I can’t begin to guess how many campaign ads I’ve seen during this general election cycle, but I can say this: Virginian Republican Senate candidate and Navy combat veteran Hung Cao’s new ad is by far the most riveting I’ve seen. And “what’s at stake” couldn’t be more chillingly spot on.
In dramatic fashion — as opposed to the Democrats’ dishonest melodramatic ads — Cao vividly recounts how his family fled Saigon for a better life in America as Communist North Vietnamese forces stormed the South Vietnamese capital and took over the country.
To paraphrase filmmaker and conservative influencer Mike Cernovich, this is my favorite political ad of the election cycle. Cao laid out in detail, along with powerful video clips, what Americans risk losing if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz — unquestionably the most radical presidential ticket in American history — win in November.
In the ad, which begins with Cao pounding his fist on a table with three powerful knocks, the conservative Republican candidate says:
This is the scariest sound you’ll hear when you live in a communist country. This is the last sound my parents heard when their fathers were taken away in the middle of the night. And they never saw their loved ones again.
This is the sound of losing your freedom. The sound of always living in fear. That’s my family’s real life story. We escaped from Vietnam just days before Saigon fell to the Communists.
We were given a new life in the most generous country on earth. America saved my life. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, earning a Masters in physics and earning fellowships from MIT and Harvard before the left replaced merit with racial quotas.
I’ve spent my life trying to repay my debt to America. My country. Our country. With 25 years of service in Navy Special Operations, combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.