Let’s face it: Warner Bros. iconic Speedy Gonzales would lose a race to Republican political maven Karl Rove, who has rebounded from his multi-fronted 2012 campaign failures to come out with what The Daily Beast’s John Avlon says is one of the earliest campaign ads ever: an ad aimed at bringing up the negatives for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Less than five months after Barack Obama began his second term, the 2016 presidential campaign kicked off this weekend with a Benghazi-themed attack ad that takes direct aim at Hillary Clinton.
The 90-second web ad, called “Benghazi”, was issued by the Karl Rove–founded American Crossroads, which spent more than $21 million in the last election cycle. It is the freshest evidence that hyperpartisan super-PAC slush funds are now a core part of the permanent campaign.
This American Crossroads ad matters because of its unsubtle purpose: a preemptive strike against a potential Clinton presidential campaign in 2016. Remember that through 2008, Clinton was widely considered the most polarizing figure in American politics. The days of Hillary as Republicans’ favorite member of the Obama cabinet are over. This dynamic was unlikely to the point of absurdity—a case of political amnesia brought on by a combination of her voting record in the Senate and the ’08 campaign-era conviction that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
He describes the add, then writes:
But in Rove’s video, the culprit is not Obama administration policy, but Clinton. The unceremonious demotion of Hicks after the attack is used as evidence—the latest patriotic, middle-aged white man whose career was sacrificed on the altar of her ambition.
AND:
The fact that American Crossroads weighed in so heavily in an attempt to tie Clinton to Benghazi is a reminder of the outsize role that these hyperpartisan shadow-money groups now play in our politics. The Ohio-branch IRS targeting of Tea Party–associated 501(c)4s was unethical and inappropriate, but investigation of the many shadow-money groups playing politics while doling out tax breaks to donors is overdue.
American Crossroads just released what must be the earliest attack ad in presidential campaign history—and it is a sign of things to come.
YEP.
And it is also a sign that there are indeed second acts in American politics, especially when it comes to partisans and hyperpartisans. All is seemingly forgiven now when it comes to Karl Rove, since the GOP is now united due the red meat seemingly hurled to it by what increasingly seems an almost political negligent (the way Benghazi was handled, the IRS mess and the revelation about DOJ and the Associated Press) Obama administration.
Gone are the (recent) days when it seemed that surely this would be Rove’s fate at an upcoming GOP convention:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.