BY WESLEY P. HESTER

In a TV ad eerily similar to some of those used against him by Democrats, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign is attacking President Barack Obama using the personal story of an Ohio car dealership owner affected by the auto bailout.

The 30-second ad from the campaign and the Republican National Committee, titled “Dream,” features Al Zarzour, of Lyndhurst, Ohio, who says he was forced to close his dealership after the 2009 auto bailout.

The ad comes just ahead of Obama’s visit to Ohio. 

A narrator sets up Zarzour’s story, saying that “in 2009, under the Obama Administration’s bailout of General Motors, Ohio dealerships were forced to close.”

“I received a letter from General Motors. They were suspending my credit line. We had thirty-some employees that were out of work,” Zarzour says. “My wife and I were the last ones there. You know, it was like the dream that we worked for, and that we worked so hard for, was gone.”

Romney opposed the auto bailout, arguing instead for a managed bankruptcy.