A Marine Corps veteran operating as a Republican for an Ohio seat within the U.S. Senate has fielded all method of unusual marketing campaign techniques, however his newest advert left on-line viewers scratching their heads.
In his most up-to-date video spot, Josh Mandel is seen strolling throughout the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the place Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously marched for Black civil rights. It’s there that Mandel decries Vital Race Concept, saying that King marched so “pores and skin coloration wouldn’t matter.”
The advert goes on to indicate a photograph of Mandel serving alongside 5 Marines “of each coloration,” from one among his two excursions in Iraq, with darkened palms.
A Twitter consumer, @NotCapnAmerica, steered that Mandel’s head was photoshopped onto a Black soldier’s physique. Politico reporter Natalie Allison debunked this, discovering the unique picture, which reveals a a lot lighter Mandel that was seemingly photoshopped darker within the advert.
Mandel, 44, enlisted within the Marine Corps Reserve in 2000 and served for eight years. And whereas this picture just isn’t the scandal many believed it to be, this isn’t the primary questionable tactic Mandel has deployed in his Senate marketing campaign.
The self-proclaimed “Professional-God, Professional-Gun, Professional-Trump” candidate just lately obtained the endorsement of disgraced Army Gen. Mike Flynn.
Flynn served as former President Donald Trump’s nationwide safety adviser till it was revealed that he was lower than forthcoming with then-White Home officers about conversations he had in 2017 with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. on the time.
Mandel additionally falsely accused his opponent, fellow Republican and businessman Mike Gibbons, of claiming the army doesn’t rely as actual work in an advert that includes Gold Star mom Sheila Nowacki, whose Marine son was killed in 2005 in Iraq.
Gibbons, nonetheless, by no means mentioned that army service isn’t actual work.
Throughout a major debate on March 18, CNN reported that Gibbons refuted an argument from Mandel about his investments, saying that Mandel wouldn’t perceive his financials as a result of he’s “by no means been within the non-public sector in your total life.”
Mandel and Gibbons additionally practically turned a verbal combat bodily throughout a major debate.
The pair are operating to succeed Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who just isn’t looking for re-election this yr.
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Sarah Sicard is a Senior Editor with Army Instances. She beforehand served because the Digital Editor of Army Instances and the Army Instances Editor. Different work will be discovered at Nationwide Protection Journal, Job & Goal, and Protection News.
