‘Only violence’: Paul unleashes explosive new ad as he skips forum with Booker
Rand Paul is accusing Charles Booker of fomenting political violence in a blistering new digital advertisement, seizing on past Tweets by the Democratic challenger and his supporters.
The three-minute and thirteen second spot was released on the same day the Republican senator rejected an invitation to appear with Booker at a televised question-and-answer forum sponsored by KET, where he accused Paul of fueling racism.
“While Senator Rand Paul has been dealing with violence and threats, his opponent, Charles Booker, embraces those who have engaged in or glorified such violence,” a narrator asserts in Paul’s most aggressive commercial of the cycle.
On Tuesday, Booker formally responded to the ad it “beneath any serious person seeking elected office.”
“His ad grossly lies about me and in a very sinister way, attacks several Kentucky citizens by name. Neither I, nor my campaign, have ever endorsed violence against any political candidate. It is despicable for Rand Paul to even insinuate that,” Booker said, noting that he and his family have been the recipient of death threats.
Paul’s campaign points to one tweet by Kentucky Democratic Party chairman Coleman Elridge warning Republicans to “f*** around and find out” and another by Booker supporter Amy Jean praising the man who severely beat Paul in 2017 as a hero. While a fervent supporter of Booker, Jean is not employed by his campaign.
Paul was attacked by a neighbor, a socialist who had a history of anti-Trump postings on social media. It broke six of his ribs and led to a serious infection of his lung.
A Booker campaign tweet, which read, “Like a bad neighbor, Rand doesn’t care,” is also included in Paul’s ad. Booker said to insinuate that he caused that attack is “desperate, ridiculous, wholly offensive and unacceptable.”
The spot also highlights Black Lives Matter leader Chanelle Helm’s comment against Mitch McConnell to “just stab the motherf*cker in the heart,” a remark she made while protesting outside the GOP leader’s home in 2019.
Paul’s combative counteroffensive comes at a time when Republican leaders have been under the microscope for making comments that could be perceived as attempts to incite violence. Just over the weekend, former President Donald Trump declared that McConnell had a “death wish.”
And at a Trump rally on Saturday night, Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene declared that “Democrats want Republicans dead. They’ve already started the killings.”
Paul’s advertising argues that Democrats are not innocent of menacing verbal escalation during this politically tenuous period.
“It’s clear Charles Booker doesn’t believe in civil discourse, only violence,” intones the Paul ad in possibly its most extreme accusation.
Elridge said the spot put his family “in the cross hairs of his political impotence,” calling it “a bullsh*t move by a bullsh*t little man.”
“That Rand Paul and his wife are using the ‘angry’ and ‘violent’ Black folk as an election strategy, when literally no one he’s slandered has exercised any violence, is telling,” Elridge tweeted. “All he’s missing is a tiki torch and a white hoodie.”
While Booker has not yet directly responded to Paul’s ad, he was asked about his own decision last spring to release a video with a noose tied around his neck.
Booker depicted the vivid imagery of a lynching to showcase Paul’s temporary blockage of an anti-lynching law he eventually came around to support after changes were made.
“Not one person told you that ad went too far with you having a noose around your neck? You did not hear that one time?,” asked KET anchor Renee Shaw of Booker on Monday night.
“Not one person,” Booker replied. “And I’m proud of that because I know how difficult it was, not just to see that, but to be a part of that … We cannot ignore our pain or our past and we cannot ignore the reality that Rand Paul stokes racism and division to divide us and to block us from our future.”
In his Tuesday statement, Booker said Paul’s supporters have a history of violence, citing the account of a woman being wrestled to the ground by Paul supporters when she tried to confront the candidate during his 2010 Senate run.
This story has been updated to include Booker’s reaction to Paul’s ad.
This story was originally published October 4, 2022 at 9:51 AM with the headline "‘Only violence’: Paul unleashes explosive new ad as he skips forum with Booker."
