Alabama lieutenant governor candidate Will Ainsworth hit TV again this week, this time with an ad depicting corrupt politicians as burglars.
The ad by Ainsworth, a state representative from Guntersville, is part of a previously announced $1.2 million TV campaign that dwarfs his competitors.
The spot features Ainsworth in the foreground as masked burglars leave a bank with bags of cash.
“Career politicians might not wear masks and break in during the night, but they’re just as dangerous,” he says in the ad. “They’re bought and paid for by special interests and they’re stealing from us.”
As he speaks, those same masked men — who also wear business suits and ties — gather in money passed across a table.
Ainsworth calls himself a “proud Christian conservative” who is ready to fight “Montgomery crooks and career politicians to save Alabama’s future.”
Ainsworth has raised more than $1 million for his bid for the No. 2 job in state government. That puts him about $100,000 shy of Public Service Commission Chairwoman Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh.
But a poll taken last month by Leverage Public Strategies on behalf of the Alabama Daily News suggested that he had a lot of work to do to build his statewide name recognition. Cavanaugh topped the list of Republican candidates; 24 percent of likely GOP primary voters named her as their choice for lieutenant governor. Ainsworth came in second with 8 percent, followed by state Sen. Rusty Glover (R-Semmes), who garnered 7 percent.
Ainsworth, a first-term legislator who represents parts of Marshall, Blount, and DeKalb counties in northern Alabama, vowed to be tough on ethics.
“Far too often, career politicians lose their perspective, become numb to corruption, and fall prey to the temptations that the political systems offers,” he said in a statement. “As a newcomer to public service, that is why I sponsored term limit legislation in the Alabama House, and it is why I’ll help ensure that politicians who engage in corruption will experience the inside of a jail cell.”
Ainsworth’s first spot showed his walking with his wife and three children while holding a Bible and saying, “All the answers you’re ever going to need are in this book.”
The primary is June 5.
@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”
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