There are good political ads, bad political ads and this political ad by Dan Helmer, a carpet bagging Army veteran from New Jersey seeking to win the 10th District Virginia Congressional seat currently occupied by Republican Barbara Comstock. The pro-abort Helmers may have a political future, but this ad is doing its best to make his political career still-born.
Laughing my Ossoff.
26 June 2017: Kurt Schlichter: “Look Democrats, you’re doing great. After a half year of Trump and several special election moral victories – which are the best kind of victories – America is digging your vibe. Everyone loves the Democrats and their can-do message of opposition to Trump, entitlement to our money, resistance to Trump, demands for even more of our money, and dog-whistlin’ about murdering Trump and anyone else who doesn’t hate Trump or want to give Democrats our money.”
Rule 1 of political campaign ads:
DO NOT SING
The Dems might pick that seat off, it’s in what the rest of state calls “occupied” NoVa, a/k/a the suburban home of the swamp denizens. Funny thing is, Comstock is very Repub-lite. And why have town halls when they’re hijacked by Soros, Antifa, and BLM agitators. Can’t dialogue with screamers.
Nonetheless, this turd looks like he would be utterly insufferable.
What a dweeb.
The district is based in Loudon County, a suburban / exurban jurisdiction that’s the most peripheral among the 8 major jurisdictions in greater Washington. It’s been represented by a Republican for 30-odd years, at least. Mrs. Comstock is very much a denizen of official Washington – someone employed in the Congressional aide / advocacy group nexus for decades. Her’s is the district Liz Cheney should have run in, Liz Cheney having spent 3/4 of her life in Washington and < 10% in Wyoming. Austin Ruse is an admirer of Barbara Comstock, FWIW.
a/k/a the suburban home of the swamp denizens.
Official Washington might account for 2% of the population of the whole commuter belt and the general run of federal employees (military and civilian) about 20% of the local workforce. For the most part, people in Washington are employed in the same sort of pursuits as people everywhere (with the proviso that the manufacturing sector is peculiarly truncated there). Greater Washington’s a large and affluent coastal city with a large black population. Places which fit that description are in our time dominated by the Democratic Party. There’s no tragic dirt on the Potomac that makes it a peculiarly nefarious place.
As for the ad, how unutterably annoying. What’s he up to? The election’s more than a year away.
https://www.helmerforcongress.com/home
The biographical squib is less than informative.
The general election is a year away but the primary is less than that. He’s clearly aiming at the primary with “voting against Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.” Not that the ad is going to go over any better with Dems than the general population.
Calling his sidekick “Maverick” suggests that maybe someone should have watched the movie again before making the ad. Or just not made the ad.
Two reviews of this ad “Sounds like he took some campaign advice from Ms Clinton and CNN”.
Followed by, “Can you imagine Hillary in a bar being serenaded by Web Hubbell?”
NoVa is decidedly full of government workers and contractors sucking at the big government teat (per Wiki, which while not an academic source, is just collating stats here): NoVa hosts the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters and the Pentagon (headquarters of the Department of Defense), as well as Fort Myer, Fort Belvoir, Marine Corps Base Quantico, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the United States Geological Survey. Arlington by itself has over 600 federal contractors, and has the highest weekly wages of any major jurisdiction in the Washington metropolitan area. The following government agencies have either 10,000+ employees or a $10+ billion budget:
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Defense Logistics Agency
Department of Defense (DOD)
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
United States Fish & Wildlife Service
Other well-known agencies include:
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
Swamp-like contractor companies headquartered in Northern Virginia:
Gannett Company headquarters in Tysons Corner
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)
Northrop Grumman
General Dynamics
Capital One
AES Corporation
DXC Technology
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
Leidos
NII Holdings
Gannett Company/Tegna, Inc.
Booz Allen Hamilton
It’s widely observed that many large and fortune 500s locate here because of proximity to the trough that is the federal government.
Drain the swamp and NoVa would become much, much less Blue, and the rest of the Commonwealth would render the state pretty solidly Red like it used to be.
Drain the swamp and NoVa would become much, much less Blue,
The Washington commuter belt splays over 16 counties (and some stand-alone municipalities). About 4.18 million employees are to be found therein, of which 445,000 are federal employees. That would be 10.6% of the total. If you cut out the exurban counties and assume that all federal employees live in the dense settlement, about 13% are so employed. While we’re at it, about 15% of the federal employees in the area are in uniform. A certain portion of the remainder are security guards and B & G employees, common types just about anywhere.
Democrats have a majority of the legislature of six of the eight large jurisdictions in Greater Washington. Now run up the road. Greater Baltimore (councils in 3 of 4 jurisdictions controlled by the Democratic Party), Greater Philadelphia (councils in 7 of 10 jurisdictions controlled by the Democratic Party), Greater New York (10 of 15 jurisdictions).