Tag Archives: 37 Seconds

Why Is a U.S. Senate Candidate Burning the Confederate Flag and a Blunt in His Ads?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading the Washington Post when I came across this piece by Julian Mark.

A U.S. Senate candidate smoked marijuana in his last campaign ad. This time, he burned a Confederate flag.

Last month, Gary Chambers drew attention for sparking up a marijuana blunt in a political campaign ad. Now the Democrat from Louisiana is getting attention for sparking up something else: a Confederate flag.

The new ad shows Chambers, who’s running for U.S. Senate, dousing the flag in gasoline in slow motion and setting it ablaze as he denounces what he describes as systemic inequality among Black Americans and argues that “remnants of the Confederacy remain.”

“The attacks against Black people — our right to vote and participate in this democracy — are methodical,” Chamber says in the one-minute video released Wednesday, adding: “Our system isn’t broken; it’s designed to do exactly what it’s doing, which is producing measurable inequity.”

What the heck, Doc – isn’t the U.S. Senate supposed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, not its most flammable?

– Burn Noticing

Dear Burn,

Let’s look at those two ads, shall we?

Here’s the one Chambers released last month, which runs for 37 seconds and notes that every 37 seconds someone is arrested for possession of marijuana.

 

 

According to the Post, that video has racked up 6.7 million views on Twitter.

Two days ago Chambers released Scars and Bars, which quickly got one million views on Twitter and over 300,000 looks on YouTube.

 

 

That’s some crazy-pants stuff for a U.S. Senate race, but maybe that’s what it takes for a badass Black candidate to get any traction in Louisiana, a state so backward its unofficial slogan is “Thank God for Mississippi.”

(To be sure graf goes here)

To be sure, the Doc has roughly the same chance of beating incumbent Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-Who Else Ken I Insult) as Gary Chambers does.

But it will be a helluva lot more fun watching Chambers try to take that peckerhead down than anything the Doc might concoct.

Stay tuned for further details.