The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

Woman In Michigan Politician's Racist Super Bowl Ad Identified

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Feb 11, 2012 10:00PM

2012_2_6_debbiespenditnow.jpg
The folks at New York Magazine think they have tracked down the identity of the woman who starred in Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra's controversial Super Bowl advertisement. They spoke with Phil Yu, author of the Angry Asian Man blog, and he identified the woman as Lisa Chan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley graduate, who may have been "manipulated by a politician's ugly tactics."

He told New York Magazine:

From what I understand, she feels terrible (and fearful of the fallout) over her participation in this ad. [She] has partnered with a community organization to release a statement with her version of the story.

Hoekstra doubled down on claims that his ad isn't racist during an appearance on Fox News, saying, "The only group of people that this group is 'anti,' it's anti- Debbie Stabenow. It's anti-Barack Obama."

He told Fox News's Megyn Kelly, "There's nothing in here that has a racial tint at all. The bottom line is when they can't defend their record they will move to the race card."

The ad is below. What do you think?