On Thursday, Ted Cruz went on the air with his first major ad buy before the South Carolina primary. But just hours later, the Cruz campaign abruptly pulled the ad from the air. Why? Apparently one of the stars was a softcore porn actress.
Cruz intended the ad, called “Conservatives Anonymous,” to take a swipe at Marco Rubio’s conservative bona fides. Campaign TV Ads managed to get its hands on the ad while it was still available online. Watch it here.
At a group therapy session for disaffected Rubio supporters, one of the members vents his spleen at Rubio for supporting “amnesty” for illegal immigrants after running as “a tea party hero.” One of the women in the group suggests that her colleague ought to “vote for more than just a pretty face next time.”
BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski thought the woman looked familiar, and did some digging. It turned out her name was Amy Lindsay, who has appeared in a number of softcore porn films over the last two decades–essentially, the kind of thing you’d see on Cinemax. Lindsay told BuzzFeed that she is a conservative Christian and a Republican. However, she thought it was “cool” that a softcore porn actress could appear in a Cruz ad. While she admitted she was still deciding whether to support Cruz or Donald Trump, she believed that it would send a message that “a cool kind of open-minded woman like me” could support Cruz. She stressed that she does not do hardcore porn.
Apparently the Cruz campaign didn’t think it was so cool. Within hours of BuzzFeed revealing Lindsay’s history, the Cruz campaign pulled the ad and replaced it with a new one. Campaign spokesman Rick Tyler pointed the finger at the production company who conducted an open casting call for the ad, saying it did not adequately vet the actors. Had Lindsay’s past acting history been known Tyler said, “we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad.” Cruz himself told reporters that Lindsay had “a more colorful film history than we were aware” at the time, and his campaign would have not worked with her had that history been known.
On the surface, it seems that Cruz really had no choice. He must have thought that having an ad featuring a softcore porn star wouldn’t play well in a primary where there will be a lot of fundies at the polls. But Lindsay thinks that Cruz was really being petty.
Extremely disappointed the #TedCruz campaign pulled the national television spot I had a role in… #moretocome #myvotecounts
— Amy Lindsay (@amylindsayLA) February 12, 2016
On Friday’s edition of CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Lindsay said she saw the ad as just another shoot. Watch here.
Lindsay said she shot the ad a couple of months ago, and only learned it had been pulled when a media outlet called her. She saw it as just a “gig,” but knew as soon as she read the script that it was an ad for a Republican, and felt it would be very easy to do since she is a conservative Republican. When Tapper noted that South Carolina’s large evangelical base wouldn’t be too pleased once they found out about her background, Lindsay said she could understand that point of view. She didn’t see it as an “un-Christian” act on Cruz’ part, but just “politics as usual.” Despite the ad being pulled, she still says that Cruz is very much in the running for her support.
In an obvious dig at Cruz, Lindsay said she has gotten a considerable amount of support from other conservatives who think Cruz jumped the gun. Those people, she said, are some of the type of people who might be going to the polls–people who are “very fiscally conservative,” but “more socially liberal.” As she sees it, Cruz would do well to “broaden the horizon” and make more of an effort to reach out to women like her.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the budding GOP civil war in a nutshell.
