Posts Tagged ‘Americans for Tax Reform’

If this is the best the Democrat Party of Florida can do, Mitt Romney might not need Marco Rubio as his veep runningmate to carry the state in the fall.  Mitt will be free to focus on Ohio instead.

This has to be just about the most inneffective attack ad in the history of American politics.

Here are just a few problems with the ad.

The main attack on Rubio is that he’s a follower of Jim DeMint — the conservative Republican Senator from South Carolina.

So this ad assumes Florida voters know who Jim DeMint is. Anyone who’s seen DeMint on TV and elsewhere would see him as very gentlemanly, not the least bit scary or offensive.  DeMint’s views are mainline conservative — pretty much in lockstep with Ronald Regaan’s. So comparing Rubio to DeMint (who few Florida voters even know) falls flat.

This ad also assumes most voters in Florida will know who Grover Norquist is — and dislike him.

Norquist is Harvard graduate who runs a perfectly mainstream group in Washington, DC called Americans for Tax Reform.  He was also the Best Man at my wedding way back in 1987.  Norquist thinks the tax code is too complicated.  He wants a simple flat tax.  He also thinks the U.S. government has has run up a $16 TRILLION debt NOT because Americans are under-taxed, but because Washington won’t control spending. Norquist opposes additional tax increases (noting that government at all levels already takes and spends 40 cents out of every dollar earned in America). Instead, Norquist favors spending cuts.

This ad, for some reason, assumes these positions will cause most Floridians to recoil in horror.

Then there’s the annoying music and incompetent lyrics. I’ll certainly continue to hum that part of the song about Rubio opposing the “Violence Against Women Act” (whatever that is).

Rubio should pay to run this ad over and over again across the state of Florida. That should ensure he wins reelection as many times as he wants.

You really have to wonder who approved this ad — who in the Florida Democratic Party headquarters first saw this footage and said: ‘Yes, that’s it! Brilliant! We must get this great ad up on the air as fast as possible! That’ll show Rubio.”

And you really have to wonder how much longer the hapless fellow who approved this ad will keep his job at the Florida Democrat Party.