Romney hires ex-Bush ad man
Producer noted for tough tactics
Governor Mitt Romney, who continues to sign up big-name political consultants for a probable presidential run, has hired bare-knuckles GOP ad man Alex Castellanos, a veteran of presidential campaigns known for his tough ads against Democratic candidates.
Widely considered one of the country's more influential Republican image-makers, Castellanos has produced television spots for President Bush, presidential candidate Bob Dole, and former senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Romney's move to recruit him sends a strong signal that the governor plans to mount a serious national campaign for 2008, political observers say.
"Alex is one of two or three people in the country who you don't run a presidential campaign without," said Dan Schnur, who was communication director for Senator John McCain of Arizona during McCain's run for president in 2000. Schnur added, "You don't hire Alex Castellanos unless you're committed to this."
Castellanos did not return calls seeking his comment yesterday. But in a 1998 PBS documentary on election ads, he made no apologies for his style, arguing that negative messages were the most effective messages in a campaign.
"The truest spots, most factual spots, are the negative and comparative," he said. "They inform the voters much more than a bunch of fluffy positives often do."
In 1990, Castellanos produced a controversial ad blasting Helms's Democratic challenger, Harvey Gantt, who is black, for his support of racial quotas. The ad depicted a pair of white hands ripping up a rejection letter from an employer. "You needed that job and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority," the narrator says.
Castellanos also produced an infamous television ad for Bush against Vice President Al Gore in 2000, in which the word rats was superimposed over attacks on Gore's prescription drug plan. Castellanos said at the time that it was unintentional and merely a video editing quirk, but Democrats accused him -- and, by extension, Bush -- of using a subliminal derogatory message.
Still, even his opponents and critics concede that Castellanos is a formidable adversary.
"Everybody on both sides would agree: When you're saddled up and you've got Alex on the other side, you better bring your lunch," said Jim Krog, who faced off against Castellanos when Krog ran the 1994 reelection campaign of Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida.
Romney knows Castellanos's work well. The media strategist produced a glowing video about Romney's four years as governor that the Massachusetts Republican Party showed at its convention in Lowell this spring. Romney's political action committee, the Commonwealth PAC, then bought the rights to the video, and it is now featured prominently on the PAC's website.
Castellanos's firm, National Media of Alexandria, Va., was also hired by the Republican Governors Association, which Romney chairs, to produce and place ads for gubernatorial candidates around the country this year. From July through September, the association paid National Media more than $1.8 million, according to Internal Revenue Service records. Castellanos himself made only one ad, according to the association. Democrats picked up a net of six governorships in this year's elections, giving the party a 28 to 22 majority over the GOP.
A Romney aide confirmed the hiring of Castellanos, which was first reported yesterday by the National Journal's Hotline blog.
Jared Young, a spokesman for the Commonwealth PAC, declined to comment yesterday. It was not clear what Castellanos's role would specifically be in a Romney campaign.
Romney, who leaves office Jan. 4, has yet to make a formal announcement about whether he will run in 2008, but he has been steadily expanding his stable of advisers and consultants. He has hired Alex Gage, the founder of TargetPoint Consulting, based in Alexandria, Va., and the guru of "microtargeting," a Republican technique of identifying, tracking, and turning out voters that the governor used to great effect in winning office in 2002. Romney has also tapped pollster Jan van Lohuizen, who helped President Bush win reelection in 2004.
Castellanos has worked on five presidential campaigns and helped elect eight senators and six governors, according to the biography on his firm's website. A native of Havana, he fled the island with his parents in 1961; they brought with them one suitcase and $11.
"That's what made me the conservative guy I am today," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1994. "I believe this stuff. I have a general dislike for government that tells people what to do."
But Castellanos has generated controversy and, at times, hiccups for his clients by producing ads later exposed as misleading or factually incorrect.
In a 1994 spot for Jeb Bush, who was challenging Chiles for Florida governor, Castellanos tried to paint Chiles as soft on crime for refusing to sign a death warrant for the murderer of a 10-year-old girl. But it turned out that Florida courts were still hearing the killer's appeal, and some observers believe the backlash from the ad helped Chiles eke out a victory. Four years later, Bush ran a successful campaign with a different ad man.
During Dole's campaign in 1996, Dole's advisers wouldn't even run some ads Castellanos made accusing President Clinton of being a liar. The advisers believed that the ads went too far.
And in 1998, Republican Bob Taft, in his campaign for governor, was forced to pull an ad that Castellanos made, after the Ohio Elections Commission concluded that it wrongly accused his Democratic opponent, former attorney general Lee Fisher, of having reduced staffing levels in his office.
But not every television spot Castellanos has produced has a negative bent. One ad produced for the reelection campaign of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California this year depicts a series of Californians telling viewers of Schwarzenegger's good deeds, to a background of soft music.
Romney's decision to hire the new ad man, observers say, is another sign that Romney will launch a presidential campaign.
"This definitely is a strong signal," said Republican media strategist Todd Domke. "And it shows also that he's able to sign up a lot of people who have the expertise and the reputation needed for a presidential campaign -- to be not just viable, but very competitive right off."
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 