Natalie Tennant, West Virginia's Secretary of State and now the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat, is widely seen as a serious underdog against the Republican nominee, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, in the race to succeed retiring Democrat Jay Rockefeller. So in her debut TV ad, Tennant promises to cut off power for President Obama — literally.
"Where do they think their electricity comes from?" an indignant Tennant says, over a visual of the White House.
"You and I know it's our hard-working West Virginia coal miners that power America," Tennant adds, as she is shown standing proudly outside a power plant. "I've fought to protect our coal jobs right alongside [Democratic Sen.] Joe Manchin, and I'll stand up to leaders of both parties who threaten our way of life."
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"I'll make sure President Obama gets the message," she concludes, as she then flips a large switch downward at the power plant — setting off a series of events that result in the lights going out at the White House.
Literally cutting off power to Obama might actually be kind of mild in comparison to what Joe Manchin previously did to distance himself from the national Democrats. Back in West Virginia's 2010 race for the U.S. Senate, Manchin ran an ad in which he told the voters, "I'll take dead aim at the cap-and-trade bill," as he fired his rifle into a printed representation of the proposed bill. And it worked for him, at least in that particular election.
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