Campaigning with Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin on Monday, former President Bill Clinton had harsh words for outside influences meddling in the West Virginia Senate race, warning voters on GOP nominee John Raese: “Don’t let this guy play you.”
Less than a week after POLITICO first reported that a booking sheet for a National Republican Senatorial Committee independent expenditure ad on behalf of Raese was seeking “hicky”-looking actors, Clinton told a crowd in Morgantown that Republicans were “trying to stop the voters of West Virginia from thinking.”
Clinton said that ad, which has now been pulled by the NRSC, “burns me up,” and the former Arkansas governor joked that “Everybody in my family before my generation probably sounded like a hick to those people who paid for those ads.”
Raese, a wealthy businessman who is largely self-funding his campaign, has repeatedly painted Manchin as a rubber stamp for the Obama agenda if he is elected to the Senate. While Manchin’s approval ratings as governor remain above 60 percent in most surveys, the president’s disapproval ratings are at similar levels. A Rasmussen Reports survey from last week showed Raese with a 6-point lead.
But the NRSC ad has put Raese on the defensive, and given Manchin an opening to seize on the controversy. The two-term governor launched an ad over the weekend telling voters, “John Raese thinks we’re hicks.” In a similarly blunt ad released Monday, Manchin touts his endorsement from the National Rifle Association, in a spot where he takes a rifle and shoots at the Democrats’ cap-and-trade energy bill.
Clinton acknowledged that people in the Mountaineer State are upset over high unemployment and the sagging economy, but cautioned that “This is not about being mad, this is about thinking.”
Clinton pointed to Bush administration policies as the culprit, saying, “They are the ones that spent this country in a hole. They did it before I was there, they did it after I was there.”
And Clinton, who easily carried the state in both the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, mocked Raese and the GOP strategy to discredit Manchin, characterizing their tactics as trying to paint Manchin as a “little automaton” who would “check his brain at the door.”
But just as the Clinton rally ended, Raese picked up his own high-profile endorsement — from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who echoed the Republican playbook in her Facebook backing Raese.
“The last thing Washington, DC needs is another rubber-stamp vote for President Obama and the liberal agenda,” Palin wrote. “John Raese has the courage and independence to stand up to the Washington politics of Reid and Pelosi. He’ll do what’s right for West Virginia.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43417.html
Clinton said that ad, which has now been pulled by the NRSC, “burns me up,” and the former Arkansas governor joked that “Everybody in my family before my generation probably sounded like a hick to those people who paid for those ads.”
Raese, a wealthy businessman who is largely self-funding his campaign, has repeatedly painted Manchin as a rubber stamp for the Obama agenda if he is elected to the Senate. While Manchin’s approval ratings as governor remain above 60 percent in most surveys, the president’s disapproval ratings are at similar levels. A Rasmussen Reports survey from last week showed Raese with a 6-point lead.
But the NRSC ad has put Raese on the defensive, and given Manchin an opening to seize on the controversy. The two-term governor launched an ad over the weekend telling voters, “John Raese thinks we’re hicks.” In a similarly blunt ad released Monday, Manchin touts his endorsement from the National Rifle Association, in a spot where he takes a rifle and shoots at the Democrats’ cap-and-trade energy bill.
Clinton acknowledged that people in the Mountaineer State are upset over high unemployment and the sagging economy, but cautioned that “This is not about being mad, this is about thinking.”
Clinton pointed to Bush administration policies as the culprit, saying, “They are the ones that spent this country in a hole. They did it before I was there, they did it after I was there.”
And Clinton, who easily carried the state in both the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, mocked Raese and the GOP strategy to discredit Manchin, characterizing their tactics as trying to paint Manchin as a “little automaton” who would “check his brain at the door.”
But just as the Clinton rally ended, Raese picked up his own high-profile endorsement — from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who echoed the Republican playbook in her Facebook backing Raese.
“The last thing Washington, DC needs is another rubber-stamp vote for President Obama and the liberal agenda,” Palin wrote. “John Raese has the courage and independence to stand up to the Washington politics of Reid and Pelosi. He’ll do what’s right for West Virginia.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43417.html