Democrat's Anti-Gun Ad Backfires When Military Vet Opponent Points Out How Reckless It Is
Sen. Joni Ernst’s Iowa seat was presumed to be one of the more vulnerable Republicans in 2020, even with the state trending red over the past few election cycles and Ernst remaining popular-ish among conservatives.
If her opponent ends up being Eddie Mauro, Democrats should just face some facts: Ernst should end up having an easy time holding onto the seat.
Now, granted, it’s not necessarily a given that Mauro will be facing Ernst; according to Ballotpedia, the businessman is one of five candidates facing the first-term incumbent. However, out of those five, he has to be the most shameless.
In a two-minute anti-gun jeremiad released on social media Thursday, Mauro splices footage together to make it look as if Ernst is shooting at him, ending up with one of the most reprehensible political ads of recent years.
The ad begins with Mauro walking through a field and talking to the camera as if he’s an android running beta software. One of the reasons he says he’s taking on Ernst is “because she thinks it’s OK to run ads glorifying guns.”
The ad then cuts to a 2014 ad she ran showing her with a gun; according to The Hill, the shot showed her “taking aim” at “wasteful government spending” and Obamacare.
So she shoots a few bullets from the 2014 ad and then it cuts back to Mauro in the field. There’s a brief millisecond before the next thing in this sequence of events happens, and until then this all seems normal enough. It’s all a little strange, sure, but — normal enough.
And then a bullet hits the fencepost behind Mauro.
“She doesn’t seem to care that many of those guns will be pointed at our kids, our teachers, churchgoers, moviegoers, concertgoers, our police officers,” Mauro says, which you really can’t hear because your sensory input is being questioned very loudly by your brain: “No, wait, this guy didn’t just … use footage of Joni Ernst taking target practice from an ad five years ago to make it look like she’s shooting him, right? Especially not in a way that makes her look like that bad of a shot.”
Your sensory input is then going to clap back at your brain with another shot of Ernst shooting a gun followed by a bullet hitting a barrel in the field, followed by another fencepost.
“While she’s afraid to stand up to the NRA, or common-sense gun laws, I’m ready to stand up for Iowa and keep our schools, our communities, our kids safety,” Mauro says.
I’m running for the Senate because it’s time to stand up to the #NRA, Joni Ernst and the D.C. establishment. They can come after me, but trust me – I won’t back down. If you want me to get this up on air, chip in a few bucks ➡️ https://t.co/rcrAX53mNU #MauroForTomorrow pic.twitter.com/fnhmPZ5sQQ
— Eddie J. Mauro for U.S. Senate ⚾ (@eddiejmauro) December 5, 2019
”This is really happening,” your brain says, finally unable to contradict sensory input. “This is really happening, and I’m scared.”
Mauro continues that Ernst isn’t willing to stand up for Iowans on other issues, either, not at least while Trump is in the White House, including “on the right to affordable health care, on a woman’s right to choose, on workers’ rights and farmers’ rights.”
Each one of those is followed by a gunshot.
Ernst is an Iraq War veteran who served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 23 years. In this ad, she’s portrayed as a psychopath shooting at a bizarre man who’s apparently vying to be her opponent next year.
That’ll win over the undecideds.
“I won’t accept the status quo. Joni Ernst, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and the NRA — you won’t like what I have to say,” Mauro says as a bullet hits a tree branch.
Another group of people who won’t like what you have to say: Iowans who are in the NRA. There are probably more than a few of those. In fact, they’re the ones who elected Ernst in the first place. But apparently, he’s not willing to stand up for that part of Iowa, right?
Ernst’s campaign team responded as one might expect, by demanding the ad be taken down.
It’s outrageous and offensive that @eddiejmauro would make light of gun violence in order to help his campaign. He should be ashamed and this disgusting ad should be taken down immediately. #IASen #IAPolitics https://t.co/yPXj4tHEON
— Team Joni (@TeamJoni) December 5, 2019
But that’s not going to happen, of course, because of the fact that this is getting Mauro attention.
And yet, what does this say? We’ve been told that GOP rhetoric is violent. We’ve been told that about the GOP’s belief in the Second Amendment. Yet, here we have a Democrat editing footage to make it look like a Republican senator is shooting at him. That’s a new extreme.
And it’s one you’re almost certainly not going to hear any condemnation of from the mainstream media.
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