Mike Murphy should take a lesson from the guys over at Keep The Promise. They have just released an ad about Marco Rubio’s record on immigration and it pulls no punches. Instead of relying on silly imagery about Rubio’s boots and 50 year old pop culture references, this ad goes directly at Rubio’s record, particularly his work on comprehensive immigration reform, aka ‘The Gang of 8 Bill.’

Check it out:

See what they did? Images of Barack Obama, Charles Schumer along with using Rubio’s words and actions to highlight what he did. No matter what you think of Rubio, this is a very good ad for Ted Cruz.

The strategy here for the Cruz people is to put as much distance as they can between him and Rubio because Cruz doesn’t have that luxury with Trump. At some point, depending on how things go, Cruz will likely point to Trump’s earlier squishiness on immigration long before he became America’s greatest advocate for big, beautiful walls.

There is a question as to how much immigration is an issue to both primary voters and general election voters (everybody believes the issue they care about most is the issue most voters care about), so it remains to be seen how much damage this does. That said, it is a very effective ad. It’s designed to put Rubio on the defensive and it is sure to do so.