Colbert super PAC ad promises "orgy of pure distortion"
The super PAC backing comedian Stephen Colbert is his pseudo-run for president is out with its third ad in three days, this one in the form of a negative attack ad on negative attack ads.
The spot, "Double Negative," points out that super PACs backing Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have spent millions to run attack ads designed to bring down the respective rival candidates. The first hint that the ad isn't your typical campaign spot is when the deep-voiced narrator is heard saying, "it's enough to make you sick" - as a young man is shown throwing up into a brown paper bag.
The spot then shows smiling people framed against an American flag as the narrator asks for donations to the Colbert-backing super PAC, known both as "Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow" and "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC." The notations, the narrator says, will allow the super PAC to "destroy" Gingrich and Romney and their super PACs "with the merciless ad torrent so fierce they'll wish they'd never been incorporated."
"An orgy of pure distortion leaving nothing behind but the clean campaign we all deserve," he continues - as a nuclear explosion appears onscreen.
The spot is running just two times today on WCSC, the CBS affiliate in Charleston, South Carolina, according to Sandy Funderburk, general sales manager at the station. A so-far unseen ad from the super PAC, focused on Colbert, will run on Thursday. The latest spot follows an ad from the Colbert-backing super PAC encouraging South Carolinians to vote for Herman Cain, who has suspended his candidacy, as well as one that compares Romney to serial killer Jack the Ripper. (Cain told Fox411 he found the spot focused on him "clever and humorous," adding, "Anyone who finds what Mr. Colbert is doing offensive, should simply lighten up.")
Colbert and compatriot Jon Stewart have been gleefully mocking the laws around super PACs on their late-night Comedy Central shows, in part by spotlighting the supposed ban on coordination between a candidate and the super PAC supporting him.
Colbert, who transferred his super PAC to Stewart when he jokingly announced "an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina," describes super PACs as "100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical." (For what it's worth, Colbert can't at this point actually get on the primary ballot in South Carolina, which holds its primary Saturday.)
Donors can pour unlimited money into super PACs in order to support or attack candidates, and thus influence election outcomes. The groups, who are technically unaffiliated with candidates even though they are often run by their former staffers, were made possible by the 2010 "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision that effectively classified money as speech.
On "The Daily Show" last night, Stewart and Colbert discussed the spots while monitored by lawyer Trevor Potter, asking the former head of the Federal Election Commission to interrupt them if they said anything that broke the law. (Potter never did, though at one point he said the men could be subject to a fine for their comments - a fine they could pay with super PAC money.)
The comedians also noted that while Colbert can't tell Stewart what he wants, he can say it to the public while speaking on television - just like Gingrich and other candidates have done. (Watch at left.)