“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers!” From this ad in the NC-07 primary, it appears candidate David Rouzer might agree with this Shakespearean sentiment. Of course, this line was actually uttered by a villain, and intended by the Bard to be in defense of trial lawyers, but I digress. What’s important is that David Rouzer says he isn’t a lawyer, and that’s a good thing, and one reason why he should be elected to Congress.

Rouzer says he’s a “do-er” who’s worked in business for himself, not a talker like so many up in Washington. Rouzer points out that 1/3rd of those in Congress are lawyers, and no wonder they don’t get things done. The most interesting thing about this ad? It’s a clear attack on the legal profession, the career of Rouzer’s primary opponent, Woody White. But White isn’t even mentioned in the ad.

Being a trial lawyer is a negative in a Republican primary. Rouzer says White is one of those “slip and fall” trial lawyers, the kind that Republicans don’t care for. But obviously, White isn’t running as the “lawyer” candidate. Instead, he’s running as a “conservative family man” and small business owner. How many voters know that White is actually a lawyer? The Rouzer ad appears to be directed toward voters who already know White’s background, but that can’t be a large group of people.

The absence of White’s name leads me to believe that Rouzer, while taking White seriously, is up fairly comfortably in the primary, and there’s no need to go negative just yet. We’ll see how this race shakes out in the next two weeks, but in the end I believe that Rouzer will win a modest, but clear, victory.