Wake County Senator Chad Barefoot has a new ad out attacking his Senate District 18 opponent, Sarah Crawford.
In the House of Cards-style spot, Barefoot depicts a Crawford lookalike standing in the shadows of a cigar-smoking, whiskey-swilling caricature of her husband, Dan Crawford, a lobbyist for environmentalist group the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters.
“They live off money from his lobbying,” a woman’s voice intones. “As a Senator, she’d vote on the bills he’s paid to influence.”
As lucrative as Big Clean Air and Water surely must be, one would think that a sitting state Senator—one whose seat was bought for him by the GOP in the 2012, after his lobbyist mother-in-law all but ensured his Republican primary nomination—would want to avoid drawing attention to an opponent’s family ties to lobbying as a line of attack, lest the lens of scrutiny be turned back on him.
But Barefoot apparently is not the political wunderkind the Republicans had thought he would be.
His campaign has already dropped $590,420 since June to get him re-elected, in a tight race where Crawford is spending marginally less. Political observers say Barefoot is on track to match the $1.2 million spent in 2012, or spend more.
“Truckloads of money from special interests,” the actor playing Dan Crawford says in the ad. “Who’s Sarah Crawford going to work for? You tell me.”