A Super Pac supporting the former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has released the first negative ad of the 2016 race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The Working Again Pac unveiled an online-only ad that lauds Santorum as “the one consistent conservative” and also bashes the Kentucky senator Rand Paul and the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for being insufficiently so.
While Working Again is not disclosing how much money it is spending on the ad, the group confirmed to the Guardian: “It will run on multiple digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube and others.”
Paul, who is seen by some as relatively isolationist on foreign policy, is attacked for wanting to “continue America’s retreat … in the face of radical Islam”. Huckabee is criticised on education, for his past support for Common Core.
The ad is one of the first steps into what is expected to be a maelstrom of negative advertising over the next six months, across the 16-candidate Republican field. In a statement, Virginia Davis, a spokesperson for Working Again, defended the spot.
“In a very crowded primary, this ad helps to distinguish Rick Santorum from the rest of the pack by focusing on issues facing our country,” she told the Guardian.
“When it comes to national defense, it is well known that senator Santorum has been a leader to tackle the rogue nations of Iran and Syria while others back down.
“And on Common Core, we simply point out what is known to be true: Mike Huckabee supported Common Core before the political winds forced him to change course. These aren’t negative claims; they are truthful ones that will help navigate this crowded primary field.”
In 2012, with a much smaller field, the Republican primary featured candidates repeatedly shredding each other. A negative film made by a pro-Newt Gingrich Super Pac that criticized Mitt Romney’s business record became the basis of successful attacks by Democrats against Romney in the general election.
So far this year, Republican candidates have been loath to engage in direct criticism of each other – except on issues concerning Donald Trump. Many of the realestate mogul’s opponents have attacked him for controversial comments about Mexican immigrants and the war record of the Arizona senator John McCain. The former Texas governor Rick Perry has gone so far as to call on Trump to drop out of the race. Trump has returned the favor.
But until now, the attacks have not appeared in ads. The pro-Santorum ad is therefore a sign that among those candidates with more traditional political backgrounds, the contest is about to get a lot more vicious.
The Santorum ad is not, however, the first negative ad of the entire presidential campaign. On the Democratic side of the contest, in late June, Generation Forward, a pro-Martin O’Malley Super Pac, released an ad attacking Bernie Sanders’ record on gun control.
