieffer, of CBS News.

In another clip, David Brooks of the New York Times says, “By starting negative, by going extremely tough and extremely hard, looking conventional, and frankly running ads that are inaccurate.”

In the final clip, Mark Halperin of TIME Magazine says, “Barack Obama’s campaign and allies will run more negative ads against this Republican nominee, in 2012, than have ever been run in the history of the world.”

“Mitt Romney can continue to run ads bemoaning serious questions about his career as a corporate buyout specialist, but he can’t run from his record of leading investments in companies that were ‘pioneers’ in outsourcing and investing in foreign tax havens and offshore accounts,” responded Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. “It’s time for him to come clean about his involvement at Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002 and follow decades of precedent set by his own father and release additional tax returns.”