Mitch McConnell (R-KY.), the Minority Leader of the Senate, recently released an advertisement titled “Rebuild”. McConnell’s ad features some things that I’m sure he wishes he could take back.
The original ad featured a shot of Duke’s Lance Thomas and Jon Scheyer celebrating their 2010 National Championship (1:09 mark):
After that video was pulled, McConnell’s second-attempt featured a shot of current Kentucky player Julius Randle.
As Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio notes, McConnell committed an NCAA violation by using a current player (Julius Randle) on Kentucky’s roster (UK avoided any issue because it was without the knowledge of Randle or the University.)
McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore released an apology for the ads later in the day:
Earlier today, issues related to the use of NCAA images in a web video created by an outside vendor for our campaign were brought to our attention.
The video was taken down immediately after questions were raised.
Since that time, we have received correspondence from the University of Kentucky, we have spoken with them, and the matter has been resolved.
To be clear, neither the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville nor any student-athlete was aware of any image used in this video, and actions have been taken with the vendor to ensure this never happens again.
We have also reached out to the University of Louisville to make sure they are aware of the situation and offered our full cooperation to clear up any misunderstanding.
It was our intention to honor our great Kentucky basketball traditions. Our campaign apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused.
