Romney Ad Spotlights His Vetoes and Labels Santorum a Washington Insider

Ah, the good-and-evil ad, a classic style in electoral politics. Contrast your rosy record with your opponent's greatest missteps. Add ominous voice, subdued orchestra music. Intersperse bright colors with scary black-and-white motifs, and then, based on that information, the ad urges voters to make a choice.

That’s what Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, attempts in one of his latest ads from the trail, currently slated to run in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama—all states where Romney now faces formidable challenges from Rick Santorum. ‪

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The spot highlights Romney’s greatest hits: he helped Massachusetts’s economy grow while governor, he helped coordinate the Olympics as the chairman of the organizing committee, he vetoed 800 bills, he— ‪

Wait, what? That’s right, while listing his résumé, Romney's super PAC hangs the candidate's hat on his record of vetoing, an ambiguous example of what kind of president he’d be, but a clear nod toward the Tea Party and conservative voters who have come to equate any bill coming out of Congress with government spending or overreach. Nixing more bills, he effectively argues, is good for the government and, in effect, the people. Yet there are plenty of bills that conservatives have indicated they’d appreciate—a deficit-reduction package, a balanced-budget amendment, extension of the Bush-era tax cuts—that make Romney’s “I’m not afraid to veto” argument a rather irrelevant qualification. ‪

‪Perhaps more spurious is how Romney’s surrogates choose to go after Santorum. There’s a lot about the former Pennsylvania senator for the Republican establishment not to like. That he doesn’t attract moderates, for one. Or the fact that he got voted out of his Senate seat, which doesn’t inspire voter confidence. But instead Romney labels Santorum the “ultimate Washington insider,” an assertion that might puzzle folks inside Washington, who haven’t heard much from Santorum, aside from occasional policy work and PR advice, since he left the Senate in 2007. ‪

This attempt, at its core, is a purely emotional play for far-right voters’ heartstrings. They hate the Bridge to Nowhere? Pin it on Santorum, one of many lawmakers who voted for it. Opposing an increase to the debt ceiling polls well? Rick voted to raise it five times. ‪

The untold message in this ad appears to be just how worried Team Romney is about Santorum’s latest surge. Campaign commercials are classified as “paid media,” which both Romney’s campaign and his super PAC can afford. But “earned media” from news coverage can be much more compelling to voters—and right now Santorum is drawing plenty of it after surging to the top of the national polls.