Paige Kreegel’s first TV campaign ad is a textbook case -- of irony.
The congressional hopeful released a 30-second campaign ad this morning, which attempts to show voters he is swimming against the tide of negativity in the Florida 19th Congressional District race, a direction that the candidate helped create.
A release announcing the new, non-attack attack spot promotes it as “the only ad to feature a candidate's spouse.”
Erika, Kreegel’s wife, is shown in the candidate’s kitchen appealing to the other candidates in CD 19 to “run on their own record,” while pushing her husband’s “100 percent pro-life” voting history, as well as his support of Second Amendment gun rights.
“Paige’s is a life of service to patients, community and family,” Erika says about the physician, adding that it is something he has proven over decades.
While Kreegel’s strategy is to portray himself as being above the fray, someone Floridians can trust “with their vote, and their children’s future,” the PAC Values are Vital — a pro-Kreegel organization started by the candidate’s past financial chair — is doing the dirty work.
Values, which collected over $1 million just weeks after its creation, launched a series of blistering attacks against GOP rivals Curt Clawson and state Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto. Kreegel even went so far as to warn Clawson in advance, a move that many political observers (as well as Clawson) saw as a hint of impropriety.
In the past, Kreegel made it clear his desire to keep his hands clean during his run for public office; confiding to campaign consultants of the need for a third party to go on the attack against his opponents, something advisers strongly warned against as possible violations of federal election laws.
Of course, there is strictly no "coordination" between a candidate and PACs; and one definition of irony is imploring other candidates to play nice, while your supporters (beknownst to you) are going on the offensive (pun intended).
Doctor, heal thyself.