Santorum Attack Ad: This Man

This is the latest salvo in the battle to stop Romney. It's Santorum's This Man. Let's take a look!


The Ad
This Man clocks in at 31 seconds in length making it ideal for media saturation--which is what they'll be going for in Wisconsin and, later Pennsylvania. It opens with the stock footage of Santorum and two of his sons walking in a park. He tosses a football and catches it. Most notably, Rick avoids looking directly at the camera and giving us his signature sneer. The voice over: "I'm Rick Santorum--and I approve this message."

Now we're good. Let's go.

We hear a single, low, ominous note and we see the narrator--on screen--an attractive bond woman in a red outfit gesturing to a blow up of Barack Obama's face.

“What if I told you this man’s big-government-mandating health care included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs, would you ever vote for him?”

At "$50 abortions" the background image is an ultrasound of a fetus--second trimester, I am informed by my in-house expert. The words "healthcare plan Included $50 ABORTIONS" appear. Abortions is in red--and all caps. Included is capitalized--healthcare plan is yellow and all lower-case.

For "and killed thousands of jobs" the ominous beat continues and we see two men ... and a woman ... with hard hats at some construction site. The words "healthcare plan" remain--but the yellow text is now KILLED THOUSANDS (yellow, all caps) OF JOBS (red, larger letters). The people fade out. We are now nine seconds in.

"Would you ever vote for him?" she asks, shaking her head to point out that would be ridiculous. In the background we see the giant Obama-face with the focus on the left eye and nose.

"What if I told you he supported radical environmental job killing cap and trade?" she asks. A blue sky with wind-turbines changes to a dark sky with silhouette heavy machinery in it. "he supported Radical Job Killing CAP AND TRADE" (the last in red). "and the Wall Street Bailouts." The image is a man lighting a cigar with a burning dollar bill. He has ... shall we say ... interesting facial hair.

At about 19 seconds in we see a living-room where a couple are doing their taxes. It doesn't look good. "What if I told you he dramatically raised taxes and stuck tax payers with a $1 billion shortfall?"

Note the girl in the background--almost invisible. It looks like she's playing Connect 4--by herself.

"One more thing ..."

"What if I told you the man I'm talking about isn't him ..."

The picture morphs ...

"it's him:"

Cut to black!

What Does It Mean?
The text is pretty darn clear: all that stuff you hate about Obama? Romney started it! It uses sophisticated language too:

Running through Abortion, the Wall Street Bailout, Taxing and Deficit Spending and “Radical” Environmental policies, Santorum provides not just a litany of popular conservative attacks on liberals, but more importantly uses the exact same language. These verbal cues, drafted by consultant Frank Luntz and beaten into the head of conservatives by Fox and Rush, whip the base into a fury by their very utterance. Santorum seizes upon this Pavolvian response and caps it with a picture of Barack Obama to bring the rage to a fever pitch before the image morphs into Mitt Romney.

Crossing the morphing line--he's already turned Obama into Ahmadinejad--is a semiotic gut-punch. It's hitting below the belt. The use of the female commentator though is supposed to "soften the blow." This is the kind of rhetoric that makes Ron Paul unsure he'll endorse Romney--even if he is the nominee and could make it tough to reconcile the base in November.

To be sure: whatever damage it does won't entirely be lasting--but if say 2% of the hard-core voters stay home because they're not sure if Romney is sufficiently different? We'll never know.

I also think it's important to look at the "banker" who is smoking a celebratory cigar lit by torching a dollar. The hipster haircut he's sporting isn't exactly the big-money banker image, is it? That's hair that says hate me--I think I'm better than you.

And what about those images? Why are Obama and Romney looking up and to the (viewer's) left? Look at this: this is the pattern for a "constructed" (or 'falsified') image. This is the direction someone looks when they are lying.

What Do I Think?
The video delivers its payload like a laser guided rocket straight through an Iraqi ventilation duct. The use of fetus imagery, the term "job killing cap and trade," and raising taxes? That's poison. Comparing Romney to Obama? Also poison (to the degree that Santorum was even warned off it when he suggested there was no difference). It's pretty late in the game--but it's a venomous attack.

I will note that the NYT Blog finds it lacking in accuracy. That ship sailed: expect attack ads to have a shred of truth--not the whole truth and certainly not "nothing but the truth." By their nature they are dirty. By their nature they are "anything you say can and will be used against you." If there is a rumor? It becomes fact. If there is a way to cook the numbers? It's front and center.

This is probably too late to save Santorum--but it shows that, yet again, when it comes to attack Ads Team Rick punches above his weight class.

Rating A.