Exclusive: Background Story Behind the Full-Page Ad in the Washington Times Today With 500 Generals and Admirals Endorsing Romney

Here is the exclusive background story behind the full-page ad running in today’s Washington Times with 500 names of retired admirals and generals who are endorsing Romney over the current commander in chief. This ad has become big news and has been widely reported on the day before the election.

The force behind the ad is Carl Smith. Here is an email he sent me today explaining the ad and how it all came about.

I am a former Naval Aviator (flew with John McCain), and a former Staff Director and Chief Counsel (Rep) on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Now I am a lawyer in private practice (McGovern & Smith, LLC).

I was responsible for building a similar list for McCain in 2008. We have been working this time around with the Romney campaign on something called the Romney Military Advisory Council (MAC). However, our effort in the Washington Times is NOT connected with the campaign. I’ll explain.

In building the MAC, the campaign followed a very thorough (and therefore time-consuming) process to vet and confirm every individual on the list. They stopped taking additions on October 13 when they were planning to publish the list.

Their list was finally published on October 17. That list contained 359 names.

We had (eventually) about 140 or more names that came in too late to meet their process requirements. Those individuals wanted to be identified in support of Gov Romney–but it was too late. So we decided to go out on our own and pay for the ad ourselves. The campaign eventually added 30 names for a total of 389. We have over 500 on our list.

We chose the Washington Times (rather than Washington Post or New York Times) in part because the Washington Times rates were more reasonable and because the Washington Times had been so much more aggressive in reporting on the Benghazi massacre. And quite frankly, we were reluctant to contribute financially to newspapers that had been so blatantly unfriendly to the Romney campaign.

The simple answer to your question regarding why so many are supporting Romney is that (I believe) they see in Gov Romney a man of integrity, competence, and a solid record of achievement–someone who can be trusted with the awesome responsibilities of the Office of the President.

So far, the list has been mentioned on FOX News, Drudge, CNN (Soledad O’Brien), and it is ricocheting around the net.

That’s the story!