In his brilliant first TV ad-- that started running on Fox News in Missouri this evening (on both Hannity's and Carlson's shows)-- Lucas Kunce, continued bashing a corrupt trans-partisan establishment. "Our politicians," he said right into the camera, "swore to protect us, just like I did as a U.S. Marine. But while I deployed, they stripped Missouri for parts. They sold our land to China. They bowed down to Chinese state TV. And they took money from Chinese corporations. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we'd call that aiding the enemy. I'm running for U.S. Senate because Missourians deserve a warrior who will fight for them. And I'm ready to serve."
With no significant primary challenger, Kunce is able to go full bore against the squabbling Republican political pipsqueaks fighting over their party's nomination. His campaign manager, Caleb Cavarretta, noted that "Kunce defended the American people for over a decade as a United States Marine, but while he served, our leaders at home were busy selling us out to China's corporate elite. Career politicians like Eric Greitens, Vicky Hartzler, and Eric Schmitt helped China's massive multinational corporations wage economic warfare on our communities here at home. In his populist campaign for U.S. Senate, Lucas Kunce is taking the war to them."
The progressive Wisconsin candidate for Ron Johnson's Senate seat, Tom Nelson, is very much on the same page as Kunce. "Wisconsin," he told me today, "has literally been stripped for parts by China. They buy and scrap our paper mills, machine shops, shipyards, sending parts and pieces and jobs overseas. Corporate Democrats and Republicans have stood idle and let China do this to us. Ask yourself this question: Would we ever allow China to do to us militarily what they have done to us economically? It's time to stand up for our workers and treat China as they are: an existential threat to our economy and way of life."
Florida Senate candidate Alan Grayson told me he found Kunce's ad really effective, especially how it identifies a problem and then ties it directly to the Republican establishment that caused it. He told me that in Florida, despite Rubio's and the GOP's best efforts, there isn't much Florida paranoia. In Missouri, people have become aware that China is buying up land and businesses; in Florida, people see them as visitors to the state's amusement parks. "The closest analysis is the GOP’s refusal to expand Medicaid with federal money, which has cost Florida almost $100 billion now (i.e., almost $100,000 in federal money for every individual who would have benefited, which would have gone to hiring Floridians to provide those health benefits). There are only 12 GOP-dictatorship states that continue to turn down that money; the reconciliation bill finally would solve that problem."