Whoa! That’s some shirt, senator!

According to his new TV ad, state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, is “the right choice for lieutenant governor.” But the plaid shirt he sports in the opening scenes of the spot is definitely the wrong choice for “a garment one might wear in public while running for office”! Can Nevada really afford to run the risk that Hutchison might, say, show up at a lieutenant governor’s conference wearing that shirt? Really?

But seriously, folks, this bio spot focuses on Hutchison’s love of kids and family, and highlights his work as a coach.

The ad also notes Hutchison fought for more education funding, and that he stood with Gov. Brian Sandoval (who handpicked him for the race, and is seen in the ad having a nice walk-and-chat with Hutchison) in adding $486 million to education “without raising taxes.”

A couple of things about that:

First, Hutchison may not have voted to raise taxes, but he totally wanted to raise taxes! He also stood with state Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, during the 2013 Legislature in proposing a tax on the mining industry that would have raised funds for education. Asked about that a recent meeting of the group Hispanics in Politics, Hutchison said the tax was proposed “for discussion purposes” and added that he wouldn’t support the tax any longer unless the mining industry did. (It doesn’t, by the way.)

Second, Hutchison did vote for a budget that continued a series of taxes that had been raised previously. So while it’s entirely accurate to say he didn’t raise taxes (since nobody paid any more than they were paying before), it’s also accurate to say that taxes would have gone down had Sandoval, Hutchison and Roberson not voted to keep that tax package in place.