Elizabeth Warren, John Deaton follow cordial debate with attack ads
After the pair met for their first debate, it took less than two hours for both of the candidates running to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate to kick out new advertisements attacking their opponent.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren met former military prosecutor John Deaton in Boston for a late evening debate on Tuesday — one of two scheduled meetings — and just after their fairly cordial conversation was complete, they each launched ads aimed at the other candidate.
Deaton’s television spot, his first, is titled “Get Things Done” and starts with the Republican candidate sitting in front of a dilapidated home in Roxbury, the Boston neighborhood where the political newcomer lived while attending law school.
“Poverty, violence, a broken home — I’ve experienced it all, but I’ve never quit,” Deaton says, before segueing into his personal story of joining the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming a prosecutor, and starting a family.
“I’m running for Senate because I’ve walked in your shoes,” Deaton is seen saying as the scene shifts to him strolling down a suburban street.
Deaton goes on to say he “understands your struggles” and will fight for your family. Deaton then shares an image of him alongside former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, before saying that, just like Baker, he’s “pro-choice, and bipartisan.”
The ad then shifts to the U.S.-Mexico border, which Deaton says he’ll work to secure, then on to scenes taken from a campaign event coupled with a promise to reduce inflation. Deaton then turns his attention to his opponent, reiterating a point he made during their debate.
“Elizabeth Warren points fingers. I get things done,” Deaton declares.
Warren’s newest spot, also 30-seconds long and also rehashing a debate topic, focuses on reproductive care. The ad is titled “Who would you trust?” and it opens with a red-state shaded map of the U.S., over which a narrator declares “extremists are coming after abortion rights everywhere, including Massachusetts.”
“We need a senator we can 100% trust to protect abortion rights. That’s not John Deaton,” the narrator says, while “we can’t trust John Deaton” text is displayed alongside his picture.
The ad says Deaton once indicated he would have voted to support the appointment of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of “Trump’s Supreme Court Justices” responsible for the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Referring to Deaton’s joint fundraising agreement with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the ad says that the recent Massachusetts transplant “bragged about raising money for Republicans to take control of the U.S. Senate.”
“With so much at stake, Massachusetts can’t take that kind of risk,” the ad says in closing.
As of this writing (not quite a full day after their late Tuesday-night posting), Deaton’s advertisement had captured just shy of 1,000 views on his YouTube page, while in about the same amount of time Warren’s spot had garnered over 3,500.
The candidates will meet for a second debate in Springfield on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.