Democratic Congressional Candidate Shoots Elephant in Campaign Ad, Removes Video After Hypocrisy Backlash

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Estakio Beltran firing shotgun in campaign ad.

Screenshot from Estakio Beltran’s Video

Estakio Beltran, a Democratic candidate running for Congress in a conservative area of Washington State, recently released a 30-second campaign video of him gunning down a Republican party mascot, and then riding away from it on a donkey.

In the ad, Beltran says, “They call me a long shot. They say I can’t win in this district,” as he points his gun at an elephant piñata (obviously a stand-in for the GOP).

“But what happens to an elephant that stands around doing nothing for too long?” He then pulls the trigger and shoots an elephant piñata in it’s backside with his pump-action shotgun.

He loads another round into the chamber and says, “My name’s Estakio Beltran and I approved this message.”

He then rides off on a donkey toward a sign that says U.S. Capitol, with an arrow.

I’m guessing Joe Biden approves it too, since it was a shotgun after all.

I would love to show you the video, but he removed it from YouTube today. I am assuming because he started getting roasted on the internet, over the explicit double standard.

But, before it was removed, some on the left lauded it as one of the best campaign ads of the year.

Vocativ, said “the Democrat hopeful can already claim victory for shooting the best campaign ad of the year so far.”

On MSNBC’s website, Michele Richinick, rather then condemning the ad, used it to springboard into a topic of GOP obstructionism.

I seem to recall the left going absolutely ballistic when Sarah Palin released a map with target crosshairs on it, marking 20 Congressional districts she and John McCain had won in 2008, but whose Congressmen had voted in favor of the recently passed health care reform bill. We heard about that one ad nauseum.

Remember when just a few hours after Jared Loughner opened fire on a crowd and shot Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and killed six people and injured 13 more? Paul Krugman immediately posted a blog post blaming Palin and stating that “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.”

This was also followed by people like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, blaming it on Palin and Glenn Beck, saying, “Both are finally being held to account for recklessly playing with violent Images in a way that is bound to incite the unstable.”

And this is just one of the many times the media has wrongly blamed acts of violence on Republicans and the Tea Party. They are not shy about making a huge deal out of anything that comes from the right, but have been strangely silent about this story.

Oh my gosh, the hypocrisy of it all. My head feels like it is going to explode!

In all fairness, some liberal groups did criticize it, including Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group founded by Giffords, who survived the gunshot wound to the head in 2011.

Others on the internet, including these posters on Facebook, immediately saw the double standard and commented:

And, the backlash over the ad didn’t stop on Facebook. Twitter users also blasted the video, as well as the fact that he had removed it already:

What if the tables were turned and a Republican had released an ad depicting them shoot at a piñata donkey and then riding off on an elephant? Oh, I can tell you what would happen – no matter how unknown or obscure the Republican candidate was, it would be on the news for days on end. Stick an “R” at the end of their name, and it wouldn’t matter if they were one of 40 candidates running for a seat, who practically no one had ever heard of, they would hammer this story and milk it for about three weeks, at least, stirring up the anti-gun people to no end.

Sure, I won’t deny that some bloggers and internet venues, who would generally be on Beltran’s side, have written about how stupid this was, but the major news outlets have not picked up on it like they would if the tables were turned.

It’s all really kind of ironic too, considering last month Beltran criticized the sensitivity of a gun giveaway, sponsored by Republican candidate Clint Didier, to publicize his campaign and his support of the Second Amendment.

Beltran told the Tri-City Herald that, while he was a supporter of the Second Amendment, he felt in light of the recent June 5 shooting at Seattle Pacific University, it wasn’t approropriate for Didier to do the giveaway. According to the police, the suspect in the SPU shootings used a shotgun. Four people were injured in the shooting and one later died.

A check of Beltran’s campaign website shows he doesn’t mention anything about his views on guns, even on the Estakio on the Issues page of his website.

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