Democrat Michelle Nunn is staying on the offensive in Georgia’s Senate race, with a new ad hammering Republican nominee David Perdue for his role in a factory closing in North Carolina.
The 60-second ad centers on Perdue’s brief tenure at Pillowtex, a North Carolina textile company. Perdue served as CEO for just eight months in 2002; Pillowtex shut down shortly after he departed, taking thousands of jobs with it.
“He walked away with his $1.7 million, and didn’t care about if we had a dollar in our pockets,” a former employee says in the ad.
“All we were was people to make money off our backs,” says another.
If the ad looks familiar, that’s because it is. As The Washington Postpoints out, Nunn’s ad was made by the same political consulting firm that produced the infamous “Stage” ad attacking Mitt Romney in 2012. The two spots are nearly identical.
There’s little mystery in Nunn’s decision to reprise Democrats’ anti-Romney playbook against Perdue. For starters, it was wildly effective in 2012. And like Romney, Perdue has used his successful business career as his primary qualification (aside from the episode at Pillowtex, Perdue has enjoyed more successful stints as CEO of Reebok and Dollar General, among other corporate experience). He has also left himself open to charges of elitism during the campaign.
Nunn seems particularly well suited to fight Perdue on this landscape, given her long non-profit career at the Points of Light charity. That said, she still faces an uphill battle to be elected in reliably red Georgia. According to the RealClearPoliticspolling average, Perdue currently leads Nunn by 4 percent.
Screenshot: Michelle Nunn/YouTube
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