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.
There are even more liberal Senate ads — silly and serious. Let’s get the serious ads out of the way:
Citizens for Strength and Security, a North Carolina-based 527, is branching out to Mississippi. Here, it blames Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) for helping to send jobs overseas and increase our debt to China, similar to the Republicans-sell-us-to-China ads we blogged on yesterday, from Truth From American Workers. This new one blames Wicker for supporting “unfair trade deals” such as NAFTA, even showing a fake billboard that reads, “Senor Wicker, Gracias por NAFTA.”
Also on the serious side, VoteVets brings its battleworn ad on body armor to Georgia to see if it will work against Chambliss.
Now for a little levity, and we use the word loosely. The League of Conservation Voters’ radio ad in New Hampshire proposes some sarcastic slogans for Sununu’s campaign, all in that bombastic announcer tone that we know so well. For example, “John Sununu. Using your tax dollars to make the filthy rich richer.” The silly part comes when the ad starts trying to rhyme Sununu (think mumu or booboo). Not the lightest touch ever in a political ad, but at least there’s no ominous synthesizer music.
This originally appeared on The Secret Money Project Blog, a joint project of CIR and National Public Radio tracking the hidden cash in the 2008 election.
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