In July, we told you that if Mitt Romney was going to lose, he would lose ugly. This prediction seems to be coming true.
When it comes to political ads, it doesn’t get much uglier than this:
The Spanish-language ad plays up quotes from Fidel Castro’s niece and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez that they — like most of the world — would vote for President Obama over Mitt Romney. It also suggests that the president’s policies resemble those of Communists Castro and Chavez.
Obama’s record of the highest corporate profits in U.S. history hasn’t stopped the far right from flagrantly calling the president a “Socialist,” much to the chagrin of actual Socialists.
Romney is targeting the Cuban population of Florida who are the only Hispanics in America he is having much success attracting. President Obama garners nearly 70 percent of the Latino vote nationally, but in Florida his lead is a mere 4 points. The Cuban community makes up about 60 percent of Miami-Dade County’s Republican voters, where the ad is airing.
Separate Cubans out and the president leads with Hispanic voters in Florida 65-32. The connection with Castro is clearly designed to incite memories of the island regime that many Cuban-Americans or their relatives fled.
“Mitt Romney continues to play Hugo Chavez’s game,” said Dan Restrepo, a national security advisor to the Obama campaign, “giving Chavez the attention he thrives on and that he doesn’t deserve.”
Even Christian Heinze, who covers Republican politics for The Hill, calls the ad “a terribly sensationalistic cheap shot.”
