Joe Ricketts, the very, very wealthy patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs, is apparently considering dropping $10 million on the creation and mass distribution of a five-minute, cinema-quality attack ad that highlights Barack Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright.
The New York Times reported today that the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade submitted a proposal titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good” to the Ending Spending Action Fund Super PAC.
The proposal is a quick, entertaining read. Here it is.
It was the first time anyone truly captured the essence of 2008 Barack Obama: he was the “metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.”
The plan goes on and on about the need to finish the job that John McCain wouldn’t do and destroy Obama by bringing to light his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Oddly, though, the five-minute campaign ad only features two clips of Wright speaking (according to the script provided in the proposal).
They’re the clips we’ve seen before. Both are easily found on YouTube, and were featured on many an evening news broadcast four years ago.
There’s the classic “God bless America? No, God damn America!” and the reverend’s unforgettable post 9/11 “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Unfortunate for the president, sure, but it’s nothing particularly groundbreaking. (Both of the videos are worth a watch, by the way.)
It might be inadvisable for the GOP to dig up Reverend Wright and get into a Super PAC mud-slinging contest that focuses on religion, considering that their own nominee comes from a church that is highly suspect in the minds of many of its own voters (and occasionally allows polygamy and denied priesthood to black men until 1978).
Anyway, the point is that this ad sounds like a spectacular waste of money. Ricketts should use his $10 million to buy something more useful!
Like another year of service from Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood, for example.
