Perry, Rubio mock Hillary Clinton in new campaign ads
Hillary Clinton delivers her “official launch speech” at a campaign rally in New York City. (Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
The 2016 presidential election is still 17 months away, but some primary candidates are already getting a jumpstart on their general election attack ads.
Over the weekend, former Texas governor Rick Perry and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) both released campaign ads targeting Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
The video from Perry’s camp, titled “Hillary Goes to the Movies,” shows silhouetted cartoon Clinton pulling up to a movie theater in a van — presumably a reference to Clinton’s heavily-hyped ride, which was spotted occupying a handicapped spot, on her road trip from New York to Iowa at the start of her campaign back in April. A film called “Stop Hillary Clinton” is playing, and a recording of Clinton’s actual laughter plays on loop as the cartoon version watches the “previews of upcoming attractions,” a compilation of controversies involving the former secretary of state.
The Hillary in Rubio’s ad, on the other hand, is straight out real life — and almost real time.
The video, released on Saturday, shows Clinton speaking at her New York City campaign rally just hours earlier. Playing through an old-fashioned TV, however, the fresh clip of Clinton deriding the current Republican primary field looks like archival footage.
The video switches from a grainy Clinton, reciting the lyrics to the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” which she called the Republican theme song, to Rubio in high-definition.
“Yesterday is over,” Rubio says to a cheering crowd, many of them recording videos on their iPhones. “And we’re never going back.”
The ad contrasts Rubio as a fresh face against political dynasties like the Clintons and — though fellow Republican candidate Jeb Bush is not mentioned — the Bushes.
“We Americans are proud of our history, but our country has always been about the future,” Rubio says in the video. “Before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America. But we can’t do that by going back to the leaders and the ideas of the past.”
Clinton has hardly refrained from taking shots against the GOP field as a whole. But she’s also become the target of many Republican primary candidates months before Democrats are ready to focus on any one of her opponents. Rand Paul’s campaign store even has a whole section dedicated to anti-Hillary merchandise. Perry’s and Rubio’s videos are a taste of what’s to come from both sides as the primary season progresses.
