The Huntsman-Pawlenty RINO War
Two slick new ads are out attacking Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty as reasonable moderates. As I point out in my latest column for The Week, these ads show just how divorced from reality today's GOP is.
Does Monty Python produce attack ads?
Because this slickly produced ad attacking GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman sure looks like a joke.
The ad accuses Huntsman of (1) worrying about excessive partisanship; (2) wanting to put a price on carbon emissions; (3) describing health care as a “right”; (4) promising to “put people first”; (5) supporting John McCain for president; and (6) drawing political support from Democrats and independents.
No, seriously, that’s what it says. And in case you are wondering, yes, those points are all meant as derogatory accusations. If you’re not a Republican, you may have to watch two or three times to understand how any of this could be seen as bad. But notice the visual cues: For instance, a shot of The New York Times building as Huntsman’s voice talks about reaching out to Democrats and independents. (NYT = lamestream media = bad.)
What’s next? Black-and-white ads in which gravelly voiced narrators sneer, “What do we know about Congressman Jenkins? He says he was climbing the tree only to steal apples. But our video cameras clearly show him rescuing a frightened kitten!”
In a normal universe, being for cooperation, against pollution, for health care, for people, for your party’s presidential nominee, and winning lots of votes would be admirable positives, not critical deficiencies. But since 2008, the Republican Party seems to have stepped into some dimension outside space and time, in which the rules of political physics have all been inverted.
And how did other Republicans respond? Perhaps suspecting that the ad was produced by the Tim Pawlenty team, they hit back — hard.
Using the same intro footage and the same mock-campaign ad music, the Huntsmanites compiled video clips of Pawlenty (1) endorsing the climate work of the National Academy of Sciences; (2) promising to enroll all citizens of Minnesota in a health plan of some sort; (3) candidly acknowledging that his state faced large budget deficits as a result of the recession; and (4) promising to spend federal stimulus funds “quickly and effectively.”
Again, non-Republicans may blink and say, “Where’s the attack?” But notice the picture of Pawlenty in a tuxedo shaking hands with President Obama at a state dinner. Not only did Gov. Pawlenty once think that everyone should have health coverage — he has actually been present in the same room as the president without physically assaulting him! What a RINO! ...
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