The task was so simple, you’d think even someone who worked on the McCain campaign could have nailed it.

Priorities USA released a video of a man who claimed his wife died because he was laid off by Bain Capital, aka Mitt Romney, and didn’t have insurance for her cancer treatment.

Here’s the commercial:

Awful story. My heart goes out to anyone who loses someone they love to cancer.

But, here’s the rub. His wife had health insurance through her employer:

It’s a heart wrenching story, but it’s not accurate.

That means it’s a lie. It means Joe Soptic is using the death of his wife to dishonestly smear Mitt Romney.

I don’t feel any more sympathy for Joe Soptic.

This deception is so bad, even MSNBC is calling Priorities USA on it:

So how does the Mitt Romney campaign handle this dishonest smear? They cite RomneyCare.

“To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Gov. Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Saul said on Fox News. “There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President Obama’s economy.” (These comments are around the 2-minute mark in the video above.)

Similarly, at an event in Iowa today, Romney seemed to suggest his bill qualifies him to tackle reforming Obama’s bill: “We’ve got to do some reforms in health care, and I have some experience doing that as you know, and I know how to make a better setting than the one we have in health care.”

I know. I know.

I had such high hopes this campaign wouldn’t be afraid to take of the kid gloves and punch someone in the mouth for stuff like this.

Instead, they shoot themselves in the foot.