The ad spot, which political analysts have said is an attempt to shore up Romney’s support among social-conservative Republicans, harks back to the words of former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who has in the past complained about “the ocean in which our children now swim.”
“I’d like to see us clean up the water in which our kids are swimming,” Romney says in the ad, which according to the Associated Press began airing Monday in key primary election states Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. “I’d like to keep pornography from coming up on their computers. I’d like to keep drugs off the streets. I’d like to see less violence and sex on TV and in video games and in movies.”
By targeting violence and sexual content in the media, Romney says in the ad, “we can actually do a great deal to clean up the water in which our kids and our grandkids are swimming.”
While Romey has thus far stopped short of calling for the prohibition of sexually explicit content, he has repeatedly called for measures to prevent children from inadvertently viewing adult content online.
The ad also could represent an attempt by Romney to distance himself from his old position as a member of the board of directors for the Marriott hotel chain — a chain that has come under increasing fire for profiting from adult video-on-demand sales.
“Any time someone has a reputation that they need to distance themselves from, they are even more of a danger in terms of doing things to undermine free speech,” Jeffrey Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition, told XBIZ. “Look at [Supreme Court] Justice Thomas — he has been so desperate not to be thought of as associated with adult entertainment that he has bent over backwards to show hostility towards that type of speech in his rulings.”
If Romney’s words are meant to distance himself from Marriott’s adult pay-per-view profits, however, there are those within the far-right wing of the Republican party who are determined to keep the Marriott association very much alive.
Phil Burress, the founder of the Ohio-based antiporn group Citizens for Community Values, recently said that Romney’s investment in Marriott and the hotel chains’ profit from adult VOD content has been a subject of conversation within the social conservative ranks “ever since he announced for president.”
Burress stepped up his rhetoric against Romney this week, stating in a press release issued by presidential competitor Sam Brownback that Romney has “turned a blind-eye to the obscene, hardcore pornography offered in Marriott hotels.”
“Instead, Romney and Marriott International chose to earn millions of dollars with such a morally objectionable business practice,” Burress said. “For those who want a proven, consistent, pro-family leader in the White House, Mitt Romney is an unacceptable choice.”
For his part, Brownback is trumpeting his attempts to persuade Marriott to abandon its pay-per-view revenue generated by adult content, as evidenced by a letter he wrote to Marriott chairman and CEO J.W. Marriott Jr. in 2004.
In the letter, Brownback wrote that he was “concerned” by a CBS news report that stated “in-room pornography generates approximately half of total hotel pay-per-view revenue in the United States, approximately $250 million annually.”
“Businesspeople and families should not be exposed to a pornography-friendly environment when they seek rest and relaxation at hotels while traveling away from home, nor should they be victims of suggestive advertising for porn while browsing a pay-per-view menu,” Brownback wrote. “I write to ask that you consider ending Marriott’s complicity in this assault on individuals, families, and society … the children and families of America thank you.”
Regardless of Romney’s intent in referencing the adult Internet in his latest ad spot, Douglas said that the comments are true cause for concern for all voters who cherish their free speech rights.
“The risk is that those kinds of comments legitimize the notion that responsibility for controlling what children see lies with someone other than their parents,” Douglas said. “The irony here is that it has always been the Republicans who say that ‘the government which governs least governs best.’ I guess that’s not true when it comes to free speech that they don’t approve of.”
