Terri Lynn Land — the former Michigan secretary of state who’s running in what has become a highly-competitive race for the U.S. Senate — is out with a fun new ad, titled, “Really?” In it, the female candidate pokes fun at the suggestion that she’s “waging a ‘war on women.'”
“Think about that for a moment,” Land gibes, before ultimately concluding that “[A]s a woman, I might know a little bit more about women than [Democratic U.S. Rep.] Gary Peters.”
This may prove an interesting case study. There is a debate taking place as to whether or not it’s easier for female candidates to buck this line of attack.
But Land has hinted she would aggressively fight back — and columnist George Will has suggested she might just be the right candidate to kill off this negative narrative. Based on this ad, he might be right:
It seems to work: It’s tough, but also fun.
Political consultants sometimes play coy, but in an email about the ad, campaign strategist John Yob was transparent about the campaign’s goals:
The purpose of this ad is to set the stage for the rest of the campaign and show the absurdity of the Democrats’ strategy to leverage the war on women against Terri. Congressman Peters fired his female campaign manager and brought in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee elections head who was determined to run a dirty and deceptive campaign — just look at the campaigns the DSCC is running nationwide. We expect Congressman Peters and his special interest supporters to continue the manufactured war on women but that is a debate we welcome. Terri Lynn Land has an impeccable record advocating for working women — developing management programs that resulted in more women managers statewide and implementing flexible time for working moms. She also has the vision to get both women and men back to work. Congressman Peters’ special interest allies are launching baseless attacks on birth control and mammograms that they can’t even find a source for in their ads because they are down in the polls, down in fundraising, and out of ideas. These attacks show just how worried the Democrats are about Terri Lynn Land beating Congressman Peters.
Initially, I thought this might be a sort of straw man. I mean, who would attack a female candidate for being anti-woman? It turns out, I was wrong. For example, the SEIU just dropped this ad attacking Land for all sorts of horrible things.
“While Gary [Peters] and Harry [Reid] sit in their Washington, D.C. offices lecturing Terri on the struggles of women in Michigan,” said Heather Swift, Land’s campaign spokeswoman, “Terri is actually in Michigan talking with working women about the real war on women: Obamacare and the rest of the job-killing Democratic agenda.”
That — and taking the fight to the liberals, it seems…