Let The TV Wars Begin

SPARKS FLY BETWEEN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OVER TV ADS

FITSNews – April 30, 2007 – We used to make fun of SouthCarolina08.com for being a John McCain-Mitt Romney spitball match. In fact, until the site was purchased by new owners in February, it was little more than a running diary of Never-Been-Laid College Republicans arguing about who broke somebody’s protractor during a precinct reorganization meeting in Abbeville County.

Anyway, inter-campaign spitball fights can make for good stories, provided you cover them in moderation. Like when we asked senior McCain advisor John Weaver the other day whether he was worried about Mitt Romney’s new ads crowding out the press coverage of John McCain’s presidential announcement last week.

“I’ll be curious when those commercials start having an impact on his favorables,” Weaver told us. “We’re going to keep grinding it out, it’s not about winning straw polls against John Cox.”

McCain’s team pointed to a recent survey by Republican pollster Whit Ayres showing Romney at 10% – in fifth place among S.C. Republican Primary voters. Romney was also at 10% in a recent Zogby poll.

State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R-Horry), a Romney supporter, said the important thing was that the former Massachusetts Governor’s poll numbers were moving in the right direction.

“I think there are some opponents that feel threatened by the Romney presence,” Clemmons told FITSNews. “We certainly don’t see his polling numbers going down, we see them rising.”

McCain’s people viewed that comment as a slap at their candidate’s “former frontrunner” status. While McCain holds a slim lead in recent South Carolina polls, nationwide polls show him trailing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“Of course we’re afraid of (Romney),” one McCain advisor told FITSNews. “He’s got celestial powers. He’s got his own planet.”

Ouch.