Subject of Notorious Hairdresser Attack Ad Speaks Out

My profile of Obama campaign manager Jim Messina in the current Bloomberg Businessweek touches on an infamous television ad from the 2002 Montana Senate race that has, since the article’s publication, kicked up a bit of dust. The ad was run against the Republican candidate, a state senator named Mike Taylor, who was trying to knock off the incumbent, Democratic Senator Max Baucus. Messina was running Baucus’s campaign. Even by the standards of brutal attack ads, this one was pretty tough. As I described it: “Set to a porn soundtrack, it featured snippets of an old television ad for Taylor’s hair salon that showed the candidate clad in a medallioned, open-shirted disco outfit, massaging lotion into another man’s face, and then appearing to reach toward the man’s crotch.” See for yourself: