As Mark Halperin notes this morning on The Page, John McCain’s new TV spot about what makes him angry was done explicitly in homage to a 1987 spot for Buddy Roemer, when Roemer won as an underdog Democratic candidate for Louisiana governor. As it turns out, Mark McKinnon, who is McCain’s media adviser (and who produced George W. Bush’s ads in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections) was also, back in 1987, Buddy Roemer’s press secretary. (As most readers probably know, McKinnon worked exclusively for Democrats until he fell for Bush in Texas in the early 1990s.) McKinnon was behind both the 1987 Roemer ad, which featured the line “I love Louisiana enough to make some people angry” and today’s 2007 McCain ad, in which the senator says, “But I love America. I love her enough to make some people angry.” The idea: address the issue of McCain’s “temper” by turning it into an asset. After all, as one McCain adviser says, “People don’t want someone who kisses Congress’ a**.” Indeed. Here’s the McCain spot:
Roemer became a Republican while he was governor and lost his re-election bid in 1991. He’s out campaiging with McCain today.