If you were watching the Super Bowl in Michigan (which you probably weren’t), you would have seen a controversial political ad (see below) from the campaign of Pete Hoekstra, a Republican running for senate in the state.

In the ad, an Asian woman holding a bicycle, carrying a pointy hat on her back and speaking in a badly imitated Chinese accent thanks Sen. Debbie Stabbenow (D-Mich.) for “borrowing more and more – from us.”

The ad has been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for what has been viewed as a racist and “really, really dumb” message. In response, the day after the Super Bowl, Hoekstra defended himself, saying that the point of his ad was that “the Chinese benefit from the recklessness of U.S. spending. It doesn’t criticize the Chinese at all.” He expressed satisfaction with the ad, saying “I’m excited […] it has jump-started the debate.”

To make things worse, Politico found that “yellowgirl” was embedded in the HTML code of the ad. Once that information went viral, it was quickly replaced by “yellowshirtgirl.” A spokesman for the design company that made the ad explained that “the image in question was originally named yellowshirtgirl but was mistakenly shortened in one place.”

The unfortunate ad helped its intended target, Sen. Stabbenow. She has raised $170,000 in a “money bomb” effort to “stand up to Pete Hoekstra’s shocking ad.” The money went directly to Stabbenow’s campaign for her reelection in the senate.

The ad also made ripples in China. The Chinese news agency Xinhua played the ad and wrote an article about what it called a “racially charged political advertisement.” The ad also circulated in Chinese blogs, producing angry comments from readers.

Hoekstra’s later commercial did not fare better. The advertisement, called “Spend,” claims that Obama’s stimulus plan “lost 2.6 million jobs.” FactCheck.org corrected this assertion, pointing out that “the economy has been adding jobs for months.”

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