While Sen. Ted Cruz has
catapulted into the lead into the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary, potentially throwing a wrench into the Trump campaign's march to the nomination, the hardy allies of John Kasich are looking to derail Cruz.
The pro-John Kasich super PAC New Day For America is putting $500,000 into an attack ad which borrows Trump's favorite insult for Cruz, and uses a visual that has many campaign ad watchers scratching their heads and clutching their stomachs.
Kasich Super PAC Borrows Donald Trump's Insult
"Nose" begins with a still of Cruz and female narrator who says, "Many just call him 'Lyin' Ted,'" not mentioning that Trump coined the phrase. "Lied about Ben Carson to steal a win in Iowa," she says, referencing the Cruz campaign’s robocall that wrongly said Carson dropped out before the Iowa caucuses.
But at this point, you might not even be paying attention to what the narrator is saying, because Cruz's nose begins to grow like an alien worm sausage, curving around his face and eventually strangling his neck.
"Terrifying" declared Newsweek. Jezebel's Jia Tolentino concludes it's
"the worst thing I've ever seen." The New Republic calls it
"the stuff of nightmares," noticing "the weird splotchy skin of the digital nose, which makes Cruz’s nose look like it belongs to Jabba the Hut’s pet, the bloodsucking Attark."
If you are able to look away, you might hear the rest of the narrator's list of transgressions, which shift to indirectly making Kasich's case for the nomination: "Lies about being the best for the GOP, when polls show he can't even beat Hillary Clinton" (on the screen we see the text "ONLY Kasich beats Hillary").
She continues, "His TV ad about John Kasich, lying. Stations had to pull it off the air." That refers to a Cruz-friendly Trusted Leadership super PAC ad
"Kasich Won't Play" which characterizes Kasich as a "liberal." The group told
Politico the ad "was not pulled from television stations. It was slightly modified on a technical issue out of an abundance of caution."
But the ad doesn't end with a call to vote Kasich. The narrator closes with, "If Ted Cruz's mouth is moving, he's lying," as his nose curls around his neck for the third time.
Is This Kasich Ad 'Creep-tastic?'
While others were creeped out, The Washington Post's Aaron Blake raved, calling it
"creep-tastic." "It's unsettling, creepy and provocative — three things Kasich's long-shot presidential bid could probably do with more of. The candidate himself has avoided attacking his opponents much, but the super PAC is here to do his dirty work for him."
The ad's creator, Fred Davis, is well known for his cheekily disturbing political ads. He was the creative force behind the famous
"Demon Sheep" ad. The ad is often mocked, but it did it's job winning the California Republican Senate primary for Carly Fiorina. If Cruz ends up falling short in Wisconsin, the takeaway will be: creepy works.
