November 3, 2008

"The Culture Of Death" And Other Last-Minute Volleys

With the campaign din becoming ever more shrill in these last hours, opponents of Barack Obama are hoping an anti-abortion message can cut through to sympathetic voters.

The National Pro-Life Alliance put up this ad in New Mexico, targeting both Obama and the Democratic candidate for Senate, Rep. Tom Udall. The ad recounts an incident in which two teenagers dumped their newborn baby in a Dumpster. It occurred 12 years ago in Delaware. The urgently delivered voiceover likens it to partial-birth abortion, and notes that Udall and Obama "voted to continue this grisly procedure." The group used identical language in Senate ads as far back as 2000.

The Virginia-based alliance started in 1993 partially in response to the election of Bill Clinton, and now has 600,000 members, said its president Martin Fox, a Catholic priest in Ohio. The group is currently pushing legislation that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Common Sense Issues, which pushed for Mike Huckabee during the Republican primaries and then backed out of the presidential race, recently jumped back in with an ad attacking Obama on abortion.

Running in the newly competitive states of North Dakota and Montana, the ad shows footage of Obama saying that the question of when a fetus gets human rights is "above my pay grade." That line has become one of Obama's biggest faux pas, seized upon by pro-life activists. The ad includes an interview with Bernard Nathanson, a former abortion doctor and founding member of what is now NARAL Pro-Choice America, who became an outspoken anti-abortion activist in the 1970s. He calls legalized abortion "the greatest mistake this nation has ever conceived."

Tying Obama to the "culture of death," after the jump...

Continue reading ""The Culture Of Death" And Other Last-Minute Volleys" »

11:13 AM ET | 11- 3-2008 | permalink

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October 16, 2008

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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