Yesterday I asked people to send me their thoughts on the Romney campaign's new ad. Here is a representative sample of some of the emails. On balance, sentiment in the emails toward "Ocean" runs around 3-to-1 negative.

I don't know if I'm the target market for this ad (Texan, go to church more than once a week, vote in every federal election), but I wasn't impressed. I'm not sure that any of the Republicans he is running against wouldn't also be for these things. Even the democrats are not arguing for putting more pornography in the hands of kids. The big thing that I see missing was any sort of plan on how to make the sentiments into reality. I'm especially concerned that the 'simple' solutions would involve a bigger government being more intrusive into people's lives. This may pass as conservative in Massachusetts, but not in Texas. I was also struck by the use of Columbine. This isn't exactly a recent event. We aren't seeing school shootings ala Columbine very often. Maybe he was trying to pick something that couldn't be seen as a left handed attack on Bush.

All in all, the ad makes me slightly less likely to support Romney. Not because I dislike the sentiments expressed, but because it is short on substance, long on emotion and likely to lead to a larger government. Heck, if that's what I was looking for, I could get it in spades on the left.

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First, I am a libertarian-leaning conservative who is not too big a fan of Mitt Romney. Second, those libertarian leanings mean I don't go weak in the knees over social messages in politics. Having said that, I think the ad is too naked in its pandering to the Religious Right. He invokes Peggy Noonan, drugs, the children, etc. All the aforementioned are a play toward the religious values voters, but have little to do with conservatism. In my opinion, it's a plea for a continuation of the big government "conservatism" that we experienced for the past 6 years. Romney is grasping at straws trying to gain power. Like them or not, at least Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, Paul, etc. are standing by their convictions rather than blowing with the breeze.

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I think this ad is evidence that Mitt Romney is, as ever, ahead of the game. I think he recognizes that he doesn't have to outflank Fred Thompson on the conservative side but rather just simply sell himself as a true conservative (and thus make Rudy the only liberal in the field). Fred is always going to come off as more conservative than a Massachusetts governor. Romney just has to make sure that Fred doesn't take the title of "sole conservative option".

I think he's in a solid position. As soon as Thompson enters, the hype will drop (and so will his numbers). Thompson's senate record will start to hurt him too--and then there's the big question of whether or not he's got the heart for it. I think Thompson might be a flash in the pan kind of candidate. Everyone expects great things from him and he's never quite delivered, I'm not sure if that will ever change. This is where Romney is smart, he doesn't have to outdo Fred by going more right, he just has to be equal to him long enough to debate him--and that's where Romney can sell himself not as the "only" conservative, but rather as the "best" conservative.

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This ridiculous Ocean ad is just the latest example of Mitt "I think what you think" Romney. Has there been one issue in this entire campaign where Mitt Romney has disagreed with the Republican base? The guy seriously said, when talking about Iraq, that he's not going to project from failure. That's what this country needs, someone who never has a contingency plan and only cares about what will get him elected.

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I love the ad... speaks very well to the intangible feeling Republicans often have w/respect to today's culture and the changing society we live in... I really like it.

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I think the ad shows much of what is wrong with Republicans these days. The ad is vacuous, completely devoid of any substance and is classic political grandstanding (lets protect our children from the corrupt society). I think every politician who has ever run for any office could run that ad regardless of their politics and legitimately claim that it was true.

I am a conservative southern baptist with a law degree who lives in Alabama and I don't always agree with Giuliani but at least he deigns to engage my intellect instead of trying to cajole me into voting for him to protect our kids from the corrupt society around us. One of the big problems with Bush is that he will not fight the intellectual fight and explain why he believes what he does and why conservative ideas are better than the alternative. Giuliani, as far as I can tell, is the only candidate in either party who is doing that, and doing it well. Maybe Romney will start explaining himself, but if this commercial is any indication, I have serious doubts that he will.

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It's a 9/10 ad in a 9/11 world. Buildings and planes are getting bombed and Mitt is worried about smut in movies? How 1990's

Besides, given MA's rather draconian gun laws I'm not sure I'd mention Columbine in an ad trying to win rural GOP primary voters.

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The ad speaks the truth. It would be a better world if we could do as he suggests. Thumbs up.

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I think the new Romney spot is dreadful. Video game violence? Could he have picked a more small-potatoes topic? To the social-issues voters, he's dodging the main issues (gay rights, abortion). To anyone else, he comes across as ludicrous. In an election that will decide the future of our Middle East policy, our tax policy, our immigration policy, and -- assuming a Supreme Court vacancy -- possibly the future of Roe vs. Wade, I find it unfathomable that he wants to talk about sex and violence on television and in video games. If he had wanted to seriously address conservative fears of their children's innocence and moral sense being corrupted, this would be an ad about public school reform. But that's a touchy, impolitic subject that might come back to bite him in the general election.

Like I said in my post yesterday I think this ad by the Romney camp is clearly a sign that they recognize the playing field has changed with the McCain implosion and the emergence of Thompson. And the email reaction, while interesting, is clearly not dispositive to whether this ad is a net plus or minus for Romney. However, if the "Big Three" in the race were still McCain, Giuliani and Romney instead of Thompson Giuliani and Romney I doubt this ad would have been run at this time.