Pete Hoekstra's Racist, Lie-Filled Ad Shows How To Lose An Election & Alienate Voters In 30 Seconds Or Less

Now, normally when a smug, disingenuous politician, like say, Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, releases a totally offensive, cartoonishly racist ad featuring an Asian lady riding a bicycle through Asian rice paddies and taunting Michiganers about how lazy and unemployed they are through stereotypical broken English, their popularity increases exponentially, usually as a misguided populist (i.e. Teabagger) backlash to the lamestream media shouting "racist" and "completely offensive."

This is how politics tend to work in America, or at least ever since that half-black secret Muslim terrorist Socialist won (stole?) the White House and racism vanished completely by hiding beneath colonial wigs, Jesus Saves t-shirts, and obese white men and women wearing tea bags on their heads and shrieking about taking their country back from some mysterious dark force with a charming smile, sensible ideas and weird, Muslim-y sounding name.

But then something strange and wonderful happened. Instead of propelling Pete Hoekstra to the top and all but securing a Republican victory, his terrible ad backfired, causing his poll numbers to plummet and reminding everyone why, for whatever reason— karma? — a dumb, lying, racist ad fails to win the hearts and minds of anyone.

What’s interesting is that Stabenow’s approval numbers have barely budged at all over the last 6 months. Over the summer we found her at 46/40, and now she’s at 47/41. But Hoekstra’s numbers have taken a turn for the worst. In July his favorability was narrowly positive at 31/30. Now he’s dropped a net 11 points to a -10 spread at 28/38. There hasn’t been a big shift in his numbers with Democrats or Republicans but with independents his numbers have flipped from +10 (33/23) to -10 (29/39).

Hoekstra appears to have been damaged by his controversial Super Bowl ad. 54% of voters in the state were familiar with it, and within that group 45% said it made them less likely to vote for him compared to only 16% who considered it a positive and 37% who said it didn’t make a difference to them either way. Independents said they were turned off by it and he’s gone from leading with them by 6 points in July to now trailing by 4 points.

Perhaps some good advice for Pete "SpendItNot" Hoekstra is the next time you pretty much have the Republican nomination wrapped up and think to run a buffoonish race-baiting ad during the Super Bowl, ask yourself am I trying to alienate everyone who doesn't wear white robes and cone-shaped hoods over their heads? If the answer is no, then it's probably best to ShowItNot.

Unless, of couse you're LINsane!

Otherwise, you pay heavy plice, Conglessman Holkstlah! No Happy Ending for you!

Guess that's just the way the (fortune) cookie crumbles.

[image via Wonkette]