It seemed like quite an idea. Joe Ricketts, the wealthy AmeriTrade founder whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, would spend $10 million on an ad campaign attacking President Obama over his former pastor. “The Ricketts Plan” would rely on hire an “extremely literate conservative African-American” as its spokesperson, who would accuse Obama of being a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
What could possibly go wrong?
Alas, the plan was short lived. After this morning’s New York Times report, which we discussed earlier, caused quite a stir in the political world, the “Ending Spending Action Fund” issued a statement on Ricketts’ behalf this afternoon, distancing the wealthy conservative donor from the Jeremiah Wright-focused smear campaign. The statement reads in full:
“Joe Ricketts is a registered independent, a fiscal conservative, and an outspoken critic of the Obama Administration, but he is neither the author nor the funder of the so-called “Ricketts Plan” to defeat Mr. Obama that The New York Times wrote about this morning. Not only was this plan merely a proposal – one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take.









