In Raunchy California Ad, Echoes Of Willie Horton

toggle caption RightTurnUSA/YouTube Watch The Ad

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn had no idea she was becoming the talk of the town until her phone started ringing earlier this week with friends urging her to check out a new campaign ad on YouTube.

Hahn is running to replace former Rep. Jane Harman, who retired from her 36th District seat to head a Washington, D.C., think tank. The runoff election pits Hahn against Tea Party-backed Republican candidate Craig Huey, a local businessman who has reportedly sunk a half-million dollars of his own money into what was expected to be a pretty sleepy campaign.

Then "the ad" woke everyone up.

In it, a shapely blond woman in a halter top and booty shorts walks up to a stripper pole and begins gyrating. Her back is to us. Then, two black rappers brandishing semi-automatic rifles start to rap:

Give me your cash, b - - - - , so we can shoot up the street!

Give me your cash, b - - - -, so we can buy some more heat!

Give me your cash, ho', so we can get out the pen!

Give me your cash, ho', cause we back in again!

The scowling men dance around the gyrating, scantily clad woman, who is cheerfully shaking her butt at them while they pluck dollar bills from her waistband.

Funding An Attack Ad: How The Money Flowed In 2008 In 2008, NPR traced the money going to a pro-Democratic "independent" political group that put out an ad attacking Republican presidential nominee John McCain. See How The Money Flowed For That Ad

Getting Their Attention

The Hahn attack ad has caused some genuinely pearl-clutching moments in political communities across the country. And that's just what Ladd Ehlinger Jr., an independent conservative filmmaker, intended. He was linking Hahn to a controversial gang rehabilitation program supported by the city.

A political commercial designed for television is vastly different from one designed for the Internet, Ehlinger says. The audience is different, the restraints are different.

"Here's the thing: You go and you advertise on television, you spend all of your money on the time. You're buying the media. You're buying fat, lazy eyeballs who are too lazy to change the channel when your ad comes on, your boring, boring ad."

On the Internet, Ehlinger says, you want to grab people by the throat and make them pay attention. "You have to take it over the top."

He's not suggesting that Hahn actually be shot with the semi-automatics in the attack ad. That, and the booty-as-piggy-bank are, he says, "a metaphor" for a gang rehabilitation program that was designed to employ reformed gang members to induce men still in the life to turn away from it and try job training. In its early days, the program had a couple of reformed gang members who'd retained their ties. When that was discovered, the program was revamped and moved to the mayor's office.

Hahn says she supports rehabilitation, but denies she funded the project directly. Other media investigations support her claim.

Deja Vu All Over Again?

Some political observers feel Give Us Your Cash, as it's come to be known, is a 21st century version of the Willie Horton ad that ran so effectively against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign. It showed a mug shot of a scowling black man in a big Afro, and a voice-over intoned that thanks to a furlough program like the one Dukakis supported, Horton was able to commit assault and rape while on a weekend leave.

Enlarge this image toggle caption AP/Lawrence Eagle Tribune AP/Lawrence Eagle Tribune Watch The Ad

The ad was incendiary. Many consider it instrumental in electing George H.W. Bush, although the Bush campaign denied any connection with the ad, which was funded and produced by an independent political action committee. In later years, campaign director Lee Atwater confessed he'd encouraged the ad's producers.

The Hahn ad was funded by Turn Right USA, a conservative superPAC. While intended as cheeky parody, it clearly pushed some of the same hot buttons on race and sexuality.

Huey, Hahn's opponent, has disavowed any association with the ad, calling it racist and sexist and decrying it as a distraction from the real matters voters care about. "I denounce it unequivocally," Huey said in a statement released a few days after the ad surfaced.

Hahn isn't so sure about that. She believes that there may indeed be a connection between the nasty ad and Huey's campaign. She points out that Turn Right USA and a company Huey's campaign has used to produce materials share the same post office box in suburban Los Angeles.

"C'mon," she scoffs. "Of all the thousands of P.O. boxes in Los Angeles, these two just happen to share the same one? What are the odds?"

In a statement, Huey's campaign denies the connection.

But Did It Work?

Voters may get to decide for themselves: Hahn has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether there's a link.

Meanwhile, several people have demanded that YouTube take down the offensive video. It hasn't so far, but Ehlinger says if it does, he's ready.

"I'll just put it up on other places," he says. "YouTube isn't the only game in town."

The ad has done one thing Ehlinger wanted: It has galvanized viewers — but ironically, in the opposite way he'd intended. Hahn reports that since the ad aired, offers from volunteers have increased.

And donations are up: People are, um, giving her their cash.