Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been, a New Yorker?

Let’s say you’re a Republican congressional incumbent in mostly rural Wyoming. Your president isn’t exactly Mr. Popularity, there’s a war on, your colleagues are discovering instant messenger — long story short, you find yourself in dead heat with a Democrat in Dick Cheney’s old district, which hasn’t swung the Dems’ way in 27 years. What do you do?

If you’re Barbara Cubin, as the Daily News reports this morning, you film an ad calling your opponent, Gary Trauner, a — wink, wink — “New Yorker.” You also distribute push polls calling him “New York liberal.” (What, “bagel-eating New York liberal” didn’t test well? Oy.) We wanted to see the ad, but, sadly, only Trauner’s side is represented on YouTube. (Liberal New Yorkers, always controlling the media.) So we’ll have to make do with the News’ details description of the ad. Hold on, dear reader, because we’re not making this up.

“New Yorkers march to a different drummer,” the narrator begins. “Maybe that’s why Gary Trauner is so out of step with Wyoming. He’s from New York, not Wyoming!” At this moment, since there was apparently no available footage of Trauner in New York, the challenger’s picture is superimposed, Daily Show style, on a stock background of yellow cabs and such. And then his suit morphs into an “I Heart NY” T-shirt.

Trauner was born in the Catskills, not the city, and he moved to Wyoming sixteen years ago. However, according to Cubin’s campaign, once a JewNew Yorker, always a New Yorker. “The guy’s from New York. It’s not a good fit,” says her spokesperson.

Of course, Trauner doesn’t help himself. His own ad captures him promising — in distinct New Yorkese — not to vote for “yooge” corporate tax breaks. Eh, fuhgeddaboudit.

Wyo. Incumbent: I Hate New York! [NYDN]
Gary Trauner’s ad [YouTube]
Is This Code, or Am I Paranoid? [MattWeiner.net]