The Republican National Committee is upgrading the image of President Obama as an invisible man in an empty chair, to a cardboard cut-out—in an empty chair.
Rather than run from actor Clint Eastwood’s heavily ridiculed rendition of a prime time political speech, the RNC appears to be doubling down. And as women’s issues—including abortion and health care rights—continue to play a central role for Democrats in their convention message, Republicans in a new web video are highlighting another choice for women: to “break up” with Obama.
The video portrays a woman sitting across a restaurant table from a cardboard cut-out of Obama.
“You think I didn’t see you with Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney?” the woman asks.
“It’s not me, it’s you.”
But perhaps it is the woman. The actor depicting a disillusioned Obama supporter from 2008 is actually the RNC’s Director of Hispanic Outreach Bettina Inclan.
“You’re just not the person I thought you were,” Inclan tells cardboard Obama in the ad, while pretending to be someone she is not. Inclan, who started as an RNC staffer in January 2012 after years of working for Republican leaders and organizations, made waves with the Romney campaign earlier this year when she suggested that the GOP presidential candidate was “still deciding” on his stance with immigration. Inclan’s gaffe forced Romney officials to aggressively walk back. And as for the RNC ad, officials responded to criticism questioning its honesty, telling Talking Points Memo: “It’s a lighthearted ad to show how millions of Americans feel about President Obama — he’s not the person we thought he was and it’s time to break up with him,” an RNC official told TPM. “But let’s be clear, it is an ad.”
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