Democrat Levi Tillemann’s new commercial for the 6th District congressional primary is a hilarious cross between a Saturday Night Live skit, and one of those hooky late-night commercials of an inventor and his useless product that sells for three easy payments of $49.99 plus a million dollars in shipping and handling.
Unfortunately, the topic of the commercial is a serious one — school violence.
The product Tillemann is hawking is pepper spray, which Tillemann actually demonstrates on himself to show how quickly it can disable a politician or a shooter, if the criminal happens to be standing still just a few feet away, and not firing bullets at you.
Hilarity ensues as Tillemann then dunks his head in a tub of sudsy soap and sprays his eyeballs with a garden hose, repeatedly, while talking about how blind he is.
Irony at its finest.
Meanwhile, Tillemann’s pitch is to “empower” teachers with this self-defense tool, which he assures us can be safely stored behind glass in a case, marked emergency only.
“It’s powerful and won’t accidentally kill a kid,” Tillemann says. “Trust me, this will stop anyone.”
He doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee, if, for example, kids can’t escape a school shooter because they’ve been blinded by pepper spray mist. Chances are, students will be closer to the one using the spray than the actual shooter.
And again, those little squirt sprayers that he’s plugging only work as a self-defense tool if you’re trying to stop an attacker close in range, like joggers, who use them in case of dog attacks.
Tillemann likes to brand himself as a doer and an innovator, but this idea is a dude, and a potentially dangerous one at that.
Watch the mace challenge commercial below, and laugh judge for yourself.