National ‘Center-Right’ Group Runs Ads Targeting Crist

The American Action Network, a “center-right” Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) “social welfare organization,” is running a television ad in Tampa and the Florida panhandle targeting Gov. Charlie Crist (R, running for Senate as an independent) for changing positions on various policies. The ad features a man getting Crist’s positions tattooed on his body and having to endure the pain of changing them repeatedly. The punchline is, “You can’t trust Charlie Crist to fight for jobs, unless it’s his own job.”

The American Action Network calls itself an “‘action tank’ that will create, encourage and promote center-right policies based on the principles of freedom, limited government, American exceptionalism, and strong national security.” The group has run ads in the PA-12 special election and now has an ad targeting Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

AAN is run by former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Rob Collins, former chief of staff to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. Its chairman of the board is Fred Malek, the former campaign manager of George H.W. Bush’s 1992 campaign, something of a Washington adviser to Sarah Palin a former special assistant to President Nixon, who infamously drew up a list of Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics and then demoted at least four officials with Jewish-sounding surnames.