Opinion

Terry takes a tumble

Matt Mackowiak Founder, Potomac Strategy Group
Font Size:

Aren’t you tired of conservatives not fighting back?

We are too. And we’re doing something about it.

Liberal Northern Virginian and Clinton mouthpiece Terry McAuliffe just had one of the worst ten day periods in recent memory.

On Thursday, Sept. 12 our national Super PAC, Fight For Tomorrow began airing a new TV ad, “Don’t Let Them Detroit Virginia,” in northern Virginia and Richmond.  At the time, liberal Terry McAuliffe led by an average of seven points, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.

Our ad immediately won major coverage on Breitbart.comRedState.comNewsmax or Real Clear Politics.

Four days later McAuliffe’s campaign had an epic meltdown as the influential Northern Virginia Technology Council endorsed Ken Cuccinelli, after, what The Washington Post called an “aggressive behind-the-scenes attempt by supporters of his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe.”

The next day Quinnipiac University released its respected independent poll which showed the race in a “virtual tie,” according to The Washington Post.

On Friday, Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel highlighted the effectiveness of our latest ad in her influential national column. Here’s an excerpt:

Enter a new conservative Super PAC, Fight For Tomorrow, which last week began running a creative TV ad against Mr. McAuliffe in the Washington and Richmond areas … the organization’s primary focus is to directly take on the Democratic bare-knuckle strategy — and not just neutralize it, but throw it back at the attackers.

The concept behind FFT’s ad is to give Virginia voters a context in which to view the McAuliffe attacks. The group’s TV spot notes that there is a “gang” supporting Mr. McAuliffe: the leaders of the Democratic Party; an elitist media; Wall Street liberals; outside partisan groups; Hollywood.

Having specified who is doing the smearing on Mr. McAuliffe’s behalf, the spot goes on to explain why the groups want Mr. McAuliffe to win: To impose an agenda that Virginians truly would view as nuts. Employing a potent list of “geography verbs,” the ad finishes: “Tell these McAuliffe puppeteers, this is Virginia. We won’t let you Detroit us with taxes and debt. You will not California Virginia with regulations that kill jobs, or Hollywood our families and schools. You will not bring District of Columbia tax and spend to our state. Tell them: You can’t have Virginia.”

One merit of the ad is that, while it directly addresses the left’s scorched-earth campaign, it doesn’t stoop to responding to the accusations against Mr. Cuccinelli. (The ad doesn’t even mention the candidate.) Another attribute is that it switches voter attention away from the wild Cuccinelli caricature and onto all the failed Democratic policies—like the ones that produced soaring energy prices, health-care rationing and huge deficits—that Mr. McAuliffe seems desperate to avoid discussing.

Indeed, the whole idea here is to turn the tables, to get the GOP back on offense, rather than offering cringing defenses of positions that are in fact widely shared by a center-right country.

But this past weekend was when the McAuliffe campaign wheels came off.

After the mainstream media disgracefully failed to hold McAuliffe accountable for his record of false statements, failed endeavors, empty rhetoric, and hyper-liberal agenda, we believe our ads made them take notice.

The Washington Post revealed a series of embarrassing details in McAuliffe’s professional career where he made millions while the organizations and investments he was involved in cratered or failed. Also, The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a Sunday editorial harshly criticizing McAuliffe for being an “unserious” candidate for Governor.

This morning, a Bearing Drift/Conquest Communications poll confirmed McAuliffe’s cratering poll numbers. McAuliffe now by the narrowest of margins: 36-35, with 11 percent to a third candidate, 19 percent undecided and a margin of error of five percent.

Douglas Wilder, a former Democratic Governor of Virginia and former Mayor of Richmond, when he was recently asked this weekend on MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki” why Virginia Democrats couldn’t find a better nominee that McAuliffe, responded, “That’s a very good question.”

Now is the time to put away the absurd possibility that an unqualified political hack and liberal embed like Terry McAuliffe could ever govern a commonwealth as important as Virginia.

Cuccinelli and McAuliffe will appear in a pivotal, statewide televised debate in prime time this Wednesday night, airing across the state’s NBC affiliates.

Soon the whole nation will be looking at the Virginia election, as it is the only competitive race of any major significance in 2013.

It is time for conservatives across the country to stand up for strong conservative candidates like Ken Cuccinelli.

If Ken Cuccinelli wins the Governor’s race, it will deny the Clinton machine a political prize in on the way to returning to the White House, and deny the Obama White House a new state under Democratic control.

We must fight – for tomorrow.

Mackowiak is executive director of the national Super PAC Fight For Tomorrow.  Learn more at FightForTomorrow.com.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel