Analysis: Romney Attack Ads in New Hampshire Hit New Low as He Fights Back Against Surging McCain

Mitt Romney's relentless. self-financing television advertising machine rolls on, inundating the New Hampshire market with attack ads targeting Senator John McCain, who has staged a surge in the polls which threatens to upset Romney, a "favorite son" from neighboring Massachusetts.

Romney already has run misogynistic ads in New Hampshire attacking Hillary Clinton. The former first lady of Arkansas and the United States, a two-term U.S. Senator, is smeared with an allusion to Monica Lewinsky as Romney, in an apparent stump speech, claims that Clinton has never "run anything", and that the U.S. cannot afford having her "learn" the Presidency via an "internship." In fact, Clinton was one of the managing partners of a top Arkansas law firm, a fact that cannot have escaped a Republican such as Romney since the Republican Congress attacked the firm relentlessly during her husband's presidency. The "internship" crack, of course, is an allusion to the Monica Lewinsky scandal that was exploited politically by the Republican Congressional leadership of which at least two members were having adulterous affairs at the same time. Hillary Clinton is far more politically experienced than is Romney, the one-term governor of Massachusetts who did not run for reelection as he likely would have lost and seen his national political ambitions ruined.

The misogynistic attack ad now is being run in Michigan, which will go to the polls a week after the New Hampshire primary. In New Hampshire,

Logic or consistency has never been one of Mitt Romney's strong points, as his record as governor of the Bay State has shown, and which is heightened by his rivals. However, the master flip-flopper of his generation has a $250-million fortune and is financing a media blitz on his own. He has the pecuniary power and, via TV ads, is attempting to transfigure that power into political currency. Now that he has fallen into a statistical dead-heat with McCain after leading New Hampshire polls since the political campaign began he has been targeting his chief rival.