Some new ads are providing a sneak preview of the 2012 general elections for the Senate, with Tim Kaine and George Allen set to slug it out in Virginia.
Already, the two presumptive nominees met last week for a very heated debate, which provided the same spectacle we would expect in the final month of the general election — when it fact the election is 11 months away!
And now, in the last couple days the two have also released dueling Web videos. Though they are only on Youtube, the ads do provide a sneak preview of the general election themes for these two candidates, and potentially for many other Senate candidates in the coming cycle.
The Allen video attacks Kaine as “one of Obamacare’s biggest supporters,” and declares that he would be “President Obama’s Senator. Not Virginia’s.”
And the Kaine spot uses video from last week’s debate, in which Allen slipped up and seemed to briefly concede a point, “When Tim talks about spending — in the years I was in the Senate, yeah, it was a problem in those years.”
The ad then imitates the old MasterCard “Priceless” TV ads, tallying up the price tags of Medicare Part D (though this is only named as “a new entitlement program” — a signal the program itself is popular, despite the fact it was not paid for and has added to the debt), the Bush tax cuts, and the Iraq War, in terms of their additions to the national debt. The announcer concludes: “George Allen finally admitting he’s a big spender: Priceless.”
