Bizarre, Politics

National Republican Senatorial Committee Uses Philadelphia Actors to Portray “Hicky” West Virginia Voters

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has pulled an ad showing real West Virginia guys complaining about West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D). The problem is that the real guys were not only actors but actors from Philadelphia. The ad makers told the talent agency that “We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look.”

They also submitted “Clothing Suggestions” to include jeans, work boots, flannel shirt, denim shirt, “Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath,” down-filled vest, “John Deer [sic] hats (not brand new, preferably beat up),” “trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up).” That is precisely what was shown to convince people to vote for Republican businessman John Raese. This may be why Raese is pronounced “racy.”

Things are getting ugly (well even more ugly) out there. Nevada Senatorial Candidate Angle has aired an ad saying that the Majority Leader Harry Reid supported giving sex offenders free Viagra. Not quite. This was a poison pill amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma entitled “No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders.” No one is funding Viagra for sex offenders and the vote was not to approve such funding.

Nevertheless, the same ad is running against Patti Murray:

Source: Politico

26 thoughts on “National Republican Senatorial Committee Uses Philadelphia Actors to Portray “Hicky” West Virginia Voters”

  1. “….call to arms for conservative principles.

    Now all they have to do is reconcile those two mutually exclusive terms. “Conservative principles”. Now there’s a textbook example of an oxymoron if ever I saw one.

  2. RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

    For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09thomas.html

  4. Swarthmore mom,

    Here’s an excerpt from the article in The Atlantic about Rich Iott:

    Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?
    From The Atlantic—10/8/2010
    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/

    Iott says he does not recall exactly when he joined the Wiking group (his name appears on a unit roster as far back as 2003), but did so with his son “as a father-son bonding thing.” He says his name and pictures were removed from the Wiking website not out of concern that they would harm his political career, but because he quit the group three years ago, after his son lost interest.

    Iott participated in the group under his own name, and also under the alias “Reinhard Pferdmann,” which has also been removed, and which Iott described as being his German alter ego. “Part of the reenactor’s [experience],” Iott said, “is the living-history part, of really trying to get into the persona of the time period. In many, not just in our unit, but in many units what individuals do is create this person largely based on a Germanized version of their name, and a history kind of based around your own real experiences. ‘Reinhard’ of course is ‘Richard’ in German. And ‘Pferdmann,’ ‘pferd’ is a horse. So it’s literally ‘horse man.'”

    **********

    What a great dad! He was just participating in a little “father-son bonding.”

    Gotta wonder how Iott got “into the persona of the time period.”

  6. The Dems should be rerun a similar ad using “hicky” blue collar voters wondering out loud why they keep supporting a political party that doesn’t support them. One would assume these are hourly workers. Do they get health care from their employers? Are they concerned about the GOP attack on minimum wage which would stifle their own wages? Are they or friends of theirs still unemployed in this GOP recession and losing unemployment benefits because of GOP obstruction?

  7. Is anyone surprised that the Teapublicans would lie about an alleged viagara vote? These guys have no shame and will do and say anything to get the Democrats out of power and the Black Man out of the White House.

  8. Dredd- Great photo- I think Sarah I was asking Sarah II, “Where can I get one of those really cool gold lame’ insulated vests, ya betcha dere, hey?”

  9. Blouise

    Maybe it was meant to show that West Virginians won’t have sense enough to care when the Koch brothers and their ilk are fracking the gas out of WV, OH, PA and NY.

    Our floods to come may not be as toxic as that red sludge we’ve seen in Europe, but they’ll be bad enough.

    http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/27/koch-funded-book-argues-against-mine-safety-laws-in-west-virginia/

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marcellus_Shale

  12. I love West Virginia … flat out love it.

    We have been vacationing there for decades.

    My maternal grandmother and all her people going back to the late 1700’s were first Virginians and then West Virginians and played a role in the secession of West Virginia from the Confederacy. They were residents in the western counties of Virginia and did not want to secede from the Union when Virginia seceded in April of 1861. In essence they then had to secede from the Confederacy and join the Union as a state which was formalized in June of 1863.

    Although the western part of Virginia was more industrialized and prominent, thanks to the Mississippi River (Louisiana Purchase in 1803), there was a predominance of small farms and an almost total absence of slavery. On the other hand, the wealthy eastern Virginian plantation owners were overrepresented in the state legislature because slaves were counted in apportioning representation. Thus western Virginians suffered from inequitable taxation, and their demands for internal improvements and public education were not met. They had no problem sticking with the Union for it allowed them to get out from under the thumb of those stinkin’ slavers.

    Most of my grandmother’s relatives were farmers and Indian Fighters. In the late 1700’s this was the frontier and Indians were trying to protect their hunting grounds. Indians were also joining the forces of Great Britain to raid farms and communities on the frontier long after the Revolutionary War was over. Families were large and two brothers within each crop of kids were always trained as Indian Fighters (honest to god, no joke). The general make up of the population were Scots, Scot-Irish, and Germans. All were clannish, fiercely independent, and protestant and almost all were fierce abolitionists.

    Coal changed the entire flavor of the place. People flooded into the area and the Corporations took over. Coal Miners in West Virginia were still being paid in script and forced to shop at the “Company Store” and pay rent to live in a “Company House” as late as 1963. John Kennedy worked out a deal that finally ended the practice.

    It’s a beautiful state and much of the damage done by the men who ran the Corporations has been cleaned up.

    There are many, many families in West Virginia who are able to trace their ancestral lines back to the early 1700’s … this commercial probably made all of them smile. I can guarantee you that if this commercial had any impact at all it was exactly the opposite from that which the republicans were hoping to achieve.

  15. The real problem is that since the national and local media report mainly the “horse race” part of elections, folksy commercials do take precedence over any amount of substance. The ignorant blame this on the stupidity of the people, rather than the propaganda control of the corporatists.

  17. Living across the river from WV, and having been born there, I can only say – we Hillbillys don’t need no stinkin’ Viagra!

  18. To any trained observer of WVA behavior, these charlatans wouldn’t garner even a passing thought about credibility. Note the scrubbed faces, use of dining utensils, and actual dialog. Tell-tale signs of “come here” actors manipulating our former Virginia citizens.

    (Tongue firmly in cheek, my hillbilly neighbors!! :D)

  19. Reminds me of the Joe 6Pack commercials I heard a hew years ago…

    Why didn’t the Native Americans get upset about that…

    I have heard of a slander suit on the east coast in and after an election was lost…I seem to recall that it was a GOP candidate that brought the suit…I hope he wins…

    Query…what if it is a committee that pays for the slander…and its turns into a criminal offense…who goes to jail? Does the station that ran it have liability in a conspiracy lawsuit?

    I suppose the details can be worked out later….sue em’ all and let them say why not….

  20. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of appropriate choices in America. This was just a flunk on the ad agency’s part and on the NRSC for not thinking that someone would check on such details, especially when you are trying to look so local.

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