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Michigan woman running for office asks 'who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?'

She is running on an all-female ticket for the 2018 election in the state

Mythili Sampathkumar
New York
Thursday 30 November 2017 18:34 EST
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Female Michigan attorney general nominee: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?

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A Michigan woman running for Attorney General has a launched a campaign video which poses a topical question amid the spate of sexual harassment stories: “Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?”

"Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so,” Democrat Dana Nessel, says in the advertisement.

Ms Nessel, a prominent civil rights lawyer, is best known for getting her state to drop its marriage equality ban - which prohibited gay marriage - a full year before the Supreme Court of the US did.

The idea behind her message is a straightforward one: elect more women into office.

“If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that we need more women in positions of power, not less,” Ms Nessel notes in the advertising spot.

She promises her name will never be in headlines like the ones flashed up on the screen next to her; scandals involving US President Donald Trump, Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore, and journalist Charlie Rose.

“I will not sexually harass my staff and I won’t tolerate it in your workplace either. I won’t walk around in a half open bathrobe,” Ms Nessel says over dramatic music and sitting near a fireplace.

She also pledge to take all sex crimes “seriously.”

Ms Nessel addresses the questions of political pundits regarding the all female ticket running for state offices; Gretchen Whitmer is running for governor and Jocelyn Benson for Secretary of State.

Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow is also up for re-election in 2018.

“Yes, I’m a woman. That’s not a liability, that’s an asset,” says Ms Nessel.

On a local television station, she said her campaign ad was “rather tame” compared to “pretty lewd stories coming out” about the likes of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, journalists Mark Halperin, Glenn Thrush, and most recently longtime NBC Today show host Matt Lauer.

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