How Canny!

Remember that vile anti-immigrant ad Tom Tancredo had made for his since aborted presidential campaign, the one that equated undocumented workers with terrorists? Here's a reminder, a post I put up on November 13, 2007. He never had to run that ad (or pay to run it) because the press fell all over themselves reporting on its contents, pointing people to the campaign web site to view it for themselves, even running it during network television as a bit of "news" from the campaign trail. All that publicity, and he never had to pay a dime for it.

Well, at least one current candidate decided to try that dandy little ploy out for himself, and it looks like he's going to be just as successful. From the Los Angeles Times:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee aired a negative ad campaign against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to a room full of reporters and camera crews in Iowa today -- then announced he had pulled it from paid airwaves.

The ad, which Huckabee unveiled in front of a banner that said, "Enough is Enough," questioned Romney's record on immigration, tax reform, crime fighting and healthcare. But Huckabee, who only Saturday denounced political attack ads, said that he hoped the negative ad produced by his own campaign would not be aired publicly. [Emphasis added]

After showing the ad to about a hundred members of the press, Gov. Huckabee then got all serious (or seriously coy) and suggested that the negativity in campaigns was wrong and he didn't want to be a part of it.

Well, then, why show the damned thing to anyone, much less the journalists assigned to cover your campaign?

That's not a hard question to answer at all, as the fact that at least one article in a major US newspaper gave a pretty good description of what was in it. For free. And I'm certain that some other outlets will put out the story as well.

The man is obviously a quick study: he's already learned how to play the press for suckers.


[Note: Atrios has another take on the incident, one well worth reading.]