Hagerty’s latest ad remarkable for what it doesn’t include (hint: it’s that guy who endorsed him)

Former U.S. Ambassador Bill Hagerty has spent much of his Senate bid hammering home the point that he has been endorsed by President Donald Trump —  a fact that’s been featured prominently on campaign signs and in TV and radio ads. But not in his latest one-minute spot, titled “What Makes America Exceptional.”

The ad features Hagerty talking to the camera about growing up raising livestock and working on road crews when he was in college. He then discusses his time as state economic and community development commissioner and as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

“No one loves this nation more than I do,” Hagerty concludes. “I want that same opportunity for your children and grandchildren, just like I want them for mine. That’s why I’m running for United States Senate.”

On the face of it, it’s a fairly run-of-the-mill biographical ad, the sort one might expect to run early in a campaign to introduce a candidate to the voters. But this ad comes with just three days remaining before the primary election after weeks of attack ads slamming his main rival for the nomination, Vanderbilt surgeon Manny Sethi.

The last advertising push comes as Hagerty has tapped his line of credit by another $800,000 in recent days to bring his total debt to $3.3 million. Sethi has also gone back to his own checkbook, adding $300,000 to the $1.93 million he had previously loaned his campaign.

The transcript of Hagerty’s latest spot follows:

 I’m a fourth-generation Tennessean. I was raised in Sumner County, we had a small farm there.  We didn’t have a lot. My mom was a career school teacher, my father worked road construction. They taught us strong, conservative Tennessee values. They taught us to love Christ. They taught us to love our country.

I learned the value of hard work from an early age. I raised cattle and pigs. When I worked my way through school and college, I was on the road crew.

I’m a business leader, who’s had real-world experience. During the last recession, I was called in to run the Department of Economic Development for our home state of Tennessee. We were named the state of the year for economic development, two years in a row.

As the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, I represented America to the third-largest economy in the world. I’m a product of the American Dream.

No one loves this nation more than I do.  I want that same opportunity for your children and grandchildren, just like I want them for mine. That’s why I’m running for United States Senate. To stand up for what’s made America exceptional.