By fitsnews – August 30, 2010
S.C. Senator Mick Mulvaney has launched the first television ad in his race to unseat powerful U.S. Budget Chairman John Spratt in South Carolina’s fifth congressional district.
While Mulvaney does not directly target Spratt in his initial spot – which is designed to introduce the fiscally conservative State Senator to fifth district voters who may not know him – it does lay the groundwork for a campaign built around Spratt’s efforts to shove “Obamacare” through the U.S. House earlier this year.
“We’re not going to let the government control our health care because it doesn’t stop at health care and it doesn’t mean just health care, it means jobs,” Mulvaney says in the ad. “I’ve got employers that say ‘we can’t afford to stay in business.’”
To view the spot, click here.
Recent polling shows a tight contest between Mulvaney (a freshman State Senator) and Spratt (a 28-year Washington incumbent), with Mulvaney having erased Spratt’s seven-point lead – and possibly even jumped ahead in the race – over the past few months of campaigning.
Given his vulnerability, Spratt has become the top fund-raising priority of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). He has also received financial support directly from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, embattled former ways and means chairman Charlie Rangel and numerous other liberal Congressmen. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden held a fundraiser on his behalf in Columbia, S.C.
Spratt has yet to run any ads in the race, but he’ll obviously have plenty of money at his disposal when he does try and explain his record – which has veered dramatically to the left in recent years.
According to a recent analysis of Spratt’s voting record conducted by The Washington Post, the one-time moderate has voted with the Democratic leadership in Washington, D.C. 98.1 percent of the time during the current legislative session. That figure includes key votes in favor of President Barack Obama’s bureaucratic bailout, a “cap and trade” energy tax increase and of course the socialized medicine bill.
Meanwhile, Spratt’s budget committee failed to pass a budget resolution this year for the first time in nearly four decades.
With Nikki Haley and Jim DeMint currently positioned for landslide wins in the races for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively, expect the Spratt-Mulvaney race to continue drawing considerable attention – both statewide and nationally.
Obviously, we’re big fans of Mulvaney considering that he’s been one of the few Republicans in the S.C. General Assembly who has “walked the walk” when it comes to voting on behalf of the taxpayers’ best interests.
