Here’s The “Willie Horton” Ad Romney Almost Ran Against Mike Huckabee

[DonViejo]

“This is my daughter… she was murdered by a serial rapist released early from prison in Arkansas." Will we see a version of this unaired ad — obtained by BuzzFeed News — in 2016?

posted on Jan. 22, 2015, at 8:56 a.m.

McKay Coppins
BuzzFeed News Reporter

In the fall of 2007, as Mike Huckabee was surging in the Iowa polls, Mitt Romney’s foundering presidential campaign dispatched a camera crew to Arkansas with the charge to produce one of the most brutal ads of the election cycle.

The final product — a withering spot that tied Huckabee to a 2003 murder committed by a serial rapist who was paroled while he was governor of Arkansas — never saw the light of day. But the unaired ad, obtained this week by BuzzFeed News, highlights a potentially potent line of attack on Huckabee as he considers a 2016 bid for the presidency.

The ad’s existence was first reported in the 2012 book The Real Romney (and noted, then, by BuzzFeed News). The book’s authors report that Alex Castellanos, then the Romney campaign’s chief strategist, was aiming for an emotionally hard-hitting commercial that would have the same effect as the infamous “Willie Horton” attack ad on 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

Others in the campaign, including Stuart Stevens, believed going after Huckabee so harshly would backfire. The operatives ultimately deferred to Romney, who spiked the ad, believing it would make him look “desperate.”

more + the ad:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/heres-the-willie-horton-ad-romney-almost-ran-against-mike-hu?utm_term=4ldqpia#.mqvMlaxPJ