2012 Ad War: Santorum Takes on Cain

This post is part of our guest series from Inkwell Strategies analyzing the 2012 campaign ad war.

Political commentators generally agree that the 2012 Republican race will come down to two slots: Mitt Romney and Other. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum clearly agrees with this view, which is why his latest ad attacks Romney’s current biggest threat, Herman Cain.

In an effort to appeal to Iowa’s right wing social conservatives, Santorum zeroes in on Cain’s muddled position on abortion in a new 3 minute web ad. Taking a page from the classic attack ad playbook, the ad mixes unflattering photographs of Cain with quick zooms and clips from recent television appearances in which Cain appears to take a pro-choice stance.

Cain might argue that the clips were taken out of context, but some will be hard to defend to the party’s conservative base. At the 40 second mark, Cain says this: “It’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision…It ultimately gets down to a choice that that mother or that family has to make.”

There’s nothing more effective than using a candidate’s own words in a negative ad. For the first 90 seconds, Santorum’s does this to great effect.

But the second half of the ad goes off track. Against a plain black background, a female narrator reads quotes attacking Cain’s position from a long list of social conservatives. Oddly, the first quote comes from Alan Keyes, the unpopular conservative best known for losing to Barack Obama by 40 points in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race.

Putting aside the repetitive and visually boring second half of the ad, the Santorum campaign has released a well-constructed and potentially damaging critique of Herman Cain, a candidate still largely unknown to most voters. But one question stands out: how does the ad help Santorum? Other than the small-print tagline at the very end, there’s not a single mention of Santorum.

While the underdog former Senator may have landed an effective punch on Cain, the ad would have been much stronger if the second half had promoted Santorum’s own position. With Iowa’s caucuses looming and Santorum still mired in low-single digits, this ad is a missed opportunity.