With the partisan rundown of the next U.S. Senate still very much to be determined, there are several very tight races in the mix, one of the tightest being the contest between former Congressman and Virginia Governor George Allen (Republican) and also-former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (Democrat). The latest RCP average has Kaine with just a one-point edge over Allen, and meanwhile, Romney’s gained some serious ground and caught up to President Obama for a virtual tie in the commonwealth — Virginia is shaping up to be one of the more clutch factors in what our federal government will look like come 2013.

In that light, seems like a pretty smart move for Gov. Allen to emphasize an issue that’s both state-specific and nationally significant, and if there’s one common issue to which the extra-swingy Northern Virginians can all relate, it’s the upcoming defense cuts. The upper counties are chock-full of bureaucrats and defense workers, so the defense cuts really hit home with this crowd. During Monday night’s foreign-policy debate, one of President Obama’s more popular moments was when he bizarrely claimed to be certain that the sequestration won’t actually be happening (how he knows this, when nobody else seems to, remains unclear), underscoring the political weight the issue holds.

Decisions in Washington ripple through our communities, harming small businesses like this one. The defense cuts Tim Kaine supported are threatening over 200,000 Virginia jobs. His solution is to raise taxes. That’s not the answer, that would cost us even more jobs. My plan would stop the defense cuts by growing our economy, using our energy resources, and creating jobs.

In addition to the damage from the defense cuts, Virginia also stands to gain quite a bit economically from a President Romney energy strategy, especially with its offshore drilling potential. Given that a vote for Allen could very well squeeze through the Republican-majority Senate that would make a Romney administration more effective, I think this ad hits all the right points it can in 30 seconds — particularly as a counter to some of the war-on-women themed appeals to the young-professional, “I’m-so-independent” transplants also populating NoVa that I’ve been hearing lately from the Kaine camp.