Local veteran speaks out against Trump in TV ad
Ed Sieber, a 93-year-old Sanibel Island resident and former dive bomb pilot during World War II, voices his opinion about Donald Trump in a local ad that was aired throughout Lee County last week.
He says that Trump’s lack of experience makes him unfit to be president.
“All veterans pledge allegiance to their country and when they serve in combat, they finally find out what that means and they realize that they have to go by all the data they have to make decisions. And in this case, all the data we have tells us that Mr. Trump is a long ways from being a president of the United States,” Sieber said.
During the one-minute ad, which was filmed in half a day, Sieber says that Trump knows nothing about veterans and that he has lost sleep over some of his speeches.
Sieber is one of the men that is credited with helping sink the Yamato, a Japanese warship that could blow up targets from 25 miles away. The ship sank on April 7, 1945. With that, he was awarded the Navy Cross. He has also been awarded the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four Air Medals for his service.
The ad was done by award-winning documentary filmmaker Heidi Ewing and launched by Local Voices, a Democratic Super Pac, whose mission this election cycle is to capture raw feelings and opinions Americans have about Donald Trump then air them in the communities in which they were filmed.
Lee Hirsch, founder of Local Voices, started the organization back in 2008 in hopes of making political ads better. Its efforts in 2008 supported the candidacy of Barack Obama.
“I saw ad after ad using overly manufactured negative messaging and I wanted to get at something more authentic. Our approach developed out of that. Our goal is to talk to local voters in smaller cities and counties within swing states and get their unscripted perspectives on the presidential election out and into their communities,” Hirsch said.
Local Voices is run completely on donations. Each ad costs them less than $10,000 which allows them to do a lot on a little budget.
What separates his ads from the rest is simply people’s bona fide opinions.
They aren’t just generic ads, these are people’s authentic opinions, and they’re being really brave to share them in their communities, where people know them, Hirsch said.
The ads are totally unscripted, so voters discuss their views candidly. They continue these conversations within their community once the ads launch, and we hope these discussions continue until the election. Local Voices supports our ads with television and digital ad-buys in those communities, because when viewers see someone in their own community, they pay attention. In Lee County, audiences see Ed Sieber, a veteran living in Sanibel, and we hope they feel a sense of familiarity. Even at his advanced age, Ed still truly cares about our nation and wants to see it continue to succeed,” Hirsch said.
Editor’s note: The story has been updated to clarify that Local Voices is a Democratic Super PAC.