Democratic Senator Attacks Obama Administration In New Ad

[Time]

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu knows how to win tough reelections. As a Democrat in a Red State, she is one of the most targeted and endangered senators every time she’s up for reelection. In 2002, she won with just 51.7% of the vote and in 2008 she got 52.1%. So, it’s not that surprising that she’s out today with an ad that strikes at President Obama, her party’s leader who also happens to be incredibly unpopular in Louisiana.

The high-production quality spot shows Landrieu in a series of television appearances running on TV sets in homes and bars in local Louisiana locales. In the appearances, she’s slamming Obama for his oil and gas policies. Landrieu has long pushed Obama to expand offshore oil and gas drilling—a plan he supported before the BP oil spill but has since been slow to implement. “The administration’s policies are simply wrong when it comes to oil and gas politics in this nation,” Landrieu says in the ad.

Then, at the end of the spot, Landrieu pivots to promote her own power in Washington. “Now as the new chairman of the Energy Committee,” the narrator says, “she holds the most powerful position in the Senate for Louisiana.” In other words: Washington is dysfunctional, but Landrieu is the one sane—and powerful—person in it and she’s fighting for you guys. “It’s a really nice ad that plays to Landrieu’s greatest strength right now: her chairmanship and her advocacy of the state’s oil and gas Industry,” says Jennifer Duffy, who follows Senate races at the non-partisan Cook Political Report.