The Washington Redskins are having a good week. First, they beat the Dallas Cowboys in Texas, and now, they’ve got a Senate candidate in Virginia rooting for them amid the mascot name controversy.
That’s right: Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia Ed Gillespie has officially made the Redskins name a campaign issue in a new advertisement.
The video points out the fact that Gillespie’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Warner, has “refused to answer” whether or not he supports the bill put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats intended to force the NFL team to change its name because some individuals see it as a racial slur.
Particularly, the bill would strip the NFL of its tax-exempt status if the league continued to back the Redskins in the name controversy.
“I’ll oppose the anti-Redskins bill,” Gillespie declares in the ad. “Let’s focus on creating jobs, raising take-home pay and making our nation safer, and let the Redskins handle what to call their team.”
This will likely be a smart move on Gillespie’s part, considering a poll conducted over the summer showed that local Redskins fans — those in Washington, D.C., Maryland and most importantly Virginia — overwhelmingly reject the idea of changing the football team’s name.
Watch Gillespie’s advertisement below.
H/T The Hill
