* Sun-Times…
A “shock and awe” anti-Bruce Rauner campaign that is promising to turn the tide in the gubernatorial primary has officially launched with a full color, 12-page, tabloid-styled pamphlet hitting half a million Illinois Republican households beginning Saturday.
Laid out in an oversized, 11-by-17 format, the ad is an extensive trashing of the Republican front-runner in the four-way GOP primary, attacking Rauner’s support for abortion rights and calling Rauner’s wife “radically pro-abortion.”
Calling the wealthy venture capitalist “the insider’s insider,” the ad trots out Rauner’s weaknesses — from his ties to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to his hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Democrats to his flip-flopping on the minimum wage to clouting his daughter into a Chicago public high school.
“This is the opening salvo to what is going to be a shock and awe campaign,” Steven Shearer told the Sun-Times on Friday.
The very long, wordy mailer is here.
* From an e-mail from Steve Shearer, who sent me the mailer last night…
These tabloids are a signature piece of campaigns I run. Over the years I’ve done these in 48 races. 45 of those candidates have won… There was a possibility of some people receiving in the mail tomorrow but more likely on Monday.
This is, indeed, a signature piece for Shearer and this sort of thing has been effective in the past.
But, man, is it ever long and wordy. And it ain’t on TV.
So, “shock and awe”? When it hits TV, maybe. And “promising to turn the tide”? We’ll see.
