“Mad Men,” the hit TV series about a 1960s New York advertising agency, waded into the political arena Sunday night when a character on the show called Mitt Romney’s father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, a “clown.”
In Sunday night’s episode, Henry Francis, a Republican aide who works for New York City Mayor John Lindsay and is married to Don Draper’s ex-wife, Betty, says he doesn’t want his boss campaigning with the elder Romney.
George Romney served as Michigan’s governor from 1963 to 1969. He pursued the presidency in 1968, but lost to Richard Nixon in the Republican primary.
“Well, tell Jim his honor’s not going to Michigan,” Francis tells an unidentified person over the telephone. “Because Romney’s a clown and I don’t want him standing next to him.”
The brief moment drew the attention of the eldest of Mitt Romney’s five sons.
“Seriously, lib media mocking my dead grandpa?” Romney’s eldest son Tagg Romney wrote on Twitter Monday.
“George Romney was as good a man I’ve ever known,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet. “Inspirational leader, worked for civil rights, promoted freedom. We need more like him.”