A new ad from a pro-Mike Huckabee Super Pac directly targets Ted Cruz and Donald Trump for lacking the seriousness and dignity to hold the presidency.
The 30-second spot, released by Pursuing America’s Greatness, includes footage of Trump mocking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability. The narrator says of both the current frontrunner and Cruz: “It’s hard to watch. It’s as if they forget they are both running for president. An office held by great men like Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan.”
The narrator then segues to proclaim: “Let’s get serious. We’re electing a president.” The ad then goes on to extol the positive virtues of Huckabee, a three-term former governor of Arkansas who won the Iowa caucuses during his previous bid for the Republican nomination in 2008.
The spot represents a major part of the final closing effort by Huckabee supporters to give the Republican hopeful momentum in the final week before the Iowa caucuses. Pursuing America’s Greatness is spending $750,000 just to air that ad on cable and broadcast television in Iowa in the week before the caucuses.
The ad campaign represents a much-needed boost for Huckabee, who has been lagging in the polls. The former Arkansas governor has been relegated to the undercard debate and is consistently polling below 5% among Iowa Republicans. In contrast, Trump and Cruz are neck-and-neck for the lead in Iowa and are consistently the top two candidates in national polls.
Huckabee is spending the last week of the campaign before the caucuses in Iowa and is holding a rally in Des Moines with Grammy Award-nominated country singer Josh Turner on Monday.
