Ann Romney scares Democrats into pulling plug on 'dancing horse' ad campaign

What a difference a day makes.

On Wednesday morning, the Democratic National Committee released a web video “which features video of Romney's Olympic-qualified horse Rafalca, set to music and intermixed with clips of Romney answering questions about his tax returns and personal finances,” The Hill’s Geneva Sands wrote. At the time, the DNC was billing the video as “the first in a series of digital products highlighting Rafalca."

But by late Wednesday, the DNC had done a complete 180 and decided it “will longer use the Romney's Olympic-bound dressage horse to portray Mitt Romney as ‘dancing around the issues’ because it could be seen as offensive to the (Mitt Romney’s) wife Ann,” CNN's Political Ticker blog reported.

Indeed, on Wednesday night DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse told ABC News, “Our use of the Romneys’ dressage horse was not meant to offend Mrs. Romney in any way, and we regret it if it did. We were simply making a point about Governor Romney’s failure to give straight answers on a variety of issues in this race. We have no plans to invoke the horse any further to avoid misinterpretation.”

The catalyst for the DNC’s about-face on the wisdom of "highlighting Rafalca" was an interview, scheduled to air Thursday, in which Ann Romney told Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, “It makes me laugh. It's like 'Really?' You know, there's so many people out of work right now, and there's this guy right here that has the answers for fixing the economy, and all these attacks are going to be — they're going to try everything. They're going to throw spaghetti at the wall."

Mitt Dancing Around The Issues Volume I

When the Democratic National Committee launched this ad Wednesday morning, it vowed the ad would be "first in a series of digital products highlighting Rafalca," the Olympic-bound dressage horse Mitt and Ann Romney co-own. But by the end of the day, a DNC spokesman told ABC News, "We have no plans to invoke the horse any further to avoid misinterpretation."