Call Me: Wal-Mart Dismisses Adviser Who Created G.O.P. Ad
 

Michael Barbaro

After infuriating Canada’s ambassador to the United States and raising the ire of the N.A.A.C.P., a Republican television commercial mocking Representative Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee has become a political liability for an unlikely third party: Wal-Mart Stores.

Under pressure from black leaders and union groups, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, said last night that it had cut ties with a prominent Republican strategist who helped create the provocative advertisement.

The strategist, Terry Nelson, was hired by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 2005 to help burnish its image after a wave of attacks from organized labor and liberal groups.

After Mr. Nelson’s affiliation with the Republican commercial became public this week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson demanded that Wal-Mart fire Mr. Nelson and a union group threatened to run advertisements in Tennessee linking the retailer to it.

In the commercial, which was financed by the Republican National Committee, actors in mock interviews spoke sarcastically about Mr. Ford and his candidacy for the Senate seat in Tennessee.

In a scene that black leaders say has racist overtones, a white actress says she met Mr. Ford, who is black, at a “Playboy party.”

“Harold, call me,” she says coyly.

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WTF is racist about a white woman flirting with a black guy? Is she discriminating against white males? Are the democrats and NAACP outraged about a white woman wanting a relationship with a black man? Who's the fucking racists?