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DCCC Changes New York Ad Over Plane Imagery

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has tweaked the TV ad that is set to begin airing Friday in New York over concerns about 9/11-like imagery.

The first version of the spot, posted to YouTube on Thursday, slammed Republican Bob Turner for living the “high life,” as an animation of a corporate jet swooped by. Later in the ad, the jet banks across the screen in front of a lifelike rendering of the New York City skyline.

But by Thursday evening, the original version had been pulled from YouTube and replaced with a different version that shows the same jet banking across the screen in front of a sky background.

“The independent expenditure made a small tweak to remove the brief image of the skyline to not distract from the message that Republican Bob Turner hasn’t met a corporate tax loophole he didn’t like while pushing drastic cuts to Social Security and Medicare,” DCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said in a statement.

The visual proximity of the jet to New York City buildings and the temporal proximity to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 left Turner’s campaign crying foul.

“It shows just how tone-deaf the DCCC is on New York right now,” Turner spokesman William O’Reilly said in a statement to Roll Call. “Are they kidding with that plane?”

Turner faces state Assemblyman David Weprin in Tuesday’s special election to replace ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner (D). The race has become competitive in the closing week, prompting the DCCC and a Democratic outside group to make late TV buys.

Watch the revised ad:

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