Catholics Can't Vote For Obama?

Retired Texas Bishop Rene Gracida says that Catholics cannot, in good conscience, vote for Obama. Now, in a last-ditch attempt to derail Latino support for Obama, an anti-abortion crusader and anti-illegal immigration activist have teamed up to blast out Gracida's message by email to nearly three million Latino voters and reaching even more people by radio.

Randall Terry, the aggressive anti-abortion organizer who founded Operation Rescue, says it was his idea. He enlisted Gracida, who made national headlines in 1990 by excommunicating three Catholics for assisting with abortions. In 2004, Gracida gave a special benediction for the Republican National Convention.

In the English-language version of his anti-Obama message, Gracida says, "A Catholic cannot be said to have voted in this election with a good conscience if they have voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Barack Hussein Obama is a pro-abortion candidate." You can hear the Spanish version here.

Terry called the email blast "a blockbuster because Obama is desperate to take the Hispanic vote." He told us the emails went to "2.9 million Hispanic voters" as well as "100,000 whites." He corrected that to "100,000 Americans," then quickly said that didn't sound quite right either. He said he hasn't had much sleep, due to this last-minute effort.

RightMarch.com provided financial and logistical support for the campaign, buying a bit of radio time in Ohio, and procuring the massive email list to reach Latinos.

RightMarch's president, William Greene, made illegal immigration his top issue last year, when he lost a special election for Congress in Georgia. A fundraising letter of support for Greene from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps PAC (which we profiled here) described Greene thusly:

Ads Hit McCain In Home State, Obama In Florida

Arizona is McCain territory -- he's made his home there since 1982 -- and losing it to Barack Obama would sting. So it's no wonder MoveOn.org wants to make that happen. With Obama's campaign gearing up in the state, the liberal group joins in with this TV ad, showcasing a Republican vet who is voting for Obama.

Obama's homestate of Illinois isn't really in play, so his foes are hitting him where it will hurt most. The Republican Jewish Coalition extended its ad buy in Florida with a $104,000 donation from David Kaufman, a Connecticut businessman who runs an eye care center.

It's down to the wire, folks, so this is your last chance to lay down $100k for the cause!

Whichever cause that might be.

-- Will Evans

5:02 PM ET | 10-31-2008 | permalink

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RightChange Gets Money From Controversial Businessman

RightChange.com's blitz of anti-Obama ads has been bankrolled mainly with more than $5 million from pharmaceutical executive Fred Eshelman. But this month the 527 organization diversified: it put out a new ad (below) supporting Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in its home state of North Carolina. And it reported receiving $100,000 from a controversial businessman named R. Craig Estey.

In trying to figure out who Estey is, we found some interesting background. Estey runs a chain of gambling parlors in Nevada called Dotty's. He also operated one of the biggest video gambling operations in Oregon until the state lottery ran him out of town.

In December 2006, Oregon Lottery Director Dale Penn wrote Estey to terminate his state lottery contract because "you do not satisfy the requirements of good character, honesty, and integrity that apply to all Lottery Retailers."

It all started with a domestic dispute Estey had in 2005, when he allegedly held a gun to his then-wife's head and threatened her life.

Gaming officials from Nevada looked into it. The Gaming Control Board said that Estey initially lied to its investigators before admitting his wife's version of events. He eventually agreed to a $200,000 fine from the Nevada Gaming Commission.

The Oregon State Lottery eventually found out about the case from a newspaper columnist. Because of the incident, the lying and the fact that Estey didn't notify Oregon officials of his problems, Penn wrote that "your continued association with the Oregon Lottery poses a threat to the actual or apparent integrity, fairness and security of the Lottery and is not consistent with the public interest, convenience and trust in keeping with the sensitive nature of the Lottery."

We tried to contact Estey through his lawyer on Wednesday but Estey hasn't responded. He sold his Oregon company last year but is still operating in Nevada. And now, Estey is venturing into the not-quite-ended 2008 campaign.

-- Will Evans

1:41 PM ET | 10-31-2008 | permalink

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Swift Boat Donor Defends Mitch McConnell

Swift Boat Veterans founding donor Bob Perry is funding a new 527 organization, but this one is a lot less expensive.

The First Amendment Alliance is airing radio ads against Democrat Bruce Lunsford, who is in a tight race with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Perry, a Texas developer, gave $50,000 this month to the group. He's better known for giving $4.4 million in seed money to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which helped to defeat John Kerry in 2004.

The Alliance is run by political consultant Anthony Holm, who doubles as Perry's spokesperson. Holm's consulting firm includes other connected Republicans, such as the daughter of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). He told us in a phone interview that he has done work in the past for Vice President Dick Cheney. Holm serves as the Alliance's only director.

He said he didn't have time to share more information about the Alliance or its ads.

The group, which was formed last year, also received $75,000 from the holding company of Mischer Investments, another Texas real estate developer. The company was built by the late Walter Mischer Sr., a longtime Houston powerbroker. A third donor was Connecticut investor Jonathan Farber, who gave $20,000. Farber's private equity firm invests in the oil and gas industry.

This isn't Bob Perry's only project. Also this year, Perry gave $750,000 to the Republican Governors Association, $650,000 to the Club for Growth, and $100,000 to the College Republican National Committee. Overall, though, Perry didn't take to federal 527s like he did in 2004.

-- Will Evans

1:37 PM ET | 10-31-2008 | permalink

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GOP Trust PAC Gets On The Air

The National Republican Trust PAC is finally putting some advertising muscle behind all its claims about being able to beat Obama. The group yesterday laid down $880,000 on an ad buy, pretty big for an insta-PAC created last month. We earlier blogged that the PAC was spending more on fundraising emails than actual airtime, but this completely changes the calculation.

You know you're bigtime when Factcheck.org dedicates a full article to debunking your ad. National Republican Trust got that distinction this week, with the added bonus of being accused of producing "one of the sleaziest false TV ads of the campaign."

The PAC even pumped out another ad, again accusing Obama of wanting to give government benefits to illegal immigrants, with a cherry on top: Obama "wants to redistribute your money." It's the Republican attack point of the moment, with only moments to spare.

-- Will Evans

10:22 PM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink

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Union Power -- More Than Meets The Eye

Organized labor is in the mail, on the airwaves and on the streets for Obama and other Democratic candidates. And there's even more union activity underneath the surface. Besides their own ads and massive get-out-the-vote campaigns, which we detail below, unions are bankrolling the attack ads of several other advocacy organizations.

Here are some new disclosures:

Reagan Endorses Obama! Or Not

Okay, so Ronald Reagan isn't around to actually endorse anyone. But that won't stop political operatives from invoking his presidency to boost their candidate. A new, liberal Colorado-based group called Progressive Future is bringing back the Gipper to put in a plug for Obama, while the conservative Let Freedom Ring calls Obama the "anti-Reagan."

Progressive Future's ad, airing in Florida and Ohio, starts off with footage of Reagan delivering his powerful rhetorical question of the 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" (One of the strategists who came up with the line later modestly called it "probably the most devastating line Mr. Reagan used against Mr. Carter." The strategist was writing a column hoping that John Kerry wouldn't use it with success against President Bush.)

The ad continues with Reagan's speech, set against images of Dick Cheney, Osama Bin Laden, rising gas prices, a home foreclosure, and, crucially, Bush together with John McCain. Reagan says, "If you don't think that this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have." And just as he mentions "another choice," there is Obama set against a giant American flag, gazing off into the distance at those Reagan Democrats he needs on Tuesday.

Obama himself played off the line last week at a Florida rally, saying, "At this rate, the question isn't just 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?', it's 'Are you better off than you were four weeks ago?'"

But Obama isn't running against an incumbent, as Reagan was. McCain aired his own ad saying, "We're worse off than we were four years ago," distancing himself from Bush's legacy.

Let Freedom Ring -- as part of an endless stream of new ads, some on TV and some Web-only -- tries to cast some of Reagan's glow on McCain instead of Obama. This new video calls Obama the "anti-Reagan" and says to McCain, "Your economic policies are the policies of Ronald Reagan."

We already dug up the background on Let Freedom Ring. Now let's take a look at Progressive Future and its dizzying array of affiliated groups, after the jump...

Continue reading "Reagan Endorses Obama! Or Not" »

2:54 PM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink

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McCain-Palin: The Nightmare Before Christmas?

At some moment in the last month, Danny Elfman had an idea. It wasn't another creepy soundtrack to another Tim Burton film. It wasn't a reunion tour with his old band Oingo Boingo. It was, rather, about his "greatest fear": President Sarah Palin.

In no time, Elfman and followers formed a political action committee, a Web site (OurGreatestFear.org) and a political ad now doing a small run in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"This is the story of one person who was feeling really frustrated and demoralized and thought, 'You know what? I'm going to do something about it,'" said Sheila Shirazi, who is handling press for Elfman's group.

In the ad, a voiceover suggests John McCain may die in office, as his face morphs into that of Palin, the White House in the background.

Our greatest question, though, is why no spooky music? Elfman, after all, scored such movies as Beetle Juice, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, and even creepier ones like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. And besides, it's almost Halloween. But no. Those hoping for a dark and twisted soundtrack to the election will be dissapointed.

Explains Shirazi, "Danny's actually a fairly modest person. I think that he really wanted this to be about the message. He didn't want anything to take away from it."

Elfman supposedly plans to continue his PAC to focus on other candidates in future elections. We can't help but recall all the musical cliches in political ads, and hope Elfman can get over that modesty thing.

-- Will Evans

2:39 PM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink

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Uppercase Or Lowercase -- Big Difference

Let Freedom Ring is putting a lot of money behind its current kitchen-sink blast of anti-Obama ads. Attention must be paid.

The latest in the freedom-ringing fusillade shows Obama saying he will not develop new nuclear weapons and will "slow our development of future combat systems." The footage is from what the ad calls an "Obama campaign-produced solicitation video" from last October.

Notice that the ad uses the lowercase form for "future combat systems," implying that Obama wants to slow development of all combat systems. McCain has used the same line against Obama. But as the Army Times and the libertarian Cato Institute point out, Future Combat Systems -- uppercase -- is a specific military program that McCain also has opposed.

In any case, the ad segues to Reagan appointee Frank Gaffney, who says that leaders who convey an unwillingness to use military might show weakness to "our enemies" and "weakness invites agression." Gaffney's dead-serious monologue also featured in the gaffe ad starring Joe Biden. Joe the Gaffer makes another appearance in an extended version of the ad (also on TV), with his much-publicized prediction that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama."

-- Will Evans

5:38 PM ET | 10-29-2008 | permalink

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Parting Shots From The Left

It's the final push, folks, and they're pushing hard. Here's a wave of liberal ads hoping to unseat Senate Republicans -- and a video representation of Republican fear.

People for the American Way rolls out TV ads criticizing Republican senators for supporting "judges who hurt our families." The ads say that Susan Collins of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina "stood with George Bush and helped put his extreme nominees on our nation's highest court." Here's the one about Collins, who is the group's focus:

Patriot Majority continues to batter Republican incumbents and continues to receive giant bundles of union cash. Recent ads include one accusing Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) of siding with "corporate interests and one faulting Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) for supporting free trade agreements.

Another takes on Dole, saying, "They know us as Tar Heels for standing our ground. But when Elizabeth Dole votes with George Bush 92 percent of the time, the ground starts to crumble." The ground-crumbling metaphor is aided by a visual in the ad.

Patriot Majority reported getting $1.5 million from AFSCME this month, as well as $125,000 from the Teamsters and $25,000 from Patricia Bauman, who is president of the liberal Bauman Foundation and board member of Catalist, a data-mining firm that works for Democrats.

It's enough to drive Freedom's Watch crazy. The conservative group has been one of biggest players running ads to stem the onslaught of Democratic Senate candidates.(Here's a recent one taking on Jeff Merkley, who's challenging Smith in Oregon.) In a video to be e-mailed to the Freedom's Watch rank and file tomorrow, you can feel the fear of the nightmare scenario: a filibuster-proof Democratic majority.

The dark and ominous video takes aim at Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, calling his "reckless policies" the cause of current economic woes. It warns that the DSCC is "spending nearly $100 million on a smear campaign funded by special interests." It continues, "A filibuster-proof Senate means unchecked power to pass their tax increases, their pork-barrel spending, and no ability to block activist judicial nominees." And the capper: "Too much power in one party's hand is too risky for America."

The irony of the last line -- since it was merely two years ago that voters ended six years of one-party GOP rule by giving congressional majorities to the Democrats -- is only surpassed by the sense of frustration, just days before the eleciton.

After the jump, even more liberal Senate ads -- silly and serious.

Continue reading "Parting Shots From The Left" »

3:19 PM ET | 10-29-2008 | permalink

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Trust In Small Business, Not Obama

It's sort of like a reverse coattails effect. A pro-business political action committee is running ads boosting vulnerable Republican senators by contrasting them with Obama. In fact, the spots seem more like anti-Obama ads than ads supporting pro-business Republicans, as they are billed by the Trust in Small Business PAC.

The cookie-cutter ads start out saying "Barack Obama's endless promises guarantee a huge expansion of federal programs, paid for with tax increases on the back of small business." Gloomy images of shuttered shops give way to a vibrant businesses and triumpant music as the ad says, "Vote for a proven friend of small business."

Those proven friends are Sens. John Sununu (NH), Elizabeth Dole (NC), Mitch McConnell (KY), Roger Wicker (MS), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Louisiana Senate challenger John Kennedy. You can watch all of the ads here, or the Wicker one below.

The PAC, which aired ads in 2006 Senate races, is run by Mari Rusch, who used to be national finance director for the National Federation of Independent Business. NFIB is also running ads in close Senate races.

The Obama-is-bad-so-Republican-is-good message may have some traction in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, rated "Solid GOP" for McCain by NPR's Ken Rudin. But maybe not so much in New Hampshire, which is "Leaning Democrat" for Obama.

-- Will Evans

11:17 PM ET | 10-28-2008 | permalink

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Clarion DVD Now Circulated By Religious Right Group

Remember the Clarion Fund and its DVD, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West"? The DVD -- and the fund's murky background -- caused an uproar when Clarion spread 28 million copies of the disk throughout battleground states, all in the name of attracting media attention.

Now the DVD has a new distributor, a California-based publication called The Judeo-Christian View. Where Clarion's roots traced back to Israel, the View connects to significant figures in the conservative Christian political movement. It pulls "Obsession" closer to being precisely what the Clarion Fund has insisted it is not: a political message delivered at the peak of a presidential campaign.

The View says it mailed "Obsession" and other materials, discussing Barack Obama's and John McCain's views on abortion, homosexuality and other issues, to more than 325,000 clergy earlier this month. Its conclusion is that Obama's views are "at odds with the ancient Biblical faiths."

The View's general publisher is O'Neal Dozier, once a linebacker for the New York Jets and Chicago Bears, now pastor of the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, FL. The publisher is Gary L. Cass, who's also head of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, where the homepage currently offers "7 Reasons Why Barack Obama Is Not A Christian."

Dozier is active at the crossroads of religion and Republican politics, meeting with President Bush four times in 2005, in delegations of African-American clergy. When Jeb Bush, the president's brother, was governor of Florida, he appointed Dozier to one of several state panels that recommended judicial nominees. But he removed Dozier in 2006, after the pastor called Islam a "cult" during a radio interview and judicial candidates said he asked them inappropriate questions. Republican Charlie Crist, who followed Bush as governor, initially put Dozier on his campaign's Strengthening Florida's Families advisory group, but then dismissed him after the "cult" comment and some other remarks.

Dozier earlier was involved in Freedom Watch, a group set up by Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman (and not to be confused with Freedom's Watch, a well-funded conservative group active in this year's campaigns).

Cass said he, not Dozier, is the proprietor of The Judeo-Christian View. He told us the big mailing was done this month "to take advantage of interest in the political season to launch" the publication.

And to deepen the mystery over how "Obsession" is distributed, Cass was vague as to how his publication acquired DVDs for the mailing. He said they came from Clarion but declined to say if they were purchased or contributed. Referring to Clarion, he said, "Let's just say we have a good working relationship with them."

More after the jump....

Continue reading "Clarion DVD Now Circulated By Religious Right Group" »

9:01 PM ET | 10-28-2008 | permalink

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Latest Campaign Boogeyman: China

Maybe "McChina" would have sounded better. Reaching back to the 1970s for its rhetoric, a Kentucky-based labor group is sounding the alarm that John McCain and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are selling us out to "Communist China."

A radio ad from a 527 group called Truth From American Workers features the voice of Chris Sanders, general counsel of United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 227. "Wall Street's in trouble because George Bush and Mitch McConnell pulled the regulators off Wall Street so the tycoons there could speculate, with our money," he says. "And we're deep in debt, again, to Communist China no less."

Three other radio spots imitate the quick-fire babble of an auctioneer who is auctioning off U.S. manufacturing jobs and government debt. China is the top bidder. In Ohio and Indiana, the ads blame McCain: "Tell John McCain to stop sending our jobs and our dollars to China. We need them around here." In Kentucky, a different version of the ad blames McConnell. Listen to all four ads here.

Truth From American Workers' treasurer is Larry Fox, another official from Local 227. The group's leadership also includes representatives from the United Mine Workers and a Teamsters Union local, but UFCW seems to be the overriding connection. UFCW and its locals gave the group $170,000, more than any other entity so far.

The group used to be called Working Families for Kentucky, but changed its name in September. Funny thing about that: Working Families for Kentucky was formed -- just last year -- to oppose Bruce Lunsford in the Democratic primary for governor. Lunsford did end up losing that primary, and you might recognize his name. He's the Democratic challenger to McConnell, the guy the unions now want to unseat.

For old times' sake, here's the anti-Lunsford ad the group produced in 2007. You won't see it on TV in Kentucky.

-- Will Evans

3:36 PM ET | 10-28-2008 | permalink

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I'm Not Endorsing, But Vote For Him Anyway

On his latest Focus on the Family Action radio broadcast, evangelical leader James Dobson says, "While I will not endorse either candidate this year...I can say that I am now supportive of Senator John McCain and his bid for the presidency."

With Dobson's definition of "supportive," who needs an endorsement? Dobson was reading from his October newsletter, which goes out to millions and lays out his reasons for supporting McCain and, even more vigorously, opposing Obama. Also on the radio recently, Dobson said, "I want our listeners to know that I have never, never been so concerned about the state of our nation," pointing to the willingness of many voters to elect "a leader, Barack Obama, who supports and will promote the most radical and unconscionable forms of abortion and policies that will result in many, many more babies dying."

Before that, Dobson dedicated another broadcast to talking with two women behind Born Alive Truth, a new 527 airing anti-Obama TV ads. Focus on the Family Action itself recently spent $112,000 airing a radio version of the ad in stations across Colorado. Now that's "supportive."

The abortion issue is at the top of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund's agenda as well, but the group has so far kept the debate out if its ads, even as it attacks McCain and running mate Sarah Palin.

Planned Parenthood's newest ad (below) focuses instead on the group's own study ripping apart McCain's health care plan. Airing in the Washington D.C. market, which covers Obama-friendly Northern Virginia, it features a nurse calling the McCain plan "bad medicine." And yes, Planned Parenthood did endorse Obama.

-- Will Evans

10:10 PM ET | 10-27-2008 | permalink

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Anti-Obama Ads, Amid An Onslaught Of Emails

Every election season, some independent groups sizzle with controversy and impact, and others fizzle. We couldn't tell at first, but the National Republican Trust PAC appears to be of the sizzling variety.

The political action committee -- founded by a trio who have tried to prove a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks -- has new anti-Obama ads on the air and a fundraising machine in overdrive. One ad dredges up inflamatory comments by Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the other says Obama wants to give driver's licenses and government benefits to "illegals."

A fundraising email today said the group has raised $1 million for its "emergency effort to stop Barack Obama" and seeks $1 million more for the campaign's final week. The email promises, "Almost all of our net dollars raised -- after marketing costs -- are going directly into our ad war against Obama."

That phrase "after marketing costs" is significant. Of $903,000 in expenditures against Obama reported this month, about 56 percent, or $507,000, went to paying for fundraising emails like the one we just mentioned. Media buys and production accounted for 39 percent, or $356,000. The rest, $40,000, went to advertising, direct mail and phone calls.

Peter Leitner, the group's treasurer, told us, "There's a lag in reporting. We're spending a large amount of money on the media buys...The biggest ticket item is the airtime."

Here's the Rev. Wright ad, which says, "For 20 years, Barack Obama followed a preacher of hate."

Continue on for the "Illegals" ad...

Continue reading "Anti-Obama Ads, Amid An Onslaught Of Emails" »

6:16 PM ET | 10-27-2008 | permalink

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The Shame, Oh, The Shame

At this late date, the Obama and McCain campaigns aren't prospecting for new, persuadable voters anymore. They just want to get out the vote they know they can count on.

And what's the best way to make someone vote? Shame, it turns out.

So here comes the political action committee of MoveOn.org, one of Barack Obama's best friends this year, with a viral video considerably hipper than its usual pushing-the-political-envelope approach. It's a fake TV news report, detailing America and the world's reaction to one shlump who didn't vote and let Obama lose. The techno-geek element is the embedding of said shlump's name, repeatedly, in the video.

This is the video with your faithful correspondent as the shlump.

Think this feels familiar? Maybe like The Onion, the only humorous thing to be found in American journalism these days? There's a reason. It was created by Peter Koechley, MoveOn's expansion director, formerly The Onion's managing editor.

More about video-induced shame after the jump....

Continue reading "The Shame, Oh, The Shame" »

5:40 PM ET | 10-27-2008 | permalink

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MoveOn Money Behind The Curtain

"Paid for by MoveOn Political Action" appears at the end of only one TV ad these days, but MoveOn.org is involved in more behind the scenes.

MoveOn, for example, gave $583,000 to bankroll Health Care for America Now's recent ad hammering McCain's health care policy.

MoveOn also gave $400,000 this month to Campaign Money Watch, which recently ran an ad against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and today has a new one taking on McCain. (Private equity billionaire Jerome Kohlberg, a long-time advocate for campaign finance reform, also pitched in $130,000.)

The new CMW ad, aimed at conservative viewers in Florida, Virginia and on national cable, spotlights McCain's penchant for gambling and his contributions from the gambling industry. Here's a Las Vegas Review-Journal story on the subject. The ad starts by comparing McCain to "celebrities" who "love to gamble" like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. It's a sarcastic allusion to a much-discussed McCain campaign ad comparing Obama to the pop stars.

It may seem a bit odd that an organization dedicated to the public financing of elections would go after McCain, the only candidate who actually decided to take public financing for his campaign. Obama's explosive fundraising, meanwhile, is being blamed by some for the imminent demise of the system.

But David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch, explained to us a while ago, "Our view is that the current system is broken. Candidates are going to fund their campaigns in whichever way they think will bring them to victory." For Donnelly, the question is, "Which candidate has pledged to make fixing the presidential system a priority?" His answer: "Obama has."

-- Will Evans

5:10 PM ET | 10-27-2008 | permalink

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Even The Advertiser Calls Ad 'Bizarre'

Usually advocacy groups avoid spending money on attack ads against politicians they can't beat. But the brand-new 2020 Action Fund, challenging Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe in deep-red Oklahoma, is in it for the long haul.

Even the spokesman for the Boston-based group calls its new ad "borderline bizarre."

The bizarre starts with a metaphor: old stock footage of a guy kicking another guy in the rear, repeatedly. The ad blames Inhofe for opposing energy independence, good wages and jobs. Then comes an impressionistic collage of images including a spinning globe, a man eating something, flying dollar signs, some sort of parade and money grabbed from a table. Words appear on the screen saying "15 Months $2 Trillion...Gone From Your Pensions."

Get it? That's Inhofe doing the kicking, and Oklahoma taking it. The ad's punch line: "Kick back, Oklahoma."

It's far from clear in the ad, but the 2020 Action Fund is dedicated to opposing politicians who get in the way of climate change legislation. The number one target: Inhofe, who, as ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, has railed against global warming concerns and called the problem a "hoax."

More about the 2020 Action Fund, its leaders and mission after the jump...

Continue reading "Even The Advertiser Calls Ad 'Bizarre'" »

8:22 PM ET | 10-24-2008 | permalink

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Promoting An Ethnic Wedge Issue

A Republican Latino group with ties to the Bush Administration is airing ads alleging that Obama puts African Americans before Latinos and Africa before Latin America.

The 527 group, Latinos For Reform, is new this month and now it's running a Spanish-language radio ad in Pennsylvania and Colorado and a TV version in New Mexico. The ad translates, in part, as:

Barack Obama a friend of the Latino community? The record demonstrates the opposite. Did you know that after the 2000 census that showed a tremendous growth of Latinos in Chicago, Obama told reporters in Chicago that while everyone agrees that the Hispanic population has grown, they cannot expand by taking power from the African-American community. You heard right...but there's more. Did you know that Obama has never hired a Latino to a senior position in his office throughout his legislative career? Did you know that Obama has opposed trade with Mexico, Central America and Colombia, yet supports free trade with Africa?

The chairman of Latinos For Reform is Robert Deposada, who has served in the leadership of the Hispanic Business Roundtable and The Latino Coalition, and was formerly director of Hispanic affairs for the Republican National Committee. In 2001, President Bush appointed Deposada to a commission to advance the administration's plan for privatizing Social Security.

Deposada tells us that with Obama, "You start seeing that traditional relationship that you have between African-American elected officials and Latino elected officials. I think it's been a tension."

The treasurer of Latinos For Reform is high-powered Republican lobbyist Juan Carlos Benitez, whose firm brags that he "has exceptionally close ties to the White House." Benitez was a Pioneer -- he raised more than $100,000 for the 2004 re-election campaign -- and President Bush named him special counsel for immigration-related unfair employment practices. Benitez also raised between $50,000 and $100,000 this election cycle for McCain.

Deposada says he and other conservative Latinos are disappointed that McCain hasn't put more effort into courting the Latino vote.

"We were honestly so ridiculously frustrated," he says. "There's never been a Republican candidate with a better track record with the Latino community. Our big concern is that I can just picture the Republican Party after the election saying, 'If we couldn't get the Hispanic vote with John McCain, who is so pro-Hispanic, then why bother?'"

-- Will Evans

8:13 PM ET | 10-24-2008 | permalink

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NC Citizen's Ads: Almost An Update

North Carolina defense contractor Tim D'Annunzio is doing what almost no other citizen does, or can afford to do. He's producing and airing his own political ads, as we reported earlier this week. They're all anti-Obama.

He has four ads on his Web site, and one of them is on TV. We wondered whether the others might turn up on-air, and what his plan is.

Political groups usually aren't shy about publicizing their strategies, but D'Annunzio is. He declined to answer our questions. "I believe Obama is truly a socialist," he wrote via e-mail. "I believe he will destroy this country." As for our humble blog, "You write from a pro Obama, pro socialist, pro liberal perspective." So, no answers.

-- Will Evans and Peter Overby

8:02 PM ET | 10-24-2008 | permalink

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The Cameraman Always Wins

Why do people assault cameramen? Don't they realize they have cameras?

It's a continuing mystery, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce uses one angry-man-versus-cameraman confrontation to blast union-friendly legislation and the Democrats who support it.

The new ad, airing in states like Minnesota and Oregon with key Senate races, shows footage of Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan with his hands all over someone's camera, threatening, "I'm going to take this camera and stick it somewhere where you don't want it." The ad is meant to suggest that workers could face this kind of treatment from "union bosses" -- if Senate Democrats can enact a bill that would let workers simply sign a petition to unionize a workplace, rather than hold a secret-ballot vote. Londrigan was reportedly not amused.

The Chamber is in the midst of its biggest election-season effort yet, committing some $35 million to help pro-business candidates in House and Senate races. A big part of the campaign focuses on opposing that pro-union bill, called the Employee Free Choice Act. (It's awkward to oppose "free choice," so one business group re-names it the "Employee FORCED Choice Act," helpfully retaining the orginial acronym.)

A top issue on Election Day? Hardly. It doesn't even make this list in those "top issues for voters" polls. But it's a huge issue to the business community, which is busy trying to sell it as something voters need to care about.

We've had the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace pound away against the legislation. And the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee has raised $20 million and is spending it on TV ads. (Here's the action committee's latest.) Americans for Job Security also got into the act with new ads targetting the Act. All of groups are using the issue against Democratic candidates in hot Senate races.

Meanwhile -- perhaps ironically? -- the AFL-CIO just launched a multi-state radio campaign "urging citizens to vote and telling them how to be prepared to protect their vote on Election Day."

-- Will Evans

7:45 PM ET | 10-24-2008 | permalink

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From "Oops" To On-Air In Five Days

How long does it take to go from gaffe to attack ad? Five days, based on our most recent example.

You'll recall that on Sunday, Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden said, "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy...Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Biden is famous for flubs, and this seems to be his biggest during the general election. Or as the New York Post put it, "JOE D'OH PUTS O IN 'CRISIS' MODE."

So that was Sunday. Already McCain, Palin and conservatives have rubbed it in Obama's face. And now, Let Freedom Ring has launched an ad in battleground states with the audio of Biden's remark. It starts running tomorrow and will eventually be up in Nevada, Ohio, Colorado, Pennsylvania and the pricey Virginia-Washington D.C. market. The ad also features Reagan appointee Frank Gaffney arguing, on something of a tangent, that "weakness invites aggression."

It's guaranteed that Biden didn't look as happy as he does in the ad when he realized the impact of his gaffe. But let's not put all the blame on Biden. Obama gets his own gaffe ad after the jump...

Continue reading "From "Oops" To On-Air In Five Days" »

6:28 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Electioneering By Hypnosis In Oregon

The Democrats have figured it out. The key to defeating Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) is hynosis. How else to explain these similarly transfixing anti-Smith ads from two liberal groups?

The Service Employees International Union offers a spinning kaleidoscope of money, symbolizing the "deep dark hole" of the economy. Add ominous music, show Smith's face; then bring back the kaleidoscope, cue the feel-good chords and show Smith's competition, Democrat Jeff Merkley. In Youtube format, you can watch again and again!

If that didn't work, try this: 30 seconds of water spiraling down the drain, countesy of Patriot Majority, a union-funded 527 trying to defeat Smith because he's "draining the middle class." Then the words on the screen dissolve into water and spiral down too....woah. For the full effect, we suggest playing both ads at the same time.

Did it work on you? If not, more ads (of the non-whirling variety) after the jump:

Continue reading "Electioneering By Hypnosis In Oregon" »

6:01 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Sure, The Economy Is Important, But...

Abortion, religion and judges -- oh my! Move over, economy, the culture wars continue.

The Judicial Confirmation Network's most recent ad says it best: "Fixing the economy is crucial, but..." But? Yes, but what? "But America's principles and Constitution are threatened by one more liberal activist vote on the Supreme Court." The $250,000 ad buy goes out to Pennsylvania, Ohio and northern West Virginia.

On the other side of the spectrum, Winning Message Action Fund bashes McCain-Palin for wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade. The action fund recently sprang forth from NARAL Pro-Choice New York. The dramatic ad shows women lining up for mug shots, some cringing with the flash of a camera, going to jail because they had abortions after the practice was made illegal. (Generally, it should be noted, anti-abortion legislation mandates prosecution for the doctors, not the women.) The ad airs in Wisconsin and Ohio.

An ad for Christian radio after the jump...

Continue reading "Sure, The Economy Is Important, But..." »

5:46 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Alan Keyes' Revenge

Think of it as a rematch.

In 2004, Alan Keyes -- the Christian conservative activist and perennial long-shot candidate -- lost the Illinois Senate race by a landslide to a state senator named Barack Obama.

Now, as Obama runs for president, Keyes is the presidential nominee of America's Independent Party (which sees John McCain as too liberal and the Keyes campaign as an "extension" of the 2004 race against Obama.)

Obama certainly doesn't face much of a challenge from Keyes' candidacy, but separately two former top Keyes campaign officials are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Keyes-founded political action committee to defeat Obama.

The Life and Liberty PAC, an anti-abortion organization, has spent nearly $700,000 since February on phone calls, direct mail and canvassing against Obama. The group's chair is Mary Parker Lewis, who served as Keyes' chief of staff for his presidential runs in 1996 and 2000, and his treasurer in the 2004 race against Obama. Life and Liberty's chief financial officer is Bill Constantine, who was treasurer for Keyes' 2000 run and is listed as assistant treasurer for the 2004 race. Constantine said that though Keyes founded the PAC, he isn't currently involved.

"The issues haven't changed," Constantine told us. "The reasons Barack Obama was bad for Illinois are the same reasons he's bad for America."

Life and Liberty PAC is just one component in a cluster of groups linked to Keyes.

Keyes, Lewis and Constantine also head up the Keyes-founded Declaration Foundation and affiliated Declaration Alliance, which has spent millions on the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a project that includes patroling the border for illegal immigrants. The constellation of organizations include several political action committees that are blasting out direct mail pieces against Obama.

More after the jump...

Continue reading "Alan Keyes' Revenge" »

2:46 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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A Tour Of Senate Ads

Our business here is to monitor indie political groups and their ads, and business has been good. Advocacy groups haven't run out of money. The bad news? They've run out of ideas.

Two new North Carolina ads follow story lines we've heard over and over before (not that that's a bad way to influence voters -- it just makes the blog more boring). Here's one from Freedom's Watch, blaming Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan for jacking up taxes. Our takeaway: She wants to tax candy?!

Next, Americans for Job Security denounces unions that want to take away secret ballots in union elections. "Hagan's on their side, not ours," the ad says, as an armored truck speeds out of Washington, presumably delivering union cash to Hagan. Watch the ad here. There's a virtually identical ad targeting the Democrat Ronnie Musgrove in a Mississippi Senate race.

Moving along to New Hampshire... Labor unions (those bad guys from the last ad) are piling on to Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) by, predictably, tying him to President Bush. The distinguishing factor? The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees uses a rope metaphor (we're at the "end of our rope") and the Service Employees International Union uses a country-store cash register gimmick. We don't have the AFSCME ad in blogable format, so you'll have to trust us. Here's the SEIU ad:

Now follow us to Minnesota for a breath of fresh ideas...

Continue reading "A Tour Of Senate Ads" »

12:55 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Teachers Come Around To Obama

John McCain is "more of the same" and "not really in touch," while Barack Obama "gets it." That's the message for eight battleground states, in a $2 million radio ad campaign by the American Federation of Teachers.

It wasn't always such a love affair between the teachers union and Obama. During the presidential primaries, AFT gave $400,000 to the American Leadership Project, which ran ads backing Hillary Clinton and attacking Obama. That 527 also switched to a new target: McCain.

The AFT ads are running until the election in Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. They are tailored to each state by featuring the voices of local teachers and school staff saying -- sometimes showing off their regional accents -- why they think Obama is the best choice. In the New Mexico ad, someone shouts in Spanish, "Adelante Obama!"

The voices attest to "tough times" and people "struggling." The tagline delivers some variation of the message, "Barack Obama will make education a priority, jumpstart our economy and put middle class families first again." You can listen to one or all of them here.

The AFT represents 1.4 million people and is headed by Randi Weingarten, who is on the executive council of the AFL-CIO and on the Democratic National Committee. The union also helps fund American Rights At Work, which has run ads targeting Republicans in Senate races this year.

The other teachers' union, the National Education Association, stayed neutral in the primary contest between Obama and Clinton, but endorsed Obama for president as soon as the primaries ended.

-- Will Evans

10:16 PM ET | 10-22-2008 | permalink

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Citizen Tim Takes On Obama Himself

The one form of political advertising that's completely unregulated and free is the speech of an individual citizen, even when money amplifies that speech by putting it on the airwaves. Tim D'Annunzio, who describes himself as a "concerned North Carolina businessman," is doing just that. The former defense contractor has produced four several hard-hitting ads against Obama with now-familiar themes: Taxes, Abortion, Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.

The only ad we know is running on TV (below) hits Obama on taxes. In it, D'Annunzio says he was living below the poverty line a decade ago, but built his company, Paraclete Armor & Equipment, into a workforce of hundreds. He says Obama's "promised tax increases will devastate people like me, by taking more than half of my business profits. This will force me to cut jobs and increase prices."

A former Army parachute jumper, D'Annunzio founded Paraclete to make body armor for the military and law enforcement. It provides equipment for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and makes millions from defense contracts.

The company received more than $26 million in federal contracts since 2001, mostly from the Air Force, according to the government database USASpending.gov. About $2.6 million of the contracts were awarded without competition. In addition, in 2006 the company recevied a $3.5 million loan from the Agriculture Department's Rural Business-Cooperative Service. In 2005, it received a $293,000 loan from the Small Business Administration.

Paraclete gave $2,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004.

A larger, public company, MSA (Mine Safety Appliances Co.), bought Paraclete for $30 million in 2006. (When D'Annunzio says he would have to lay off workers under Obama's tax plan, it's not clear what company he's talking about. We were unable to contact him.)

D'Annunzio's other ads are on his Web site. In one, he criticizes Obama's "ultra-liberal stand on abortion" and says, "As a Christian, I cannot vote for Barack Obama." Another focuses on former Weatherman radical Bill Ayers; D'Annunzio says, "I cannot vote for Barack Obama because of his association with terrorists." Yet another skewers Obama for his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and shows Obama without his hand over his heart during the national anthem. "We can't afford a president that uses racially charged comments to divide us," D'Annunzio says.

North Carolina has somehow become a home base for Obama-bashing independent operators. If you have any insights into why this is, we'd love to hear them. Besides D'Annunzio, the state is home to the Committee for Truth in Politics and RightChange.com, two of the biggest-spending conservative groups on the air.

We'll see soon enough how much money D'Annunzio is willing to commit.

-- Will Evans

8:03 PM ET | 10-22-2008 | permalink

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Bringing Common Sense To The Dakotas

Give 'em props for originality. Common Sense Issues recently launched a radio ad attacking South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson, a Democrat likely to win a race that's been basically ignored by other outside groups and the Beltway crowd.

Common Sense Issues also popped up in August in a nearby but even more unlikely place: North Dakota. That radio ad ridiculed Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), even though he isn't up for re-election till 2012. At least Johnson has a race, of sorts -- NPR political editor Ken Rudin rates it "Strong Democratic." Perhaps Common Sense Issues landed in South Dakota because its executive director, Patrick Davis, used to be executive director of the state Republican Party.

The new radio ad assails Johnson -- in a humorous way -- for voting against tighter regulation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae while collecting campaign contributions from the mortgage companies. It suggests that listeners "tell Tim Johnson to stop taking money from Washington lobbyists."

Common Sense Issues is best known for its "Trust Huckabee" campaign during the Republican presidential primaries. The group received $50,000 in February from Don Carter, who was the founding owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

A predecessor organization, Common Sense Ohio, created quite a ruckus in 2006. That operation -- which shares some leadership with Common Sense Issues -- ran radio ads and controversial robocalls supporting GOP candidates in that year's hot Senate races. It was bankrolled by Ohio investor and steadfast Republican donor Carl Lindner and Massachusetts anti-abortion, pro-abstinence advocate Raymond Ruddy.

This year, Lindner gave $400,000 to Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, while Ruddy is the main financier for Born Alive Truth, which is running anti-Obama ads. And Common Sense is relegated to the Dakotas. Times have changed.

-- Will Evans

5:30 PM ET | 10-22-2008 | permalink

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Choose Your Weapon

It's the hunters and the hunted. MoveOn.org uses a wall-mounted moose head in a new TV ad against the McCain-Palin ticket; Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund blames dead polar bears on Sarah Palin; and the National Rifle Assocaition says Obama won't let you defend yourself against criminals.

MoveOn's animated talking moose head tells us, "You really gotta question John McCain's judgment pickin' Sarah Palin as his VP." After making some cracks about Palin's national security experience -- or, as the moose would say, her lack thereof -- the hunter's trophy says, "She may be a little 'trigger-happy' -- I should know." The ad will will run in cities Palin visits over the next two weeks.

Defenders of Wildlife takes the whole animal-killing thing a bit more seriously, after the jump...

Continue reading "Choose Your Weapon" »

8:23 PM ET | 10-21-2008 | permalink

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The Scoreboard

Barack Obama clearly has the financial advantage over John McCain when it comes to hard campaign funds. But in the less transparent world of independent groups, conservative organizations have been spending about 75 percent more money on TV time for anti-Obama attack ads than liberal groups have spent to defeat McCain.

According to our analysis of the latest numbers from the Campaign Media Analysis Group, conservative groups like Vets for Freedom and American Issues Project have spent about $9,427,000 on TV airtime, while liberal groups like labor unions and MoveOn.org spent $5,351,000 since the beginning of July. That's chump change compared to the candidates' ad buys, but sometimes an outside attack can do what the candidate can't, or won't. For instance, we count four different groups that have run ads linking Obama to former radical Bill Ayers, even when the McCain campaign itself wasn't making that argument.

To be sure, this isn't the full picture. Advocacy groups are spending many millions more on radio ads, direct mail, phone calls and canvassing -- and none of that shows up in these numbers. Plus, a group like Brave New PAC spent very little on TV time, but generated a lot of attention for its online anti-McCain videos. One other caveat: CMAG numbers are just estimates, and the ad-tracking service doesn't pick up the National Rifle Association's ads, and others, on local cable stations.

To make the calculation, we excluded ad buys that clearly meant to advance a partisan agenda but didn't refer to a presidential candidate, like those from the liberal Health Care for America Now and the conservative Employee Freedom Action Committee. We even took out an American Issues Project ad attacking Senate Democrats because it didn't mention Obama. If you add those in, conservatives have outspent liberals nearly two to one since July. Why July? That's the first month after the primaries ended.

Here's the breakdown.

Liberal Groups
Service Employees International Union = $1,999,602
United Auto Workers = $1,104,206
MoveOn.org = $1,008,080
Planned Parenthood = $330,066
VoteVets = $196,320
Defenders of Wildlife = $156,575
Bring Ohio Back = $127,436
AFL-CIO = $123,274
AFSCME = $82,263
PowerPac = $79,880
United Food & Commercial Workers = $70,841
California Nurses Association = $60,316
Matthew 25 Network = $8,858
Brave New PAC = $3,293
TOTAL = $5,351,010

Conservative Groups
Vets for Freedom = $3,906,472
American Issues Project = $1,867,872
RightChange.com = $1,475,581
Committee for Truth in Politics = $1,056,309
Let Freedom Ring = $652,424
Judicial Confirmation Network = $194,283
Born Alive Truth = $165,948
Citizens United = $54,439
Our Country Deserves Better = $28,711
National Republican Trust = $25,162
TOTAL = $9,427,201

There's less than two weeks to go. The liberals could pull ahead -- or the conservatives could pull away. All coming to a TV screen near you.

-- Will Evans

8:15 PM ET | 10-21-2008 | permalink

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The Riskier Of Two Risks

It's starting to feel like the presidential election has come down to this: Which candidate is riskier?

The McCain campaign calls Barack Obama "too risky for America," and that phrase is being echoed by independent groups like the National Republican Trust.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees calls John McCain "risky on Social Security."

And here comes the AFL-CIO with this pronouncement: "John McCain's Plan Puts Retirees at Risk." That's from a mailer sent to 500,000 retirees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Florida. It labels McCain as a "disaster" for retirees; not too long ago, another AFL-CIO mailer dubbed him a "disaster" for the middle class.

Click on the image to view the latest mailing:

The labor federation's ranks are also continuing phone calls and personal visits to undecided voters. They're clearly not taking any risks.

-- Will Evans

7:36 PM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Jewish Republicans Like Hillary?

If Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic primary, the Republican Jewish Coalition might be quoting Barack Obama. But, as fate would have it, Obama won -- so the RJC says "Hillary is right."

The Republican group has launched a TV ad calling Obama's foreign policy "naive" because he said "I would" when asked if he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. The ad quotes Clinton -- this was back when she and Obama were in the thick of a brutal primary brawl -- saying of Obama, "That was irresponsible and frankly naive." (The question came up at a CNN debate, and stipulated that talks were part of an evolving peace initiative.)

Clinton has moved on, of course. She's campaigning for Obama in Florida -- one of the states where the ad is airing. The million-dollar-plus buy will put the ad in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada as well.

The TV ad is a first for the Republican Jewish Coalition in this cycle. It's already produced a series of print advertisements attacking Obama in Jewish newspapers, often with the slogan, "Concerned about Barack Obama? You should be."

It's a fierce fight for the presidency among Jewish advocacy organizations. The National Jewish Democratic Council has run its own pro-Obama and anti-McCain ads in newspapers. And when the Jewish Council for Education and Research enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman in calling for a "Great Schlep" to help Obama, the Republican Jewish Coalition fired back with a retort by comedian Jackie Mason, who calls Silverman a "yenta," or meddlesome blabbermouth.

-- Will Evans

7:22 PM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Who Could Oppose "Strength And Security"?

Democratic strategists must really love this name. Citizens For Strength and Security is a 527 organization set up recently by a former aide to former senator John Edwards in order to go after Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC). Since then, the group has picked up big contributions from labor unions and Patriot Majority (another 527 funded by labor unions).

Now, with two more scathing TV ads against Dole, the group is reporting another $280,000 from Patriot Majority, plus $25,000 from Leo Hindery Jr., who was senior economic policy adviser to Edwards. CSS also got $200,000 from Majority Action, yet another 527 funded largely by labor unions. Majority Action has even produced its own anti-Dole ads.

So why funnel money into a new group? Are strength and security more reassuring than patriots?

-- Will Evans

11:44 AM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Note To Senators: AMA Remembers Your Votes

The American Medical Association is backing a Democratic takeover attempt in a New Hampshire Senate race, while helping Republican incumbents in Oregon and Minnesota.

The physicians group has given most of its PAC money to Republicans in recent years, though it evened out this cycle. But the AMA was incensed at Republicans like Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) who voted against Medicare legislation in June, and ran ads criticizing several of them in July.

So now, as Sununu faces a strong challenge from former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, the AMA has an ad praising Shaheen, saying she will fight against Medicare cuts. If she doesn't, beware the rath of the AMA.

The association is also helping two Republicans who bucked their party on the Medicare vote. The ad for Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) says he "stood up to the insurance companies and overrode the president's veto to protect millions of medicare patients' access to helath care." Another ad praises Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) for standing up to President Bush.

Those AMA thank-you notes couldn't have come at a better time for Coleman and Smith.

-- Will Evans

11:40 AM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Clinton Activist Still Trying To Bring Down Obama

Some grudges never die.

Even as Hillary Clinton stumps for former rival Barack Obama, some Clinton supporters are still toiling to bring him down.

Clinton activist Heidi Li Feldman and her political action committee, The Denver Group, have turned a small amount of contributions into a few amateurish TV ads that have run in such battleground states as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Feldman, a law professor at Georgetown University, says she served as a volunteer legal consultant to Clinton's presidential campaign.

The ads, run under the banner "Democrats for Principle before Party," include this one which brings up Obama's former pastor, the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "A candidate who says he has the judgement to be president from Day One waited until Day 2,411 to cut his ties with someone who said America got what it deserved on 9/11." Then, in a line sure to push the buttons of Democrats old enough to remember, the ad brings up side-by-side pictures of Obama and the late President Richard Nixon, and poses the question liberals used to raise about Nixon: "Would you buy a used car from this man?"

The Denver Group doesn't have much money, so the ads won't air widely. The group has raised about $68,374 since forming in June and its big goal now is $15,000 by Election Day, an incredibly small amount by general election standards.

More from the Denver Group after the jump...

Continue reading "Clinton Activist Still Trying To Bring Down Obama" »

11:30 AM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Attacking McCain On One Of His Strengths

Seeking to turn McCain's slogan ("Country First") and military credentials against him, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees launched a new ad accusing McCain of putting his party before veterans care. It's either a tough sell or an audacious move, considering one of McCain's top selling points is his war hero status.

The ad features a series of vets who deliver a series of sharp jabs:

Senate Roundup II: Incumbent Protection

Call it Americans for Republican Job Security. The group, actually called Americans for Job Security, has spent nearly $1 million in the past two weeks on ads targeting Democratic challengers to four embattled Senate Republicans.

Most of the ads against Democrats Al Franken of Minnesota, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Bruce Lunsford of Kentucky blame the candidates for wanting or instituting higher taxes. The one against Franken says, "This from a guy who was caught not paying his own taxes." Listen to them all here.

Americans for Job Security is famous for playing in electoral politics without disclosing donors, so we get excited whenever we find a clue about its funding. The group received $25,000 in August from the Neighborhood Preservation PAC, which represents landlords in New York City.

-- Will Evans

11:09 AM ET | 10-20-2008 | permalink

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Senate Roundup: The Usual Attacks And A Puzzler

The campaign clock is running down, and it's tough keeping up with the new ads. Here's a new crop from Senate races -- advertisers include the American Future Fund, League of Conservation Voters, Chamber of Commerce, Freedom's Watch and Susan B. Anthony List.

Let's start with one that presents a logical challenge.

The American Future Fund released a new ad in its ongoing campaign against Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall in Colorado. The ad implies Udall is bad on education, needs a "reality check," and then -- curiously -- urges him to support Senate bill 12.

First of all, the bill was introduced by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in February and hasn't gone anywhere since. Second, the bill's only education provision is an "enhanced charitable deducation for corporate contributions of computer equipment for educational purposes." Third and perhaps most important, Udall is a member of the House of Representatives, not the Senate. He wouldn't be able to vote for S. 12 unless he gets elected, an ambition the American Future Fund hopes to thwart. Right?

Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters produced an ad tying Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) to "Big Oil;" Freedom's Watch, in a rare positive ad, boosts Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) as an anti-tax crusader; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hits Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken on taxes and being funny.

Franken also takes a beating in a radio ad by the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports anti-abortion Republicans. A woman calls in to the "Delusional Politician Hotline" to report an angry, foul-mouthed politician with "funny glasses" -- that would be Franken. The woman is concerned about Franken's support of abortion rights. "'Does sort of make his support of pornography make sense," says the hotline operator. The woman asks fearfully, "Is he -- serious?" The laconic operator responds: "He's a comedian, ma'am."

-- Will Evans

4:40 PM ET | 10-18-2008 | permalink

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Unions Out To Scare Seniors; NRA, To Scare Gun Owners

Unions are working overtime to put Barack Obama over the top in battleground states.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is airing a TV ad accusing John McCain of being "Risky on Social Security." The ad says McCain wants to privatize Social Security, subjecting it to stock-market volatility. One senior says, "We earned that money, now he wants to give it to Wall Street. No way."

Obama's been using this same argument, and Factcheck.org calls it a whopper. According to Factcheck, the plan McCain supports wouldn't affect current retirees, since no one born before 1950 would be allowed to put Social Security taxes in private accounts. AFSCME, however, contends that the plan would hurt the entire Social Security system and so would affect all seniors.

This is AFSCME's first return to TV since the Democratic primaries, when it supported Hillary Clinton against Obama. The ad will run in Wisconsin until close to Election Day, with more than $1 million worth of air time, according to the union.

On another front in the issues war, the AFL-CIO, which includes AFSCME, this week dropped a mailer featuring a union member who says Obama will "protect my gun rights." The mailer went to 80,000 gun-loyal swing voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Click on the image to read the mailer:

The union mailer is evidently trying to counteract the National Rifle Assocation's message that Obama wants to take away gun rights. The NRA's new ads after the jump...

Continue reading "Unions Out To Scare Seniors; NRA, To Scare Gun Owners" »

4:06 PM ET | 10-18-2008 | permalink

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PAC Puts Obama And 9/11 Together

(Udate 10/18/08: National Republican Trust PAC just sent out another fundraising email with the subject line "Obama Lies Smashed by Neutron Bomb in Ohio." The "neutron bomb" refers to the PAC's TV ad.)

Tying Obama's policies to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a new political action committee is airing a TV ad in Ohio that calls the Democrat "too radical" and "too risky."

The language of the National Republican Trust's ad echoes attacks used by the McCain campaign. The ad focuses on Obama's support for allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses, an issue that came up in the Democratic primaries. "The 9/11 plot depended on easy-to-get licenses. Obama's plan gives a license to any illegal who wants one," says the voiceover, behind images of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta's drivers license, the smoking twin towers, and then Obama's face where Atta's used to be. The PAC's treasurer, Peter Leitner, says the ad is running in Ohio.

The PAC was formed last month by a former Defense Department strategist, a freelance journalist and a lawyer who have tried to prove a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks.

The National Republican Trust's executive director is Scott Wheeler, who has written for the conservative Cybercast News Service and Insight magazine, published by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. His articles include "Iraq-al-Qaida link revealed," "'Dirty-bomb' plot underway in U.S.?" and "Exclusive: Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties."

In his 2003 "Iraq-al-Qaida" piece, Wheeler wrote, "Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States."

President Bush and numerous government reports now say there was no link between Iraq and the 2001 strikes.

One of Wheeler's sources for the story was Leitner, who recently retired as a senior strategic trade advisor to the Secretary of Defense.

Leitner and the PAC's assistant treasurer, attorney Joshua Ambush, spearheaded efforts to sue Iraq and Saddam Hussein on behalf of the family of top FBI official John O'Neill, who was killed on Sept. 11.

More from Leitner after the jump...

Continue reading "PAC Puts Obama And 9/11 Together" »

5:22 PM ET | 10-17-2008 | permalink

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ACORN Battle Intensifies

It's not everyone who gets accused by a presidential candidate of "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

That's how John McCain described the grassroots group ACORN in last Wednesday night's debate. The next day, two officials from the Justice Department leaked details of an FBI multi-state probe of ACORN.

And now the Obama campaign shoves back, hard. Campaign lawyer Bob Bauer said this afternoon that the McCain campaign and DOJ have formed "an unholy alliance of law enforcement and the ugliest form of partisan politics." Their goal isn't to stop ACORN, said Bauer, but to suppress the vote that ACORN is promoting. "It's a war on the voters," he said.

Those would be the 1.3 million young, low-income and minority voters registered by ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- and the reason the group has been knocked around for months by Republicans.

Thousands of registration forms gathered by ACORN canvassers have turned out to be bogus. Critics say the group plans to turn out droves of illegitimate voters on Election Day. The Republican National Committee calls ACORN "a quasi-criminal organization." On Friday, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said he has "concerns of rampant voter fraud in registrations."

The group's defenders say that a few canvassers cheat, and ACORN identifies fraudulent forms -- but by law in most states, it has to submit all of the forms it collects. There are investigations in about 12 states, although they seem to be targeting individual canvassers, not ACORN as an organization.

The GOP wants to hang the tainted ACORN on Obama's shoulders, while the Obama campaign has found another way to link McCain with the Bush administration....

Continue reading "ACORN Battle Intensifies" »

5:19 PM ET | 10-17-2008 | permalink

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Obama As The Tax Man

The upstart RightChange.com is emerging as one of the loudest independent voices in the late stages of the campaign.

The group, formed this year with money from pharmaceutical executives, has spent about $1.4 million on cable TV ads since mid-September, and new ads keep coming. That dollar figure, estimated by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, puts RightChange as one of the most prominent anti-Obama groups out there these days, blowing away the amount of airtime bought by such liberal groups as MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

In fact, RightChange has carved out a niche as the main group attacking Obama on tax policy -- as opposed to the Iraq war (Vets for Freedom's terrain) or controversial associations (American Issues Project) or abortion (Committee for Truth in Politics.)

Pharmaceutical Product Development CEO Fred Eshelman is so opposed to higher taxes, he dumped another $1.7 million into RightChange this month. That brings his total generosity to nearly $4.5 million. PPD's chair, Ernest Mario, has given $1 million. And last month a third executive chipped in. Robert Ingram, vice chair of pharmaceuticals for GlaxoSmithKline, gave $10,000.

One of RightChange's new ads says Obama's tax plan will "punish small businesses," echoing a talking point that McCain hammered over and over in the final presidential debate.

Another ad says...

Continue reading "Obama As The Tax Man" »

2:22 PM ET | 10-17-2008 | permalink

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When Speeches Come Back To Haunt

Obama said in Wednesday's debate that he would try to find "common ground" on abortion. But his words on the issue to a liberal advocacy group certainly didn't help him with a conservative one.

The new ad from the Family Research Council Action PAC uses a speech Obama gave to Planned Parenthood -- the crowd loved it -- in order to hurt him with pro-life voters.

"The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," Obama says at a Planned Parenthood podium. That one sentence -- perhaps not exactly what you'd want to broadcast to swing voters -- has been picked up and distributed widely by many conservative organizations and publications. The ad concludes, "Barack Obama. Dangerous values."

Family Research Council Action's PAC plans to spend $100,000 on TV ads and a radio adaptation this week in Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. The group is targeting markets and stations where the Matthew 25 Network ran its pro-Obama ads. The aim is to "counteract their message," according to executive director David Nammo. The Matthew 25 Network has sought to promote Obama's Christian credentials. Its most recent ad features conservative Douglas Kmeic, who was legal counsel to President Reagan, arguing that anti-abortion voters should support Obama.

The Family Research Council -- the 501(c)(3) mothership to the FRC Action 501(c)(4) and the PAC -- sprang from the efforts of evangelical leader James Dobson, and it was once a division of Dobson's Focus on the Family. Dobson still sits on the board. Dobson is campaigning for John McCain, and his group recently produced radio ads to hurt Democrats in Senate races in Colorado, Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina.

Info about FRC's financing after the jump....

Continue reading "When Speeches Come Back To Haunt" »

5:01 PM ET | 10-16-2008 | permalink

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ACORN's Money Tree Has Many Branches

Conservatives are on the march against the community organization ACORN, accusing its massive voter registration effort of fraud and faulting Obama for having any connections to the group. As we reported this morning, ACORN doesn't necessarily mind the attention.

But what exactly is ACORN? Actually, it's many, many things. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has dozens of affiliated entities, from a home-buying assistance corporation to community radio stations to liberal research and training institutes. The giant web of ACORN organizations, primarily based in Louisiana, has been funded by a mix of labor union money, government grants (which really drive conservatives crazy) and charitable contributions from large foundations. See below for a breakdown of funding sources.

Plus, Project Vote -- the voter mobilization organization that works closely with and draws its leadership from ACORN -- paid ACORN and an affiliate $5.4 million in 2006. But where does Project Vote get its money? Normally it's hard to tell, but we obtained a 2006 tax return showing the nonprofit's funders, including: $4.5 million from the charitable trust of the investment management firm Vanguard; $425,000 from the Bauman Family Foundation, which also gives to the People for the American Way; and $396,000 from the liberal phone company Working Assets.

The breakdown on ACORN comes after the jump.

Continue reading "ACORN's Money Tree Has Many Branches" »

9:14 PM ET | 10-15-2008 | permalink

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Letting Freedom Ring -- Loudly

The conservative advocacy group Let Freedom Ring has been quiet for a while, but apparently it was just saving up for the big clang. The group, which helped turn out battleground-state voters for President Bush in 2004, announced a $5 million ad blitz Tuesday, hitting Obama -- often without even mentioning him -- from nearly every conceivable angle.

One ad, already running in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado, focuses on legislation that opponents say will eliminate the secret ballot in union elections. The ad features a "man on the street" who thinks the policy would be a violation of privacy. Then comes the cryptic ending, "Decide for yourself, whether you want a president who supports card check, or one who supports free elections."

Unless you look up the candidates' positions on the bill (or read this post) you might not figure out that the bill is cosponsored by Obama and opposed by McCain. Let Freedom Ring probably doesn't get more specific out of respect for the tax code, which limits its ability to get overtly political, but does let it keep its donors secret. Up until now, we only know that retired physician and Republican donor John Templeton Jr. has partially funded the group.

There's also a similarly vague ad promoting the presidential candidate who supports offshore drilling, whoever he or she is.

Let Freedom Ring has produced not just several ads, but multiple series of ads to run from now through the end of October. In the second series, which will start next week with $1.5 million to burn, one ad features the conservative niece of Martin Luther King Jr. and a conservative black pastor arguing that voters (presumably black voters) should vote based on the Bible, not the "color" of the candidate.

Still another ad shows a conservative legal scholar...

Continue reading "Letting Freedom Ring -- Loudly" »

3:00 PM ET | 10-15-2008 | permalink

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Who Loves Coal More?

John McCain's campaign likes to hammer Barack Obama and running mate Joseph Biden for not backing coal production. Now the United Mine Workers of America is throwing it back at McCain.

The mining union has radio ads in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia blasting McCain for supporting a bill that would reduce coal production. The ad says:

The jobs coal mining provides and the taxes paid on coal production make a real difference for our communities. That's why it's so important to our families that coal doesn't get left out of America's energy future. But that's exactly what Sen. John McCain did with a bill he introduced in Congress in 2003.

The ad cites a government study that the bill, S. 139, would reduce coal production by 78 percent. But Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), who cosponsored the legislation with McCain, replaced it with an amended bill under which production would decline by 59 percent by 2025, according to the study. That amended bill was cosponsored by McCain... and none other than Joe Biden (D-DE). In fact, most Democrats supported it, but it was defeated mainly by Republican votes.

The union's ads are something of a response to McCain's coal-country radio ads, which said, "Obama, Biden and their liberal allies oppose clean coal." That claim was deemed "not true" by Factcheck.org.

Since coal country overlaps with battleground country, we expect more fact-impaired sparring over who is coal's best friend.

-- Will Evans

9:54 PM ET | 10-13-2008 | permalink

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PACs To The Rescue In Michigan

John McCain pulled his staff out of Michigan, but his backers aren't ready to give up. Two conservative political action committees are gearing up to sprinkle the state with anti-Obama and pro-McCain-Palin ads.

"We've stepped in to fill the void of the McCain campaign's forced retreat in Michigan, and we're going to put the state's 17 Electoral Votes back in play with our plan to spend over $500,000 in the Great Lake State," reads a recent fundraising plea by Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which was formed this year to defeat Obama.

Meanwhile, the Republican Majority Campaign recently sent out emails to supporters saying, "MICHIGAN NEEDS YOUR HELP! It is up to the rest of us to keep Mr. Obama from a free win in Michigan!"

Our Country Deserves Better promises to run a slew of different ads in Michigan. One recycles a favorite Republican theme: Obama's connections to notorious people. The ad stars former Weatherman radical Bill Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is headed to jail. "Sorry, Sen. Obama," the ad says. "But if this is the kind of change you want for America, then you can keep the change."

Another ad features the PAC's chairman, former California state assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, telling voters, "Obama says our children must learn Spanish, so they can communicate with illegal aliens."

Other ads that will run in Michigan include one that ties Obama to what it calls the "failed administration" of Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) and one that says Obama will raise taxes.

And finally, the group produced a soaring tribute to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, heralding her as a "fighter for America" who's not "intimidated by the liberal media."

Our Country Deserves Better is also...

Continue reading "PACs To The Rescue In Michigan" »

5:42 PM ET | 10-13-2008 | permalink

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McCain's "Waterloo"?

It probably doesn't mean much to folks in Pennyslvania or Ohio, but in the battleground state of Colorado, John McCain's remarks on a multi-state water contract were a big deal. The League of Conservation Voters, which is essentially the political arm of the environmental movement, wants to make sure voters don't forget the controversy.

In August, McCain suggested his interest in re-negotiating the Colorado River Compact, which determines how states such as McCain's Arizona share the river's water with other states along the river. Just for instance: Colorado. Not only were Democrats in the Centennial State incensed -- Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said McCain would get his re-negotiaton "over my cold, dead, political carcass." McCain backtracked, saying he wouldn't seek a re-negotiation, but one newspaper columnist suggested the issue could become McCain's "Waterloo."

The League of Conservation Voters' new ad proclaims, "Water -- Colorado can't live without it. And John McCain wants to take it from us." The ad includes a clip of McCain telling Colorado voters, "Thank you for the water, thank you for the water." That bit actually came from McCain's attempt to allay concerns about his water comments. Oh well.

-- Will Evans

5:16 PM ET | 10-13-2008 | permalink

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Spending Against Spending

Talk about new spending.

The North Carolina pharmaceutical executives funding Rightchange.com are spending freely with yet another ad assailing Obama on cable TV. This one faults Obama for proposing $3.5 trillion in "new spending" over 10 years. The ad calls it "Barack Obama's Bailout." The tab, according to the ad, includes "tax giveaways to people who pay no taxes, new welfare handouts, tax rates as high as 54 percent."

The ad doesn't cite a source for the $3.5 trillion figure, but Factcheck.org notes that one analysis finds "Obama's tax plan would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion by 2018, while McCain's plan would bring about a projected $5 trillion increase in the same time frame." Then again, maybe that's not the study they meant to cite.

-- Will Evans

10:27 PM ET | 10-11-2008 | permalink

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Committee For Misleading In Politics?

Obama has a soft spot in his heart for sex offenders; the Committee for Truth in Politics says so.

The group, as we noted before, was created by a North Carolina GOP operative and is represented by a Republican lawyer in a suit against the Federal Election Commission.

Its new ad shows images of children, followed by a photo of Obama next to an opening prison door. "In the Illinois Senate, Barack Obama was the only member that voted to allow early release for convicted sexual abusers," it says.

Odd move for an ambitious politician? You bet. The Politico reports that Obama did indeed vote in the interests of the little-noticed sex-offender lobby...by accident. He corrected the vote the same day.

As Politico notes, Obama even wrote in his book, The Audacity of Hope, that his advisor, David Axelrod, said the accidental vote would likely be grist for a future attack ad.

Maybe someone at the Committee for Truth in Politics read Obama's book?

-- Will Evans

10:19 PM ET | 10-11-2008 | permalink

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Money To Burn

Most people are fretting about their money these days. But there's a select few who, in the heat of the election season, are eager to give their cash away. We're going to name some names in the liberal donor network...

VoteVets is a 501(c)(4) noprofit, so usually we don't know who funds it. But the group had to reveal that its latest ad against Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) was bankrolled mainly by two $100,000 contributions from Northern Californians.

One of them, Michael Kieschnick, is president and co-founder of the liberal phone company Working Assets. He also sits on the board of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.

The other, David DesJardins, worked as a software engineer at Google. He made out pretty well. Here's what the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in 2007:

These days, desJardins, wears many hats, none full time. He invests in startups, evangelizes other Googlers on the merits of philanthropy, consults for a Defense Department-sponsored think tank that specializes in encrypted communication, and is the world's top-ranked player of Titan, a board game featuring armies of mythological beasts. All the while, he's remodeling his home in Burlingame and working with an architect to build a second one. Initially, desJardins' time off was consumed with the complexities of managing his financial bounty, including tax planning and setting up a plan for charitable giving (he and his wife created a $20 million fund within the Silicon Valley Community Foundation).

VoteVets also got $15,000 from an actual resident of North Carolina, liberal blogger James Protzner.

Meanwhile, Campaign Money Watch, which is running ads against Colorado Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), just reported a cash infusion including...

Continue reading "Money To Burn" »

10:06 PM ET | 10-11-2008 | permalink

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Are These Ads Legal?

The question is ever-present in the background of independent political groups, and this year is no different.

Federal campaign finance law is a veritable Tattersall plaid of criss-cross lines when it comes to the role of tax-exempt groups (our own FAQs on the subject are here). Now campaign finance reformer Fred Wertheimer argues that two tax-exempt groups are violating the law.

Democracy 21 says the American Issues Project and the American Leadership Project ought to be political action committees. That would restrict the contributions they could accept and would impose stronger rules for disclosing their finances.

AIP made its reputation with a $2-million ad buy, ominously questioning Barack Obama's ties to one-time radical Bill Ayers. The money came from a Texas businessman who had given financial backing to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth back in 2004.

A more recent ad by AIP conspicuously didn't name any candidates, but just said, "Liberals protect corruption." It arguably could have been aimed at one of the issues raised by Wertheimer.

Here's the deal: AIP is a 501(c)(4) advocacy group, and the law says its primary purpose has to be issue advocacy, not campaign politics. AIP is using the (c)(4) exemption originally granted by the IRS to another, defunct group; AIP itself showed up just a few weeks ago. The Ayers ad was its first. So the question is, when does its purpose get defined? Immediately, or some months, or years, down the road?

Democracy 21 wants investigations by the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

AIP's lawyer is Cleta Mitchell, one of Washington's most forceful speakers for less regulation of political money. She responded to Wertheimer in a letter rich with sarcasm, saying she thought Democracy 21 "would be applauding AIP" for connecting the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac scandal with campaign contributions. She also challenges "you and Democracy 21 in your purported role as 'watchdogs' of 'money and politics.'"

And we'll get into the other group, the American Leadership Project, after the jump.

Continue reading "Are These Ads Legal?" »

8:20 PM ET | 10-10-2008 | permalink

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Using Humor Against McCain

Politics is more popular than ever on comedy shows these days. So why not bring comedy to politics?

A new ad series by an Ohio 527 organization tries using the funny bone to clobber McCain on the economy, health care and Social Security. The first ad, which debuted in Ohio during Saturday Night Live, mocks McCain's comments that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." A guy in a bar jokes, "So what Sen. McCain is saying is that, 'The recession is not real.'...Guess what? This beer gut - not real!" (The beer gut is real.) Then there's the obligatory unibrow joke, because every attack ad needs one. McCain, by the way, has said he was referring to American workers as the strong fundamentals.

The ad comes from Bring Ohio Back, a group last seen during the 2004 election blasting President Bush with TV ads and hosting get-out-the-vote celebrity bus tours staring Hilary Swank, Steve Buscemi, Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

The new ad series is suppossed to represent "a sitcom in 30 seconds," said co-founder Jeff Rusnak, a consultant who worked on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's 2006 campaign. "The airwaves are so crowded...we wanted something to penetrate and get people's attention."

The series features two guys (Dave and Joe) drinking at a bar and riffing on McCain. They end with one of the guys asking the camera, "What's wrong with John McCain?" Watch them on the group's Web site, and laugh, or not?

Now for the group's leadership and funding...

Continue reading "Using Humor Against McCain" »

6:37 PM ET | 10-10-2008 | permalink

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Attacking Democrats Without Leaving A Trace

The American Issues Project, which burst into the presidential campaign in August with multi-million-dollar attack ads tying Barack Obama to former Weatherman radical Bill Ayres, is back.

The group's new million-dollar ad buy, though, takes a very different tack. It blames the economic crisis on congressional Democrats, tracing the meltdown to such "Senate liberals" as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). (Note: Reid and Dodd aren't up for reelection.) The ad concludes with the (grammatically iffy) question, "Who should you trust on the economy?" It comes as Democrats, from Obama to Senate and House candidates, seem to rise in the polls every time the Dow Jones falls.

Talk about a brilliant strategy. The ad raises doubts about all Democrats -- "liberals protect corruption" -- without actually naming any candidates. That means the American Issues Project doesn't need to file any papers showing who footed the bill. Because AIP's previous ad attacked Obama, the group had to disclose that Texas billionaire Harold Simmons bankrolled it. An AIP spokesman confirmed that won't be happening this time around.

There's another benefit as well. As a 501(c)(4) group, American Issues Project can do unlimited amounts of issue advocacy but would jeapordize its tax-exempt status if political work became its primary activity. So AIP can say this ad is about issues, not candidates, thereby protecting its tax status, and it can still implicitly criticize candidates at the same time.

The smart strategy is no accident. The group counts as consultants two GOP operatives connected to the most influential conservative groups of the 2004 presidential election. There's Chris LaCivita, who worked with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and Tony Feather, who co-founded Progress for America.

With brains like these, no wonder AIP has figured out how to have its cake and eat it too.

-- Will Evans

4:56 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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October Bombardment, Senate Edition, Colorado Chapter

There are so many Senate ads coming out right now that we had to slice off these Colorado ads for their own post.

The American Future Fund criticizes Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall for being out of touch and financially unresponsible. AFF blames him for "no real reform, just bickering and bailouts for billionaires," and tells him to get "a reality check."

Campaign Money Watch, on the other hand, suggests Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer has ethics problems by tying him to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The ad says Schaffer defended sweatshops on the Mariana Islands after taking a "luxury trip" there arranged by Abramoff's firm. Back in the '90s, the Marianas government was one of Abramoff's big clients. Here's a more detailed, nonpartisan version of events.

You can check out Campaign Money Watch's funding here. Funders of the group's charitible affiliate include George Soros' Open Society Institute. Now let's take a look at the group's leadership...

Continue reading "October Bombardment, Senate Edition, Colorado Chapter" »

4:39 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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October Bombardment, Part II: Senate Edition

Just as the presidential race is awash with new attack ads, Senate candidates face a crushing wave of messages from outside groups as well. Here, we feature the American Energy Alliance, Americans for Job Security, Freedom's Watch, Health Care for America Now and VoteVets. And they just keep coming. Let's start in Oregon:

Freedom's Watch
The conservative casino magnate-funded group blasts Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley of Oregon on taxes. In the ad, a driver listens to the car radio, which broadcasts a caller on talk radio saying he's upset that Merkley wants to raise taxes. The radio host confirms, "You're right, I saw that on TV." The fictional host may have seen it on TV because Freedom's Watch recently broadcast an another ad about it. So, try to follow this: the TV ad cites a radio caller who is backed up by a radio host who cites a TV ad.

American Energy Alliance
We travel east to Kentucky, where this conservative group with ties to the oil industry is spending $108,000 on a radio ad against Bruce Lunsford, the Democratic challenger to the newly vulnerable Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The ad blames Lunsford for the Kentucky system of taxing gas, calling it the "Lunsford gas tax." It says, "Nobody likes paying more at the pump -- unless you're Bruce Lunsford." The ad echoes an earlier TV ad by McConnell, which was analyzed by Factcheck.org.

Travel on to New Hampshire and North Carolina...

Continue reading "October Bombardment, Part II: Senate Edition" »

4:18 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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October Bombardment

Here it comes, folks. Outside groups are unleashing a giant barrage of advertising in the presidential and Senate races.

Let's tackle the presidential ads first. Featured below are Health Care for America Now, United Auto Workers, VoteVets, Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. Whew!

Health Care for America Now
This coalition of unions and liberal groups is spending $1 million a TV ad warning that McCain's health care plan could cause people to lose their insurance. It features a cancer survivor who says of McCain, "He wants me to fight cancer and the insurance companies? Fine. I'll take you both on." The voiceover says, "Ask Senator McCain which side he's on."

It's running on national cable and in Ohio.

United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America
The union is spending $3 million on TV ads in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The slogan: "We can't afford John McCain." One ad features an auto worker who says, "My friends are losing their jobs. His friends are getting bigger tax breaks." Another shows an auto worker with her son, who has asthma. She says, "Sometimes he can't breathe. So health benefits are really important for us. But John McCain? He's going to tax our health benefits."

More ads after the jump...

Continue reading "October Bombardment" »

4:06 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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Citizens Against Government Waste, And For McCain

During the first presidential debate, John McCain ripped into Barack Obama for requesting millions in "earmark pork-barrel spending." Then he gave a high-profile shout-out: "I suggest that people go up on the Web site of Citizens Against Government Waste, and they'll look at those projects."

Citizens Against Government Waste said its Web site traffic shot up to 10 times its usual after McCain's comment, and it quickly returned the favor. The group's political action committee is calling McCain a "taxpayer hero" in TV ads airing over the next two weeks in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. The group has never produced TV ads for a presidential candidate before.

The ad says, "In 25 years, McCain never requested a single pork barrel spending project...Barack Obama? $740 million in special interest earmarks in just 3 years." It's a small buy, but the group says it will reach an estimated 930,000 adults.

CAGW gives "taxpayer hero" status to lawmakers who vote with its position at least 80 percent of the time. "Taxpayer superheroes" are those who vote with it 100 percent of the time. For 2007, according to CAGW, McCain got a perfect score, but was "only present for 11 of the 35 Senate votes" at issue, so therefore was "not eligible for the Taxpayer Super Hero Award." McCain has a lifetime rating of 88 percent. Obama is at 22 percent.

McCain and the nonprofit have other ties as well. A Washington Post investigation details the connections, including a CAGW board member -- a Vietnam War POW with McCain -- who volunteered for McCain's campaign. The Post reported that the group recently came to McCain's aid on a controversial policy issue.

Citizens Against Government Waste has been one of the most cited authorities on earmark abuse. It's also been the subject of some criticism. The St. Petersburg Times reported that the organization "has traded on its watchdog reputation by taking money from companies and trade associations and then conducted lobbying and public relations campaigns on their behalf." In its investigation of corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Democratic staff of the Senate Finance Committee issued a 2006 report that found "a pattern of CAGW producing public relations materials favorable to Mr. Abramoff's clients." CAGW denied it.

McCain, though, has been a steadfast supporter. Over the years, he helped CAGW release its list of earmarks, the Congressional Pig Book. This past April, McCain put out a press release commending the latest Pig Book. "Once again," he said, "My friends at CAGW have done a great job of compiling a comprehensive list of unnecessary and wasteful pork barrel projects. By shedding light on these egregious projects, they are helping to make Congress more accountable to the American people."

-- Will Evans

2:38 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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Democrats As Big Brother?

The National Federation for Independent Business calls itself "the nation's leading small business association." It's also a lobbying powerhouse with an emphatically pro-Republican political action committee.

The NFIB is spending nearly $1 million on TV advertising pounding Democratic Senate candidates in Minnesota and Maine for supporting legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize. Opponents of the bill say it will take away secret ballots in union elections.

The ads portray Al Franken in Minnesota and Tom Allen of Maine as backing Big Brother-style surveillance of American workers. An undercover agent with a walkie-talkie and a control room with multiple video cameras monitor an ordinary worker entering his workplace. Each ad cites labor contributions to the candidate and concludes, "Give him enough money and American freedoms go right out the window."

NFIB also placed newspaper advertisements opposing the candidates. And it has helped lead and fund the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which also ran ads against Allen and Franken with the same theme.

Business associations tend to veer conservative, but NFIB has especially strong Republican credentials...

Continue reading "Democrats As Big Brother?" »

3:34 PM ET | 10- 8-2008 | permalink

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Trying To Make Idaho Competitive

Yes, Democrats are more optimistic than ever about capturing Republican Senate seats, maybe even enough to reach the filibuster-proof 60-seat majority.

But Idaho?

Majority Action, a liberal 527 organization, has trained its attack ads on vulnerable Republican senators in North Carolina and Oregon. But now the group is airing an ad (below) against the Republican Senate candidate in Idaho -- and Jim Risch is certainly not looking vulnerable.

Risch, the current lieutenant governor, has a nearly two-to-one lead over his Democratic opponent, former congressman Larry LaRocco, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll. (The race also includes an independent who legally changed his name to Pro-Life.)

Though Risch is running to replace Sen. Larry Craig -- you might remember his sex scandal? -- NPR political editor Ken Rudin rates the race Strong Republican. Not exactly the place you want to spend hard-earned money on a Democrat.

Or maybe it depends: How much money is enough to take that shot? Majority Action just reported its latest haul:

Some Answers On Clarion, And Still Some Questions

Some questions were left hanging when we broadcast and blogged last month on the Clarion Fund, the 501(c)(3) charity that distributed its DVD, "Obsession: Radical Islam's Attack on the West," across 14 battleground states last month. We don't have all the answers now, but we have some new details.

A summary of what we knew then: The obscure Manhattan-based charity had sent out the DVD as inserts in Sunday papers three days after the 9/11 anniversary. NPR got complaints from some listeners about the inflammatory nature of the video. They said it seemed like a partisan message in favor of Republican John McCain, even though "Obsession" was produced long before the presidential campaign began. Clarion acknowledged that it intended to make Islamic radicalism a campaign issue, and said it chose the battleground states to attract media attention. It also did mass mailings of "Obsession."

On Sept. 11 itself, the video was shown at a free screening in Dearborn, MI, a city with a large Arab-American population. The organizer, Joe Wierzbicki, is a Republican campaign consultant whose clients include two anti-Obama groups.

Since then, we've spoken with Weirzbicki, who hadn't responded to our initial requests. We've talked with a PR firm that was hired by Clarion the day our broadcast story aired. And we've obtained Clarion's initial filing for a 501(c)(3) tax exemption.

Wierzbicki said he was recruited to handle the Dearborn event because he's from the Detroit area. He said they hoped to spark a discussion with local Muslims about the threat from radical groups, but turnout was low and there were no protesters.

He said he was hired by Right Reel, a distributor of conservative films, but he expressed doubt that Right Reel was the ultimate funder of the screening. Did the money to pay him come from Clarion? "I don't know if they were involved," he said. "They never contacted me."

Clarion's new PR firm took questions from us and tried to get answers...

Continue reading "Some Answers On Clarion, And Still Some Questions" »

6:20 PM ET | 10- 7-2008 | permalink

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Citizens For Strength And Security Unveiled

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) might be curious who is funding an attack ad blaming her for job losses, especially now when she's increasingly in danger losing her own job.

All the ad said was "Paid for by Citizens for Strength and Security." Turns out the citizens are unions.

According to a new government filing, the group's ad was funded by the Service Employees International Union ($220,000), the Communications Workers of America ($200,000) and the Patriot Majority Fund ($280,000). Patriot Majority itself is funded mainly by labor unions.

Patriot Majority is, like Citizens for Strength and Security, a 527 organization run by a Democratic operative with ads targeting Senate races. Why not just merge?

-- Will Evans

3:05 PM ET | 10- 7-2008 | permalink

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McGovern Breaks With Democrats

After Democrat Barack Obama does battle with Republican John McCain tonight, a prominent Obama supporter is scheduled to pop up in the post-debate ad breaks, stating his opposition to pro-union legislation that enjoys the backing of Obama and Democratic leaders.

George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee and now a venerated party elder, appears in minute-long ads by the Employee Freedom Action Committee, which is using criticism of the Employee Free Choice Act as a club to beat on Democratic Senate candidates in several states.

While unions say the bill will make it easier for workers to join a union without corporate harassment, McGovern and industry-backed groups say it will take away secret ballots in union elections, allowing the organizers to intimidate workers.

McGovern says in the ad: "It's hard to believe that any politician would agree to a law denying millions of employees the right to a private vote."

At least at first glance, it's also hard to believe that arch-liberal McGovern would team up with Rick Berman, who runs the Employee Freedom Action Committee. It has got to be one of the oddest of odd couples.

Berman has made a career of attacking liberal activists, Democrat-backed policies and labor unions on behalf of industry. He assisted Newt Gingrich in his climb to become speaker of the House. The Employee Freedom Action Committee is one of several nonprofits set up by Berman to engage in aggressive public relations without indentifying the donors behind them. This year, he's spending $30 million to attack Democratic Senate candidates with ads about the labor bill. His group will spend $2 million airing the McGovern ad in key Senate races in Kentucky, Oregon, Maine, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Colorado. (Another group, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, is plowing this same anti-union ground in Senate races.)

McGovern, on the other hand, is celebrated at Democratic party gatherings. In a dramatic move this spring, he abandoned Hillary Clinton and endorsed Barack Obama in the name of party unity.

Then again, when McGovern says in the ad, "I've always been a champion of labor unions," it may be a bit of a stretch. (He goes on to say, "But I fear that today's union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections.") He was a congressman and senator from South Dakota, a right-to-work state that prohibits "closed" union shops. McGovern came out against the Employee Free Choice Act in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in August. He also turns up at the Web site of the FirstJobs Institute, a component in Berman's network.

And not that we believe in grudges, but the record shows that when McGovern was on track to win the nomination in 1972, organized labor did all that it could to stop him.

It's also worth wondering what impact the ad might have tonight -- a presidential nominee from 36 years ago talking about a bill that's pretty much guaranteed to go unmentioned by the 2008 contenders.

-- Will Evans & Peter Overby

2:59 PM ET | 10- 7-2008 | permalink

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Another Wave Of Union Power

The Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO labor federation are spearheading another massive wave of anti-McCain -- er, officially pro-Obama -- outreach in battleground states.

SEIU says it has sent 75 percent of its staff to key states for a final push on undecided voters before the election. Busloads of volunteers are distributing flyers comparing Obama's health care plan (favorably) to McCain's, with more in the mail. And the union sent DVDs about the health care plans to 225,000 seniors, with follow-up phone calls "making sure they're actually watching the DVD," according to SEIU political director Jon Youngdahl. The DVDs went to Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.

"Wer'e trying to reach further and go deeper than we ever had before," said SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

SEIU says it's just bought $1 million of air time in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for an ad featuring two women in a grocery store chatting about health care bills. "And get this," one of them says. "McCain wants to start taxing our benefits."
Says the other, "Maybe you should send him your bills."

More on the AFL-CIO after the jump...

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6:39 PM ET | 10- 6-2008 | permalink

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Protecting A Republican Incumbent

In North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole looks newly vulnerable to a national Democratic surge, conservative outside groups are coming to her defense -- predictably, by attacking her Democratic challenger. The groups' ads don't even mention Dole.

Freedom's Watch has a new TV ad painting the Democratic candidate as a tax-and-spender: "Kay Hagan voted for over 50 higher taxes and fees -- on income, birth, medical care, cars, food, even death," the ad says. "Hagan's budgets grew government over 40 percent, almost doubled state debt, and brought economic growth to a halt."

Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity recently extended a radio ad buy that also hits Hagan on taxes, and adds in criticism over her stance on offshore drilling.

"You know that feeling you get when you fill your tank and your jaw drops when you see the costs," the ad says. "Thank Kay Hagan if those eye-popping gas prices continue for years." Listen here.

Americans for Prosperity has more than passing interest in drilling. Its foundation's chair and founder is David Koch of Koch Industries, which runs oil refining and pipeline companies.

Another Americans for Prosperity Foundation board member is Richard Fink, a Koch executive who serves as a director of the refining subsidiary. Fink helps control AFP's purse strings. He is president of the Koch-affiliated Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which gave AFP's foundation $2.2 million from 2005-06, according to the Foundation Center.

-- Will Evans

3:30 PM ET | 10- 6-2008 | permalink

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A Race To The Bottom Of The Cesspool?

Political strategists have always understood that independent groups can deliver messages that the campaigns don't want to touch themselves. And that's the way it's been this year -- up till now.

Some examples: Barack Obama's campaign avoided questions about John McCain's health. But Brave New PAC and the California Nurses Association waded right in. McCain's campaign didn't play up allegations about ties between Obama and Chicago militant-turned-educator Bill Ayers, but the American Issues Project and Judicial Confirmation Network did.

But now, it seems, the campaigns want to race the independent groups -- all the way to the bottom of the cesspool. The election is just 30 days away, and polls show Obama solidifying a lead over McCain. The candidates' early pledges to run high-minded, issue-oriented campaigns are a dim memory, if that.

McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, took ownership of the Obama-Ayers issue yesterday, saying that Obama is "palling around with terrorists." The Republican National Committee swiftly followed with a lengthy and critical dopesheet on the Obama-Ayers story.

Palin also said Obama "is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," echoing the pitch of a recent ad by the National Rifle Association, in which a hunter asks, "Where is this guy from?" Again, subtle questions about race and ethnicity have, up to now, been left to independent players.

The McCain campaign telegraphed its punches via media leaks. Obama's campaign did not. With no fanfare, it put up an ad depicting McCain as too old to handle the job.

This isn't to suggest the independent groups will be left with nothing to say. A candidate attack ad has never deterred his or her allies from joining in.

It does make you look back a couple of months, though. Remember that McCain ad of such triviality, mocking Obama as a Britney-and-Paris type celeb?

Now, a financial meltdown and a few presidential polls later, it looks like summer foolishness.

-- Peter Overby

5:12 PM ET | 10- 5-2008 | permalink

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Jim Bopp's Fight To Liberate Political Money

No sooner had we noted that conservative attorney James Bopp seemed to be setting up to sue the Federal Election Commission over an anti-abortion, anti-Obama ad, we got this news: Bopp sued the FEC Friday over an anti-abortion, anti-Obama ad.

Only, it's not the National Right to Life Committee ad we were writing about.

Turns out the indefatigable Bopp also represents the Committee for Truth in Politics, recently formed by a North Carolina Republican operative. Bopp is suing to protect the group from any FEC enforcement actions that might prevent it from running its ads -- even though the FEC hasn't done anything yet and isn't likely to take any action till after the election.

Bopp did essentially the same thing earlier this year on behalf of another group, a 527 called The Real Truth About Obama. That group has also targeted Obama's record on abortion, but its ads haven't run yet.

Bopp won't say whether it all ads up to a coordinated legal strategy. But the three simultaneous efforts hammer home his view of federal campaign finance laws: that they chill free speech if you have to ask permission from a slow-moving government agency, or get a preliminary injunction against the agency, before you air a political ad -- or else face the threat of fines later.

"We have clients that want to do real things," he says. "There's all sorts of people out there that want to participate in our democracy...They don't want to suffer a future investigation and enforcement action when the Constitution protects what they do."

Those who want to regulate political money, of course, see it differently. They say Bopp and his clients want to tear down the legal walls that keep big donors, corporations and undisclosed contributions from having undue electoral influence. And the legal walls are hardly rigid. The McCain-Feingold law made them stronger in 2002. But Bopp blew a new hole in them last year, as lawyer for Wisconsin Right To Life -- just his latest of many victories.

Meanwhile, the Committee for Truth in Politics says in its lawsuit that it's got another hard-hitting ad to let loose. To quote from the ad:

It's tragic, but true. Two-thirds of all prisoners convicted of rape or sexual assault committed their crime against a child. Even worse, the average child predator exploits seven to two hundred victims in their lifetime. In the Illinois Senate, Barack Obama was the only member that voted to allow early release for convicted sexual abusers.

More after the jump...

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9:29 PM ET | 10- 4-2008 | permalink

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Anti-Obama Abortion Ads Latest Cause For GOP Lawyer

Republican attorney James Bopp, the one-man wrecking crew against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance system, is at it again.

Bopp, representing the National Right to Life Committee, recently wrote to the Federal Election Commission asking if the regulatory system will allow the committee to run radio ads critical of Obama. But when an agency gets a letter like that from Bopp, it's usually the prelude to a lawsuit. He has a history of using advocacy ads as test cases to chip away at campaign reform laws he argues are unconstitutional. And he's very good at it.

Bopp, however, tell us his letter isn't leading up to anything. All he wants, he says, is the go-ahead to run the ads. "We want to run these ads -- and we don't want to go to jail," he said.

(Not that he loves GOP nominee John McCain, whose name is on the law Bopp lives to destroy. In the Republican primary, Bopp joined forces with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.)

The radio ad recounts a dispute between the anti-abortion organization and Obama over a bill he voted against that would have given legal protection to aborted fetuses showing signs of life. Citing a Factcheck.org analysis that vindicates some of National Right to Life's allegations and calls Obama "wrong," the ad says, "Will Obama now apologize for calling us liars when we were the ones telling the truth? Barack Obama: a candidate whose word you can't believe in."

More after the jump...

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10:00 PM ET | 10- 3-2008 | permalink

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Another Vague 527 Name, Another Attack Ad

Former Sen. John Edwards' political career may be over, but apparently there's still work for his campaign veterans.

A new 527 group set up by a former Edwards campaign official blames Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) for lost jobs. "Over the years," says the group's new TV ad, "she's gone onto 12 different jobs in Washington, while thousands of our jobs have been eliminated by unfair trade deals she supported." The ad ends with, "Sen. Dole, stop supporting tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas."

Democrats are currently taking a second hard look at Dole, who a few weeks ago had seemed to be consolidating her strength. This new 527, formed last month by Lora Haggard, appears to be part of that re-evaluation.

The group is cleverly named Citizens for Strength and Security. And perhaps in case that doesn't resonate, Haggard formed another 527 last month as well, called Citizens for Safety and Security.

Haggard has had plenty of experience with vague-but-pleasant-sounding organization names. Besides serving as Edwards' CFO in his presidential bid this year and as his comptroller in 2004, she's been a director of the Edwards-affiliated groups New American Optimists and the One America Committee. In 2004, she and other former Edwards aides ran Citizens for a Strong Senate, which spent millions on attack ads against Republican Senate candidates.

Jonathan Prince, another Citizens for a Strong Senate alum who recently served as Edwards' deputy campaign manager, now reportedly runs the independent expenditure arm of the Democratic National Committee.

Citizens for a Strong Senate was funded mainly by multi-million-dollar contributions from Herb and Marion Sandler, a California couple who ran a savings-and-loan before selling it to Wachovia Corp. These days, the Sandlers are bankrolling a nonprofit journalism organization called ProPublica.

Though Citizens for a Strong Senate hasn't reported doing much recently, it received $25,000 this year from Texas trial lawyer Ken Bailey, who won a historic settlement against tobacco companies in 1997. Perhaps Bailey believes in Strength and Security as well.

-- Will Evans

7:04 PM ET | 10- 3-2008 | permalink

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New Group Adds To Din On Obama's Abortion Record

A brand-new nonprofit organization with a classic attack-group name is airing TV ads in battleground states knocking Obama on his abortion stance.

The Committee for Truth in Politics, which was incorporated just one week ago in North Carolina, is running the ad in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin [and North Carolina]. Showing images of a cooing, yawning baby, the ad says, "Sen. Obama, why did you vote against protecting infants that survive late-term abortions, not once but four times?" It concludes, "Call Senator Obama. Tell him to stop trying to overturn these basic human rights."

The ad echoes the recent message of Born Alive Truth, an Illinois 527 organization.

The incorporator and sole director of the Committee for Truth is NC attorney Bill Peaslee, formerly the chief of staff, legal counsel and political director for the North Carolina Republican Party.

This year he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. He told the Charlotte Observer that his first choice for president was Mike Huckabee: "Is (McCain) the candidate I wanted? No. But I'll vote for him. And I know he's going to be a lot better than Barack Obama."

Peaslee also incorporated another group at the same time as the Committee for Truth in Politics. It's called the Committee for a Balanced Congress.

-- Will Evans

2:23 PM ET | 10- 3-2008 | permalink

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Unions Mobilize Against McCain-Palin

Organized labor is on the move for Obama.

The same day that the food and commercial workers union launched an anti-McCain ad, one day after a nurses union's attack, and two days after the AFL-CIO said it would blanket members with political mail, the National Education Association announced a "blitz" of 500,000 mailers lambasting McCain's health care plan in battleground states. Seperately, the union-backed Alliance for Retired Americans is running a TV ad critical of McCain's stance on Social Security.

The NEA's mailer, to be followed by phone calls and personal visits to undecided members, says that McCain will tax Americans on their health care benefits. An accompanying Web site lets you calculate the tax. (The mailer doesn't mention that McCain's plan includes a $5,000 tax credit for families to buy health insurance.)

Click on the image to view the mailer:

Even before this, the NEA blasted out 4.2 million mailers and made 2.1 million calls in its 2008 voter drive.

The Alliance for Retired Americans, meanwhile, will run a TV ad in Ohio and Colorado on local cable channels popular with older viewers. The ad includes a clip of McCain calling the Social Security system a "disgrace." It will be similar to this Alliance ad, which ran in Pennsylvania earlier this year:

The alliance was created by the AFL-CIO in 2001 as an advocacy organization for retired union members. Find out more after the jump...

Continue reading "Unions Mobilize Against McCain-Palin" »

8:42 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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Pitting Women Against McCain

The battle for women voters continues.

Seeking to drive a wedge between women and the McCain-Palin ticket, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union launched an ad today portraying McCain as a foe of equal pay for female workers.

The ad shows women from various occupations, telling viewers that they make less money than men. It cites pay discrimination at Wal-Mart, since the ad is run under the banner of the union's "Wake Up Wal-Mart" campaign. What's McCain have to do with this? "He sided with corporate lobbyists against equal pay," the voiceover says. "Tell John McCain we can't afford it any longer."

(The fact-checkers at Politifact.org note that McCain says he supports equal pay for women.)

The ad is running in Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington D.C. It goes nicely with radio ads by People for the American Way, which also cast McCain as unfriendly to equal pay. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is using a different issue -- violence against women -- to deter female support for McCain-Palin.

It's not an accident that the union's ad came out on the day of a debate featuring the GOP's first female vice presidential nominee.

-- Will Evans

8:15 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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Pharmaceutical Money Flows To Anti-Obama 527

RightChange.com, a conservative 527 group funded by two pharmaceutical executives, has unleashed a volley of attack ads bashing Obama on economic issues.

The group just reported $2.7 million in contributions from its president, Fred Eshleman, CEO of PPD, a pharmaceutical research firm in North Carolina. PPD's chairman, Ernest Mario, gave an additional $1 million. Mario also runs Capnia Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company developing a system to treat migraines using medical gas.

RightChange.com's other directors also have connections to the health industry. Board member Jeff Barnhart is CEO of Cabarrus Community Health Centers, which RightChange's corporate secretary, Fletcher Hartsell, helped found. Both Barnhart and Hartsell are Republican state legislators in North Carolina.

One of RightChange's new ads mocks Obama's rallying cry of "Yes we can." It says, "Will his tax plan reduce wages for millions of workers 17 percent?" Cut to a clip of Obama shouting his slogan. "Will Obama really raise taxes on tens of thousands of middle-class workers?" Roll the clip again.

RightChange is a political newcomer. It seemed to come out of nowhere last month, first with a bizarre ad most memorable for its bungee cord, then with a direct assault on Obama. And now this barrage.

More ads and fact-checking after the jump...

Continue reading "Pharmaceutical Money Flows To Anti-Obama 527" »

3:10 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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Nurses Union Questions McCain's Health, Palin's Qualifications

Just in time for tonight's vice presidential debate, a nurses union is reminding voters that Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin would be "one heartbeat away" from the presidency. The nurses think this is not a good thing.

The ad by the California Nurses Association is quite a mishmash: Photos of McCain and Palin float in and out, to the pulse of a gospel-tinged song about being "one heartbeat away." There's audio of Palin wondering was a vice president actually does (the only spoken words other than the disclaimer). And attentive viewers who read the quickly disappearing text on the screen will discover that it's actually a negative ad, faulting Palin on a litany of issues, from creationism and censorship to earmark hypocrisy and abuse of power.

At one point, an image of McCain -- does he look stricken here? -- fades to black as a heart monitor flatlines. Ouch... And as if that weren't enough, the group's press release cites an actuary firm's assessment that "McCain would have a 1 in 4 chance of dying in office from natural causes."

In its own, more palatable way, the ad raises the same question posed by Brave New PAC last week: Is John McCain healthy enough to be president? The Brave New PAC ad was rejected by CNN and pulled by MSNBC.

This new ad from the nurses group is running in some of every advocacy group's favorite states: Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The California union and its national affiliate, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, have 80,000 members in 50 states. The association is an outspoken advocate for government-financed, Medicare-style universal health care. During the presidential primaries, the union ran advertisements criticizing the top Democratic candidates, including Obama, for not going far enough with their health care plans.

-- Will Evans

1:04 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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It's All About The Supreme Court

Isaac Newton told us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This week he's looking like a political pundit.

Right after the liberal People for the American Way launched a radio campaign criticizing McCain on Supreme Court picks he might make, the conservative Judicial Conservation Network has gone on TV hitting Obama on his prospective Supreme Court nominees.

The Judicial Confirmation Network warns that the next president could pick four new justices. (We hope none of the current nine feel hurt that they're being slated for death or retirement.) The ad then segues into a popular conservative theme: Obama's now-infamous connections to corrupt developer Tony Rezko, former Weatherman Bill Ayres and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. "Obama chose to associate with these men," the voiceover says, "while voting against these men [President Bush's Supreme Court picks Samuel Alito and John Roberts]."

The $550,000 ad buy is set to run in Michigan and Ohio and on national cable, the Network says.

The Judicial Confirmation Network is run by Gary Marx, an organizer for President Bush's 2004 campaign and former head of the Virginia Christian Coalition. Its legal counsel, Wendy Long, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and worked for two Republican senators. Both Marx and Long were members of a National Faith and Values Steering Committee for Mitt Romney's presidential primary campaign earlier this year.

Conservative pundit James Hirsen serves on the Judicial Confirmation Network's board. Republican Bob Schaffer, now running for Senate, is the organization's Colorado chairman.

People for the American Way and the Judicial Confirmation Network are usually heard from during the Senate nominating debates. The presidential campaign gives them a chance to tune up.

-- Will Evans

6:43 PM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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Planned Parenthood Depicts Palin As "Heartless"

Taking aim squarely at liberal women who might find GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's candidacy appealing, Planned Parenthood Action Fund's new ad portrays Palin and John McCain as insensitive to rape victims.

The ad starts with a rape victim telling her story, then switches to the policy employed in Wasilla, AK, when Palin was mayor: Women who had been assaulted had to pay for their own rape examinations. Factcheck.org says that while Wasilla did indeed charge victims, it's not clear whether Palin is responsible.

The ad uses a less-than-flattering photo of Palin. It also faults McCain -- portrayed with a smugly sinister smile -- for voting against the Violence Against Women Act. Then the rape victim says, "That is something, to me, that's unthinkable. It scares me to death." It's not clear whether she's referring to McCain's vote, Palin's policy or rape itself.

The ad is scheduled to run in the swing states of Missouri, Wisconsin and, to reach Northern Virginia's women voters as well as the Washington press corps, Washington D.C.

-- Will Evans

2:10 PM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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Evangelical Leader Goes All In For McCain

And to think that anyone thought James Dobson would sit out this presidential race.

The Christian Right leader and his advocacy group, Focus on the Family Action, are planning a multi-state strategy to help elect McCain, and to prevent Democratic gains in Congress while they're at it.

The group's September newsletter spells out some nightmare scenarios it says could happen with an Obama adminisration: Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton; open homosexuality in the barracks; a Freedom of Choice Act invalidating all abortion limitations.

The newsletter then explains the group's action plan for defeating Obama: 1. Harness the media with crafty "marketing ingenuity." 2. Directly target voters "in a big way in up to 16 states with key U.S. Senate and House races." That will include mailers, emails and "carefully targeted radio ads."

Click on the image for the full newsletter:

For the mailers, Focus on the Family Action has prepared special messages for battleground states. In the Colorado version, for example, Dobson writes:

As a Colorado voter, you are right in the middle of one of the most important and closely watched Senate races in the country. The stakes in this contest could not be higher. If Barack Obama wins the White House -- a very real possibility -- the U.S. Senate will be the last defense against his liberal agenda on abortion and marriage. Sen. Obama has already promised to support the Freedom of Choice Act, which would overturn every pro-life law on abortion in the nation. He has also pledged to abolish the Defense of Marriage Act and to allow open homosexuality in our military. The only hope of stopping this radical onslaught will be a strong showing of commonsense conservatives in the Senate.

Of the Senate candidates, Dobson writes that Republican Bob Schaffer "maintained a consistently pro-life and pro-family record in Congress" while Democrat Mark Udall "established an audaciously liberal record." An accompanying chart contrasts their views on marriage, abortion and taxes. Click on the image below to view the mailer:

Similar mailers lambast Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Democratic Senate candidates Al Franken of Minnesota and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. Still other mailers target House races in Texas, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Michigan and Florida -- all with an emphasis on Obama. View them here.

It's unclear, however, how many of these mailers will go out. The September member newsletter contains this postscript:

You should be aware that contributions have been well below budget all summer, which has put us in a position where we may have to scale back some of the plans I've mentioned. Your gift now, however, can still help ensure that we are able to go full force with the full plan -- right up to November 4.

Dobson's money plea, plus that suggestion of a black-robed Hillary Clinton on the high bench, constitute an admirable piece of the direct-mail writer's craft.

-- Will Evans

1:56 PM ET | 10- 1-2008 | permalink

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