Michigan's 1st district, which is held by retiring Rep. Bart Stupak
(D), is seeing an influx of spending by national Republicans and their allies.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has reserved some
$700,000 in airtime in support of its nominee, Dan Benishek.
Meanwhile, the American Future Fund has dropped $273,000 on ads airing
Sept. 15 to
Oct. 12, according to a Republican strategist tracking ad buys in the
race. And the group Americans for
Prosperity spent $93,000 on ads that aired in August.
The Democrat running against Benishek, state Rep. Gary McDowell,
is slated to get a total of $711,000 in ad spending help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
McDowell has already dropped $200,000 of his own campaign money on TV
ads, according to the GOP strategist.
But traditional Democratic allies such as unions have not made an investment in the 1st district, even as they air ads in other competitive Michigan races.
On Tuesday, Benishek used one of his first TV ads of the campaign to rebut Democrats' claims he wants to "privatize Social Security."
"You can tell it's almost Election Day: they're starting with the scare tactics," Benishek says in one of two spots released Tuesday. "The truth is I'm fighting to protect Social Security."
He spent $85,000 on airtime for the ads, the strategist said.
Benishek was recently hit with a TV ad from the DCCC that said he "supports a plan that would let Wall Street gamble with your Social Security."
The DCCC's spots haven't proved effective. Two recent polls have shown McDowell trailing Benishek from 3 to 16 points.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee went up Tuesday with its first ad targeting Republican businessman John Raese in West Virginia's special Senate election.
"He wants to eliminate the minimum wage, failed to pay workers compensation for on the job injuries," the ad's narrator says. "But one thing John Raese does support: a pledge that protected tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) finds himself beating back an unexpectedly strong challenge from Raese in the special election to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Robert Byrd's (D) term.
Privately, Democrats say they're confident Raese will fade as Manchin and the national party continue to aim their fire at him. But the DSCC's spending shows Democrats are worried about another seat that wasn't expected to be competitive moving toward the GOP.
The race is emerging as a top battleground between the two national party committees. The DSCC spot follows an ad buy last week from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is spending $1.2 million over a two week period on an ad tying Manchin (D) to President Obama and Democrats in Washington.
Manchin was thought to have an easy road to the Senate this fall after Rep. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) declined to run against him leaving the stage to the self-funding Raese who lost by a wide margin to Byrd in 2006.
But recent polls have shown the souring national environment for Democrats and President Obama's unpopularity in the state are dragging Manchin down.
The NRSC followed the DSCC's first ad by highlighting its new anti-Manchin radio spot Tuesday that labels Manchin "Washington Joe."
A coalition of groups favoring immigration reform launched a series of Spanish-language radio ads Tuesday to highlight what they characterize as Republican obstructionism on major administration-backed reform measures.
The Service Employees International Union, along with America's Voice and Mi Familia Vota Civic Participation Campaign, spent $300,000 to air the ad in nine markets where Latino voters represent key constituencies.
One part of the ad specifically highlights last week's Republican filibuster of a defense authorization bill that included a provision — known as the DREAM Act — that would allow children of illegal immigrants to gain the status of permanent legal residents.
"Who opposed this bill? Who wants to quash our dreams? Republicans … The same people who opposed the extension of unemployment benefits," the ad states.
It will run in Phoenix, Tuscon, Denver, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, Las Vegas, Houston and McAllen, Texas.
SEIU Secretary Treasurer Eliseo Medina said in a statement Tuesday that the ads take a view toward the midterms.
"Last week, the same Republicans who have rallied their support behind Arizona's ‘papers please’ law made a clear choice to crush the dreams of tens of thousands of high-achieving immigrant youth," he said. "Today, it is critical that our community understands who is on their side and what is at stake if we do not hold our elected leaders accountable in November.”
The latest campaign ad from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) paints his Republican opponent as a religious extremist, labeling him "Taliban Dan."
Grayson, who often finds the national spotlight thanks to attention-grabbing rhetoric aimed at Republicans, faces a tough challenge this fall from state Sen. Dan Webster (R).
"Religious fanatics try to take away our freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq and right here in Central Florida," the ad's announcer says before cutting to a black-and-white shot of Webster reciting a Bible passage that reads, "Wives, submit yourself to your own husband."
The ad goes on to accuse Webster of wanting to "impose his radical fundamentalism on us," claiming the Republican tried to deny medical care to abused women and "wants to force raped women to bear the child."
"Taliban Dan Webster — hands off our bodies and our laws," the ad concludes.
The nonpartisan website FactCheck.org has already said Grayson's spot "lowers the bar" by "using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said."
The 30-second spot employs a clip from Webster speaking at a Christian conference last year; the full clip makes it clear that Grayson's ad quotes Webster wildly out of context.
The spot was released over the weekend and hit with criticism Monday from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a prominent Webster backer. Huckabee called the ad "a sleazy, bigoted and Christophobic attack."
The Webster camp responded Monday with a statement from the candidate's wife, who called the ad "shameful."
"Dan has been an amazing husband and father, and the finest man I have ever known," Sandy Webster said in a statement. "Mr. Grayson should be ashamed of his nasty smears against my husband."
A Republican House candidate in North Carolina this week is defending her new campaign ad linking all Muslims to terrorism.
Renee Ellmers, the Tea Party-backed candidate challenging seven-term Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.), said "you could make [the] assumption" that the ad equates Muslims with terrorists, "but that's not giving me the benefit of the doubt."
"I am not intending to say that all Muslims are terrorists," Ellmers told CNN's Anderson Cooper Friday.
At issue is Ellmers' newly launched campaign ad opposing construction of an Islamic community center a few blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan.
"After the Muslims conquered Jerusalem and Cordoba Constantinople, they built victory mosques. And now they want to build a mosque by Ground Zero," the ad's narrator says.
"The terrorists haven't won," Ellmers adds, "and we should tell them in plain English, 'No, there will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.'"
Ellmers said that while "the words are carefully selected," they don't mean to label all Muslims as terrorists.
"Basically, what I am saying, sir, is that there were terrorists who attacked us," Ellmers told Cooper. "They were Islamic jihadists. And, as a result of that, we have seen the devastation on 9/11."
Leading the charge behind the Islamic center has been Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a New York-based Islamic scholar who's spent decades trying to promote understanding between the Muslim and Western worlds. Cooper noted that the State Department has used Rauf in attempts to reconcile differences between the two cultures. Still, Ellmers said her opposition to the construction is partly due to her distrust of Rauf's stated goals.
"I don't think any of us know that much about the imam," Ellmers said. "I don't know what his intentions are."
When Cooper asked Ellmers whether the churches built over the course of history by Christian conquerers don't also represent a form of victory temple, the conversation grew testy.
"What I could ask you is, are you anti-religion?," Ellmers said. "Are you anti-Christian in your thinking?"
"That's like the lowest response I have ever heard from a candidate," Cooper responded.
The political turmoil over the Islamic center hit a peak over the summer, but has since died down as Congress has shifted its focus back to the struggling economy. Still, Ellmers' new ad is indication that the North Carolina Republican, who's been endorsed by Sarah Palin, sees the issue as a political winner in November.
"I am running for the people of District 2, North Carolina, who are good, hardworking, Christian people, who just want to turn this country around," Ellmers said Friday.
The Cook Political Report lists the contest as competitive, but puts it in category of "likely Democratic."
An Etheridge spokesman told Politico earlier this week that Ellmers "is desecrating this hallowed ground with her obvious and offensive attempt to raise her profile."
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) jumped into West Virginia's special Senate election Friday, releasing an ad slamming Gov. Joe Manchin (D) for supporting "Barack Obama's big-government agenda."
Recent polling has shown a much closer race than had been expected to fill out the term of the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), with Republican businessman John Raese in a dead heat with Manchin, according to the latest numbers from Public Policy.
The NRSC ad echoes the message the largely self-funding Raese has already been hitting Manchin with on the airwaves.
"Manchin supported Obama's stimulus plan that wasted $800 billion, increased debt and unemployment got worse," the ad's narrator says. "Manchin supported the government takeover of healthcare that cuts Medicare and raises costs."
The 30-second spot ends with a shot of Manchin and a smiling President Obama.
The NRSC's investment is a sizable one — according to a party source, the committee is spending $1.2 million total over the next two weeks on the buy, including spending in the D.C. market. It shows the national party is convinced the state is firmly in play this fall.
A North Carolina House candidate is using edited news footage in his latest TV ad.
Republican Ilario Pantano, a former Marine who's challenging Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), cut from the clips mentions of how he was once charged with murder of two Iraqi civilians while serving during in combat there and that he had worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The start of Pantano's ad features NBC's Stone Phillips introducing him as someone a superior officer described "as having more integrity, dedication and drive than any Marine he's ever met." But Phillips's interview actually focused on the murder charges against the former Marine.
It then segues into footage of an interview Pantano did with NBC's Ann Curry in June 2006.
Curry says in Pantano's version, "You served in Gulf One, you got out, you got a big, great job … a beautiful wife and a kid, then 9/11 happened, you come home, your hair is shaved off, you’re ready to head back into a war zone to help America."
The actual clip reveals where Pantano worked -- Goldman Sachs. "You served in Gulf One, you got out, you got a big great job at Goldman Sachs, a beautiful wife and a kid, then 9/11 happened, you come home, your hair is shaved off, you’re ready to head back into a war zone to help America."
Pantano was charged by the Marines in 2004 with two counts of premeditated murder, but the charges were dropped a year later and never went to trial. He wrote a book about the experience.
A Pantano spokesman told the Associated Press the clips were likely trimmed to fit into a 30-second ad.
Ohio Democrats found it ironic that a conservative advocacy group would borrow an advertising concept from President Obama's 2008 campaign for a spot critical of Senate candidate Lee Fisher (D).
During the 2008 race, Obama's campaign released a TV ad that kept George W. Bush's face in a driver's rearview mirror.
This week, the conservative advocacy group American Crossroads released a spot that used the same concept, except with Fisher's face in the rearview mirror.
A spokesman for the group said Obama didn't invent the idea.
"Running a spot on a car ride theme isn't exactly new hat," said Jonathan Collegio, an American Crossroads spokesman. "We have another car-themed ad up in Illinois right now. Note that all the footage used in the Ohio spot was original and fresh."
Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) campaign knew this line of attack was coming.
Republican challenger Carly Fiorina has launched a new TV spot accusing the Democrat of "arrogance."
It incorporates footage from a Senate hearing last summer when Boxer insisted Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, call her "senator" and not "ma'am."
Former Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.) ran a similar spot against Boxer during the GOP Senate primary this spring. This is Fiorina's first ad of the general election. It closes with an unflattering image of Boxer and the caption, "so wrong, too long."
In response, the Boxer camp cited Fiorina's record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
"Californians are fed up with the arrogance of CEOs who take multi-million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes while the middle class suffers," Rose Kapolczynski, Boxer's campaign manager, said in a statement. "No wonder Fiorina doesn’t say one word about her own record in this ad."
Boxer had earlier been asked about her exchange with Walsh.
"In that particular moment, we were having a lot of back-and-forth," she said during her first debate with Fiorina. "This was a formal hearing, so I made the call that I should call the general 'general,' and it would be better if he called me by my formal title, instead of 'sir,' 'ma'am,' 'general,' 'senator.' "
Boxer said she offered to apologize to Walsh.
"Afterwards, I called the general and I said, 'Do I owe you an apology? Did I upset you?' He said, 'No, not at all.' And we work very well together," Boxer said.
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) uses his latest TV ad to hit Democratic rival Charlie Melancon for fundraising in Canada during the BP oil spill.
Melancon and several other Democratic Senate candidates were at a reception for the Committee for a Better Future on July 11 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The committee is connected to the American Association for Justice and the National Association of Trial Lawyer Executives, which were holding a convention in the city.
The BP oil spill started in April. The well was finally killed in mid-September.
"While Louisiana families were struggling with the tragic oil spill, Congressman Charlie Melancon flew to Canada to pick up campaign checks from trial lawyers who were there meeting on how to make money off the victims of the oil spill," a woman says in Vitter's 30-second ad.
Melancon's camp said Vitter was playing fast and loose with the facts.
"Charlie Melancon has fought to hold BP 100 percent responsible for the cost of recovery, writing legislation to end the job-killing offshore drilling moratorium and voting to remove all caps on BP’s liability," said Jeff Giertz, a spokesman for Melancon. "Truth is, David Vitter’s first instinct after the oil disaster was to introduce a BP bailout bill limiting financial liability after a spill to as little as $150 million and leaving taxpayers on the hook for the rest."
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