GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum, the winner of the 2012 Iowa caucus, launched his first campaign ad this week characterizing Sen. Ted Cruz, the current Iowa front-runner, as a Mr. Rogers-like figure better suited for reciting lines from children’s books than tackling terrorist threats.
Donald Trump also released his first ad, vowing to voters that he meant everything he’s said so far about building a border wall and halting visas for Muslims coming to the U.S.
And Mr. Cruz, hoping to cement himself in the GOP’s top tier of candidates, took to the airwaves with an eye on President Obama, vowing to get the country back on track after eight years of treating the Constitution like “a first draft.”
With less than a month to go before Iowa’s caucuses kick off the primary season, the candidates are honing the messages they want voters to hear before they head to the polls.
Campaign ads are the clearest way for candidates to reach voters directly, and the messages they choose to invest money in say a lot about the way they see the race.
In Mr. Santorum’s case, he’s hoping to recapture some of the magic of his 2012 Iowa upset victory by taking down the current king of the hill, Mr. Cruz, with an ad showing the first-term senator reading his children a Dr. Seuss bedtime story from the floor of the Senate during his 2013 filibuster.
SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders stay positive in Iowa, avoid attacking each other
“You want someone to read one helluva bedtime story, Ted Cruz is your guy,” the narrator says. “If you want to protect America, and defeat ISIS, Rick Santorum’s your president. Because serious times need serious people.”
Mr. Cruz has had success coalescing the support of the state’s evangelical Christian community — including voters that helped power Mr. Santorum to victory in the Hawkeye State and a second-place finish in the GOP nomination race four years ago.
That’s why Mr. Santorum, who has built his reputation as a strong social conservative, is trying to remind voters of “important distinctions” that exist between him and Mr. Cruz on national security and foreign policy, according to John Brabender, a top Santorum adviser.
“One of the overwhelming complaints that Republicans had after Barack Obama got elected is that he didn’t have experience to be commander in chief or enough foreign policy experience — and that is something we think Rick Santorum has got,” Mr. Brabender said. “That is a critical difference [with Mr. Cruz].
“We are probably going to be more inclined to talk about the distinctions between us and Ted Cruz, because we have to fish where the fish are,” he said. “We want Cruz supporters to understand the dissections, and we think this is an important one — especially on national security.”
Mr. Cruz, though, has much more financial firepower than Mr. Santorum and started airing another television ad in Iowa Monday, vowing to stand for the party’s conservative values “that make us who we are,” and another in New Hampshire Tuesday attacking the way the mainstream media handles the issue of illegal immigration.
“The Constitution wasn’t a first draft. Our border isn’t a revolving door. And the rule of law wasn’t meant to be broken,” Mr. Cruz says in one of the ads. “America is off track. But our founding principles will get us back.”
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, finally bought his first ads of the campaign season, announcing he’ll spend $2 million a week in Iowa and New Hampshire over the next month.
His first television commercial doubles down on his controversial plans to deport illegal immigrants, to temporarily ban the entry of most Muslims into the United States and to combat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, overseas.
“He’ll quickly cut the head off ISIS and take their oil,” the narrator says in the Trump ad. “And he’ll stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who trails the field in both Iowa and New Hampshire, also put out a new ad in New Hampshire this week highlighting his plan to defeat the Islamic State, saying “serious times call for serious leadership.”
“The United States should not delay in leading a global coalition to take out ISIS with overwhelming force,” Mr. Bush says in the ad, which features footage of a speech he delivered last year at the Citadel. “We are at war with radical Islamic terrorists. We have but one choice — to defeat it.”
Mr. Cruz leads polling in Iowa, topping Mr. Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio, who put out an ad Tuesday hammering President Obama.
“Instead of fighting to fund our troops, he fights to fund Planned Parenthood,” Mr. Rubio says in the ad. “He spies on Israel and cut a deal with Iran.
“His plan after the attack in San Bernardino? Take away our guns, and while ISIS is beheading people and burning them in cages, he says climate change is our greatest threat,” Mr. Rubio said.
In New Hampshire Mr. Trump is first, followed by Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz, then Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio.
Ms. Kasich is all-in in New Hampshire, releasing an ad Monday touting his working-class roots and how he overcame the loss of his parents to a drunk driver to deliver big accomplishments as an elected official.
“Some said he couldn’t balance the federal budget. But Kasich stunned Washington,” the narrator says. “They said he couldn’t save Ohio from an $8 billion shortfall, but Kasich did.
“They say our best days are behind us. America. Never. Give. Up. John Kasich,” the narrator says.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.