An industry group’s $300,000 TV ad buy for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor signals the Virginia congressman “has a race on his hands,” tea party-backed challenger Dave Brat said Wednesday.
The American Chemistry Council — whose members include Dow, DuPont, Eli Lilly and Exxon Mobil — is funding pro-Cantor spots through June 5 in the run-up to the June 10 GOP primary. It is the first time in the ACC’s 142-year history that the council has made an independent expenditure on behalf of any candidate in a contested primary.
Anne Kolton, ACC spokeswoman, told Politico:
Cantor has been a consistent leader on issues that support economic growth and job creation which are critical to manufacturers..
Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, sees the ACC move as corporate “cronies” circling the wagons against his insurgent campaign.
Brat told this reporter:
Cantor has put out no polls and they are running negative ads when they have a multimillion-dollar advantage. They are putting my name and face on TV calling me a liberal.
Seems to me they must have a race on their hands.
On March 31, Brat reported just $42,000 in cash on hand. Cantor, a seven-term congressman in line to become the next Speaker of the House, had more than $1.9 million.
Citing one of America’s founding fathers whose Montpelier estate sits in the heart of Virginia’s conservative 7th Congressional District, Brat told Breitbart News:
James Madison could never have imagined the American Chemistry Council would have spent $300,000 to crush an opponent of a member of Congress.
Watch the ad:
Read more by Kenric Ward at Watchdog.com.
