Mitt Romney, who has been breaking Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment with vicious abandon in his attacks on Mike Huckabee, hit a new low recently. In typically clumsy and reactive fashion, he has started attacking Sen. John McCain, who is now threatening him in New Hampshire.
McCain's campaign pulled a brilliant move by "leaking" an anti-Romney ad that was put together last summer by McCain staffers who are now working for Romney (much of McCain's staff disappeared after his warchest was spectacularly and rapidly emptied last summer by that same staff -- some went on to the campaign with bottomless pockets -- Romney's.)
Characteristically, McCain nixed the ad at the time, even though those consultants wanted him to run it.
By leaking the ad to Slate, this is bound to circulate widely. And to those who think that Romney can mount a competitive general election campaign, this spot should give some pause. McCain is another GOP candidate who, like Mike Huckabee, has genuine cross-over appeal, and he shares with Huckabee a penchant for not particularly caring if the GOP pundit class approves of all of his policy positions -- not necessarily a problem in a general election.
McCain-Huckabee would be a formidable general election combination, perhaps the most formidable the GOP could mount. While Republicans can run ads against them based on their supposed lack of conservative purity, Democrats won't be able to run double-edged (double-edged because they would turn off both conservatives and liberals) "Flipper ads" against him the way they could with material like this:
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