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Porn Star Scuttles My Political Career (Really!)
Man, I hate when this happens!
Okay, I guess the whole porn-star-ruins-my-career scenario was in the cards for me from the beginning, but it’s always a shock when it actually happens. Here are the lurid details.
In the hopes of supporting a genuine constitutional conservative in the midst of a field of bozos and blowhards, I wrote a couple of (delightfully entertaining) ads for Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. These were part of a series of Group Session ads in which people sat around discussing their political problems and realized they could solve them by voting for Senator Ted. The ads were filmed with a collection of talented and charming young actors and were scheduled for release this weekend. I, of course, planned to spend the weekend standing next to my phone, waiting for the political ad writing offers to come rolling in.
As it turns out, one of the talented and charming young actors was an attractive lady named Amy Lindsay who, it also turns out, had previously starred in some softcore porn films, including Insatiable Desires and the ever-popular Secrets of a Chambermaid. Apparently someone on one of the other campaigns recognized her from one of his late night porn watching sessions or something and reported her to the press. Let me add here that Amy — a conservative and a Christian — was not only excellent in the ads but added some intelligent and funny ad libs to the scripts.
Nonetheless, the Cruz campaign scuttled the series…
Read the thrilling conclusion here.
Published in General
First, Cruz invited Mark Steyn to testify on Capitol Hill on the topic of global warming, and now he has Andrew Klavan writing ads? I’m starting to like Ted.
In the CNN interview posted on Hot Air, Amy Lindsay is poised, warm, intelligent, beautifully and simply attired.
Why do we care if she made a (so called) porn movie? Why do we immediately pigeon-hole her into some category; isn’t that what we rightly castigate the other side for doing?
Every person’s story is more complicated than any one thing they might have done at some point.
And besides, even if she were a full-bore hardcore porn actress, does that mean it’s impossible that she could have conservative values? Porn actresses automatically don’t want free enterprise, lower taxes, more personal accountability, less government intrusion into their life choices? A porn actress can’t want to see more government adherence to the constitution? More rule of law not men, more border security, more accountability from their leaders? Less crazy foreign policy of capitulation to our adversaries/total screwing of our partners? Being a porn actress makes you less of a citizen, with the same concerns and opinions the rest of us have? So you should be excluded from a polling sample because of what you do for a living, or what you used to do? Seriously? Wtf?
A person can have a slightly different moral code or opinion, or artistic bent, or sexual drive, or better or worse sense of judgement than me. But they still might want the same thing from their government and surrounding society.
I like music but I’m not crazy about country music. I love sex but I’m not crazy about BDSM. I am definitely a free-market conservative. People who are crazy about country music and/or BDSM might also be free-market conservatives, and maybe Cruz supporters.
In what way would this person want something different from her government than me? Is someone who likes country music, or acting in porn films, or working at a car wash, or running a hedge fund, unworthy in some way of expecting the same fair treatment in a free society as anyone? What’s the problem here?
Details matter.
If this woman has indeed renounced her past and taken a new road as a devout Christian then now seems the time for compassion and forgiveness, Cruz should go forward with this piece sans apology.
However if this women has not yet entirely abandoned her prior behavoiur then the caution of his campaign is well judged.
Re # 34
That’s how I thought I felt. Now, I’m thinking that it’s easy to avoid late night Cinemax. It’s not like she’s getting in your face with her lifestyle choices demanding you get over your pornophobia and support those choices.
Beyonce’s recent, very public performance wasn’t just lewd. It honored murdering goons. If Amy Lindsay’s movies aren’t as corrupting to young people as Beyoncé’s performance, maybe Cruz should just say, in effect: “Her other work is none of our business.”
The idea that Senator Cruz could or should vet every campaign member he has employed for poor life choices is clearly absurd. So in a general sense you are correct. If some pornography aficionados amongst the opposition had not brought this forward we would not even be having this discussion.
But they did and here we are. Cruz didn’t make this mess, but now he has to deal with it. Ignoring the matter is not dealing with it.
So you are the one who is keeping this country from getting our problems fixed by electing an inflexible ideolog. Who will keep the phony fights going forever and ever and ever….
Meanwhile every good thing in America is undermined, because all anyone on the right can see is the momentary fight.
I’m sick of fighting, I’d like some real governance. And that can’t happen until we someone with people skills in the Whitehouse.
The people of Charleston notably forgave a racist buffoon for murdering nine churchgoers: people there have a mortal lock on the doctrine of forgiveness.
And anyway, it’s only softcore porn. It’s not like she did something truly odious, like cover up for a serial rapist for decades. Or expose highly classified material to anyone who can hack into a rent-a-server. Or leave four men to die in Benghazi. Or scam colleges into ponying up 200 large for speaking engagements to talk about the high price of secondary education. Or have a Brian Williams moment recalling being under sniper fire in Sarajevo. Or possess a laugh like Margaret Hamilton on a five day meth bender.
Its a conundrum, isn’t it? As a campaign, what do you do when you’ve spent some war chest $ to put together an ad that was clever, pointed and effectively exploiting a recent fumble by another candidate or seizing on the narrative of the day, but then suddenly discover that airing it might undermine your own candidate among some of his supporters because of a minor scandal, or might detract from his message by requiring him to answer questions about it?
One option would be to ensure all copies of the ad were destroyed so that it would never leak and move on without mentioning it. But, that’s harder to do in the world of smart phones and thumb drives, and plus, it isn’t getting any bang for you dollar.
So a clever campaign might lead with the story that the ad was torpedoed by the responsible hands helping to steer the campaign. But, on the sly, the ad would could be circulated informally and unofficially on the web. Its the best of both worlds: the campaign keeps its hands clean and looks responsible, but the $ aren’t wasted and the ad gets out and has the desired effect.
Defeating a Clinton’s money machine and media blackout/whitewash is going to take someone with the…..uh…..chutzpah, to employ a recently trending phrase, to do just that sort of underhanded political knife-fighting.
What’s the problem? The young lady went to UT and majored in journalism. I think the Ted campaign should have gone with this.
Mr Klavan, I just want you to know that I absolutely loved your ad. It was so clever, it was by far the best political ad I have ever seen, and I was very disappointed when they pulled it :(
I’d rather have a woman who pretended to do the baby makin’ dance in my corner than one who actually performed the baby killin’ dance to the tune of a few hundred thousand.
The poor woman. I’m sure that appearing in a Cruz ad has made her unemployable in the porn industry ever again.
Re #43
No joke. All the more reason to run the ad.