Joe Manchin shows how you win in West Virginia.

I really like this ad.

Whoever advises Governor Joe Manchin, who is now running for [the U.S. Senate seat from] West Virginia Senate, knows how to do an ad.

From the opening, you see the governor with a gun. This is a state where being familiar with a gun, and knowing how to use it, matters. This is why John Kerry lost some of these states, even though he actually served his time in Vietnam (shot guns and got shot at), and George Bush sat stateside in pretty-boy pretend defense service but won the election. Because nobody could imagine John Kerry shooting a gun

So I think Manchin is making it clear that, in Appalachia where the gun culture matters, he knows all about it.

You really have to connect with people where they feel like, yes, you are one of them. At least, you stand for the things that matter the same as what they do.

People in New York City or something, yeah, they say, hey, what’s this with the gun. Because that’s something you don’t go walking down Broadway with. But way out in hill country, it’s looked at differently. Jed Clampett shoots one in the first ten seconds of this popular TV sit com opening. Heck, Granny was even totin’ a gun as she made her way to Beverly Hills.

Instead of maybe getting “black gold, Texas Tea”, you get a Senate seat and Democratic Party control . . .