A striking new digital video by Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Charles Booker uses a noose around his own neck to highlight Sen. Rand Paul’s temporary blockage of an anti-lynching law.
“I have become the first Black Kentuckian to receive the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate,” Booker says in the video rolled out Wednesday. “My opponent, the very person who compared expanded health care to slavery. The person who said he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act. The person who single-handedly blocked an anti-lynching act from being federal law.”
The Booker campaign said the ad is running digitally and being shared on the campaign’s social media platforms, but it is unclear how much money is being allocated to distribute the evocative spot.
It runs a total of one minute and 12 seconds which is an unconventional running time for campaign ads that are usually made in 15-second, 30-second or minute long frames.
“Some people told me this video would be controversial. Too jarring,” Booker said in an email to supporters following the ad’s release. “And honestly, this video was one of the hardest things I have done, but after a lot of prayer and reflection, I knew this video was an important message in confronting the trauma of our history.”
The video was quick to receive plaudits from liberals online, but it remains to be seen if Booker can make Paul’s one-time opposition to the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into a salient campaign issue in Kentucky.
“Please retweet this far and wide,” tweeted Black media personality Roland Martin, reacting to Booker’s video. “Defeat Rand Paul. Elect Charles Booker.”
Paul’s initial objection to the bill in 2020 was rooted in language he believed would have led to more minor crimes being characterized as lynching, a heinous act of violence that originated in the Jim Crow South.
But earlier this year, the Kentucky Republican signed on as a co-sponsor of a revised version of the legislation, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March. To date, there have been over 160 recorded lynchings in Kentucky, according to the Booker campaign.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who isn’t related to Kentucky’s Booker, hailed Paul at the time for his work on amending the bill to create “the bipartisan backing that we have to finally meet this moment and help our nation move forward from some of its darkest chapters.”
“Dr. Paul worked diligently with Senators Booker and Scott to strengthen the language of this legislation and is a cosponsor of the bill that now ensures that federal law will define lynching as the absolutely heinous crime that it is. Any attempt to state otherwise is a desperate misrepresentation of the facts,” said Paul’s deputy campaign manager Jake Cox.
Booker’s campaign has struggled to fund-raise and gain traction against Paul, who isn’t seen as vulnerable to defeat in what’s shaping up to be a difficult year for Democrats.
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