In 2012, Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin demonstrated his red-state bona fides by producing a campaign ad in which he shot a copy of a proposed “cap and trade” carbon-tax bill with a rifle, the logic being that the bill would’ve hurt his state’s coal industry (and, I guess, that if you don’t like something you shoot it). Six years later, Manchin is running for reelection against Republican Patrick Morrisey, the state’s attorney general. And it turns out that Manchin’s time among the coastal snobs in Washington, D.C. has not diminished his country-fried passion for firing deadly ammunition at objectionable pieces of paper:
(Morrisey did, in fact, join an ongoing longshot lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act that would eliminate protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions if successful.)
Manchin leads his race in recent polling, and this ad will surely only help him, unless Morrisey responds with his own version in which he murders a copy of the Senate records documenting Manchin’s vote against the Trump tax cut bill with a machine gun.
