Super PAC abandons plan to link President Obama to controversial reverend

Super PAC abandons plan to link President Obama to controversial reverend,
after Mitt Romney ?repudiates¹ strategy



By Callum Borchers, Globe Correspondent

After a proposed advertising campaign linking President Obama to the
inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright was leaked and subsequently condemned by
Mitt Romney, the super PAC that conceived it decided to spike the idea
Thursday.

The $10 million strategy, reported by The New York Times, was hatched by a
group of conservative advisers to the Ending Spending Action Fund, a super
PAC formed by Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade. ³The world is
about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama
for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,² the proposal read,
according to a copy obtained by the Times.

Appearing to take the high road, the Romney campaign rejected the plan, even
though Romney, himself, referred to the controversial pastor in a February
interview with Sean Hannity, saying ³I¹m not sure which is worse: him
listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we must be a less Christian
nation.²

Obama has said Wright was once a spiritual mentor who helped him find Jesus
but that he does not subscribe to the pastor¹s ³black liberation theology.²
The Ending Spending plan would have tied the president to some of Wright¹s
most incendiary remarks, such as when he said after the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001 that ³America¹s chickens are coming home to roost.²

Brian Baker, the super PAC¹s president, said Ricketts never endorsed the
strategy, which was titled ³The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts
Plan to End His Spending For Good.²

³Not only was this plan merely a proposal ? one of several submitted to the
Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors ? but it reflects an
approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects, and it was never a plan to
be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,² Baker said in a
statement.

The chief architect of the plan was Fred Davis, a veteran political
advertising guru who worked for Republican nominee John McCain in 2008.
Davis wrote in the proposal that he produced similar Wright-themed ads for
McCain but that the Arizona senator refused to approve them.

Working independently in the current election cycle, Davis and Ricketts
would not have needed Romney¹s sign-off. But Romney quickly sought to
distance himself from the plan after the Times report.

³Unlike the Obama campaign, Governor Romney is running a campaign based on
jobs and the economy, and we encourage everyone else to do the same,² Romney
campaign manager Matt Rhoades said in a statement. ³President Obama¹s team
said they would ?kill Romney,¹ and, just last week, [Obama campaign adviser]
David Axelrod referred to individuals opposing the president as ?contract
killers.¹ It¹s clear President Obama¹s team is running a campaign of
character assassination. We repudiate any efforts on our side to do so.²

The Obama campaign countered by saying Romney¹s rejection of Ricketts¹
strategy was not forceful enough.

³This morning¹s story revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican
operatives and super PACs apparently are willing to go to tear down the
president and elect Mitt Romney,² Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in
a statement. ³The blueprint for a hate-filled, divisive campaign of
character assassination speaks for itself. It also reflects how far the
party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very
tactics. Once again, Governor Romney has fallen short of the standard that
John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership
in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.²
Callum Borchers can be reached at

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