Politics

Romney releases, removes brutal anti-Perry attack ad

Will Rahn Senior Editor
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Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released, and then quickly removed from YouTube, a brutal web ad on Wednesday highlighting some of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s more tortured statements in the recent GOP debates.

The ad, which mixed clips of Perry’s answers with pundits criticizing his debate performances, ended with the tagline “Rick Perry: Ready to Lead?”

The video made a splash on political blogs before it disappeared from the Romney campaign’s YouTube account late Wednesday night. HotAir’s AllahPundit called it a “symphony of Gump-ishness” that clearly implied Perry wasn’t smart enough to be president.

“Being a bad debater, while problematic in the general election, doesn’t disqualify you from being the nominee,” he wrote. “Being an idiot in general does … I can’t remember ever seeing an ad like this that’s aimed not at showing that an opponent is stupid about a particular issue but that he’s stupid in general.”

Although Herman Cain is currently Romney’s closest rival in the polls, Perry is the one raising the vast sums of campaign cash necessary to advertise effectively in early primary states. According to RedState contributor Jeff Emanuel, the ad clearly shows “who Team Romney still thinks their main opponent is.”

The ad was pulled sometime around 10:00 pm Wednesday because of what the Romney campaign says was a copyright complaint from CNN about the clips used in the video.

“While the use of the CNN clips was fully within our rights under the law, we respect and appreciate the role CNN has played as host in debates over the last several months,” Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul told The Daily Caller. “For this reason, we are honoring their request to remove the video.”