Legislative accomplishments or campaign ad? You decide.
Who drops $20,000 in political ads when they are term limited and state legislative business is done for the year?
That would be Leroy Garcia of Pueblo, president of the state Senate who insists he’s just trying to educate voters on what was accomplished this session — as if that didn’t garner months and months of publicity already.
But Garcia’s ad doesn’t really answer that question.
Instead, we learn yet again, that he was a Marine, a paramedic, and he’s a politician!
“From the Marines to the Senate, no matter which uniform I’ve worn, I’ve always put country, Pueblo and getting results first.”
That sounds like a campaign ad to us, judge for yourself:
The Colorado Sun dismisses the ad as a shot across U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton’s bow for a congressional challenge, because the ad is only running in the Pueblo area on TV.
However, several thousand dollars of that buy goes to social media to reach an audience of 500,000, nearly 400,000 more people than live in Pueblo.
Could it be that Garcia is feeling threatened by the recall mentality sweeping the state?
Andrew Short, former executive director for the Democratic Senate Campaign Fund, is pretending it’s business as usual for a politician to drop that kind of cash when he’s not actually running for any office.
“To me, personally, it would make sense that Leroy is letting folks know — whether you agree or disagree with what he did — they got a lot accomplished this past legislative session.”
But that’s not what the ad said.
The ad repeatedly touts Garcia as bipartisan, and spends minuscule seconds stating his support for the region, health care, teachers and public safety workers.
His money would have been better spent if the ad simply proclaimed, “I’m Leroy Garcia. Please don’t fire me.”