McCain's leaked anti-Romney ad

Mitt Romney, the serpentine former governor of Massachusetts, has unleashed a negative advertisement targeting John McCain, hoping to prevent the Arizonan from becoming the "Comeback Kid."

McCain has the perfect rebuttal -- and it was produced by Romney's own media whiz-kids, Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer. They made the ad six months ago, before they defected and joined the Romney camp. (They were for McCain before they were against him!) But it was never aired, as the McCain campaign didn't want to "go negative."

It remains to be seen whether the McCain campaign will actually run the ad, but they've already leaked it to Slate. The ad uses Romney's own words to paint him as the craven flip-flopper he is. See for yourself:

Ouch.

UPDATE: Here's the anti-Romney ad that McCain is actually running, apparently:

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) I'm not sure the McCainiacs' strategy of relying on newspaper endorsements to sway Republican voters is the best idea; being "the MSM's favorite candidate" is not necessarily a good thing.

Comments

[Andrew]

...the craven flip-flopper he is....

This, coming from the guy who defended, and voted for, John Kerry until the bitter end!!!

[Andrew]

By the way, if that ad's job is to paint Romney as a hideous, spineless flip-flopper, it does a horrible job. I'm not saying Romney isn't fair game for this line of criticism, but the creators of this ad need to go back to Political Advertising 101. Either that, or they're a lot lower on ammunition than they need to be in order to effectively attack Romney for flip-flopping.

[Brendan Loy]

...and who was practically a charter member of "Kerry-Haters For Kerry"!

I never made any bones about the fact that Kerry was a craven flip-flopper in his own right, not to mention a generally detestable douchebag. I just thought he was better than the alternative.

I've also subsequently expressed regret for having voted for him (I should have cast a protest vote for the Libertarian candidate), so I'm not sure what you're driving at.

Mitt Romney is John Kerry. That's precisely my point.

[Andrew]

Also by the way, the Romney "negative" attack on McCain is about as kind as one can imagine for a negative ad. They knew McCain's veteran credentials warranted the kiddy-glove treatment, and that ad elicits the right amount of subtle deference. Really, it couldn't have been any softer.

Mitt Romney is miles away from John Kerry. Kerry tried to play political games with the war and his votes for/against it. Romney's flip-flops are over much less critical issues and span a greater length of time, and concern standard social issues that A. presidents have very little control over, and B. are secondary issues that members of both parties have routinely flip-flopped over for the past two decades. Aside from that, Romney has the other distinguishing characteristics:

1. He did not puff up his war credentials and make up implausible stories about his time in Vietnam/Cambodia (and thus subject himself to fatal SBVT ads).

2. He's actually held an executive position and been quite successful, both in the private and public sectors (if you consider the Olympics a private sector gig).

3. His positions are much more palatable to Main Street America than those of John Kerry, who is as traditional a Massachusetts Michael Dukakis-Ted Kennedy liberal as you can imagine.

4. He doesn't look French.

[Brendan Loy]

Romney hasn't yet flip-flopped on anything as important as the war because he hasn't needed to. It has yet to become politically expedient for him to do so. If and when it does, I have every confidence that he will. Point me to a single issue of any significance where Mitt Romney has "stuck to his guns" despite political fallout, a la John McCain on immigration, Joe Lieberman on the war, etc. From everything I've seen, Romney appears to have no principles, just a desire to advance his own career. Executive experience is nice, but I'd also like my president to have a soul, to actually believe in something, to stand for something. (Insert your own anti-Hillary barb here.)

[Brendan Loy]

And yes, I realize McCain has fudged on immigration somewhat. He says he's "learned his lesson" and will now insist on securing the borders before pursuing comprehensive reform. But he hasn't changed his fundamental position, just the sequence in which he wants to do things. That's a pander, but it's not a 180-degree flip, like going from pro-choice to pro-life, anti-gun to pro-gun, and Reagan-distancing moderate to Reagan-emulating conservative. I can deal with mild pandering; all politicians do that, even Saint Joe Lieberman. :) What bothers me about Romney is that he has done 180s on a range of issues that have essentially changed the very core of his ostensible political philosophy. That suggests strongly to me that he is just a power-hungry suit with no core beliefs.

[Andrew]

You'll get no arguments from me on McCain or Lieberman's principles being stronger than Romney's. But you're overblowing the "180s" -- there are no "range of issues that have essentially changed the very core of his ostensible political philosophy". He flip-flopped on abortion and stem cells, two issues far down my (and most non-single issue voters') radar. That does not constitute a "range of issues". And the fact is, unlike McCain, Kerry, or Lieberman, he's been an executive and a governor, so we've had a chance to see his decisiveness and leadership. If there's something you didn't like during his tenure as governor or as a private sector executive, by all means, point to it. There may have been no war in Massachusetts to vote for or against, but I'm sure there were plenty of other contentious issues on which to judge his spine and decisiveness if you took the time to look. Fact is, where he says he stands now vs. where he said he stood in the past is peanuts compared to that actual experience, just as what John Kerry said on the campaign trail was peanuts compared to his decades-old voting record, so to ignore his experience and focus on the minor flip-flops is to completely invert what's important in a candidate -- i.e., you ought to value what he does or did more than what he says or said in the past.

Frankly, war and foreign policy issues aside, I think you have a long job ahead of you arguing why somebody who was a popular Republican governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic state is not fit to be president. I simply can't understand why that doesn't even register on your "politically impressive" meter, and instead you gag on the minor flip-flops. Methinks you spent so much time defending and rooting for Kerry four years ago in spite of all his distasteful positions and flip-flops that you're overreacting today against a perfectly qualified candidate whose sole weakness happens to be somewhat similar in nature to the character flaw you made yourself live with because your irrational disdain for Bush was stronger. It's almost like you're trying to purge yourself of the lingering ickiness you felt while supporting Kerry by zealously ramrodding Romney for having a similar sin, even though it's on a much more modest scale with far smaller issues.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I don't think either ad is particularly effective. I believe people who are willing to vote for McCain see him as someone who wants to solve problems versus being a strict conservative. The problem with the anti-Romney spot is it doesn't say anything particularly inflammatory, except for the pro-Choice stuff - and he looks like he was 25 when he said it.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Romney is going to lose eventually because the Republican Party's Evangelical base sees Romney as the member of a cult who takes his orders from a secretive group of old men living in Salt Lake City who don't necessarily buy into the New Testament. Fair or not, that is a perception that no amount of speeches or ads is going to shake off.

"Romney is going to lose eventually because the Republican Party's Evangelical base sees Romney as the member of a cult who takes his orders from a secretive group of old men living in Salt Lake City who don't necessarily buy into the New Testament."

Could Mad Max be a bigger douche?

[yea]

too bad mccain is broke and cant afford to play this commercial anywhere.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I'm not the douche. It's the Evangelicals who are pushing back on Romney, not me. Sorry if you don't like the truth.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Here's your douchebags...

In the wake of Romney-mania, one prominent evangelical has sung a slightly different public tune. Charles Colson told the Weekly Standard in June that he "could in very good conscience support Romney" as a fellow "social conservative on most of the issues we care about" As recently as late February, however, Colson reminded his radio listeners that "while Mormons share some beliefs with Christians, they are not Christians" "I respect Mormons and work with them," he said, "but we can't gloss over our fundamental differences" Asked about Colson's apparent change of heart, Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) told me, "I think Chuck was probably saying the politically correct thing.

...I could care less that Romney is a Mormon. But I have been around enough Evangelicals in my life to know how they think.

get over your hard on for evangelicals.

[Andrew]

I hate to support Mad Max ever, but he's spot on with his understanding of evangelicals. Since I believe Judaism and Christianity are the only two religions with any validity, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam are all equally kooky in my eyes. For politics, religion is completely irrelevant to me, but sadly many religious voters take such things very seriously inside the voting booth. I honestly do not think Sen. Joe Lieberman would've had any trouble with evangelicals in 2004, but Romney most certainly will have issues with evangelicals in both the primary and the general election (should he make it that far).