Susan B. Anthony List’s Anti-Choice Machine

Susan B. Anthony List has committed to spending at least $1.5 million on behalf of arch-conservative Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, continuing its pattern of support for extreme politicians. Although it is named for the nineteenth-century feminist pioneer, SBA List has little to do with championing the rights of women and everything to do with ending women’s access to abortion, mostly by supporting candidates who are fiercely opposed to reproductive health choices.

Using the 2013 Virginia election as a “proving ground” in advance of 2014’s midterm elections, SBA List is testing out electoral strategies that will further President Marjorie Dannenfelser’s vision of an anti-choice “political machine” as impossible to ignore as the National Rifle Association. An ad in April from the SBA List targeting Cuccinelli’s Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, was the first paid advertising of the race. Beyond its efforts in Virginia, SBA List has pledged to focus its upcoming efforts on 12 key states, eight of which will host field offices pursuing electoral and legislative goals.

In addition to backing extreme candidates like Todd Akin, who infamously claimed that women are unlikely get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because their bodies have mysterious ways to “shut that whole thing down,” SBA List supports policies in line with its leaders’ radical perspectives on birth control and sex. Instead of endorsing preventive measures that could reduce the need for abortions, Dannenfelser has illogically argued that “contraception and family planning” are responsible for increasing the number of abortions. “The bottom line,” she has said, “is that to lose the connection between sex and having children leads to problems.”

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The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

After last week’s wave of House ads, conservative outside groups focused most of their attention on the Senate this week. Of the 14 ads we fact-checked, eight of them targeted Senate hopefuls (five from Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups and three from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), compared to only two hitting House candidates (both from the Congressional Leadership Fund). We also answered presidential ads from Restore Our Future, Americans for Job Security, and American Future Fund. Finally, Americans for Prosperity joined the conservative campaign to oust three Florida Supreme Court justices.

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California Future Fund for Free Markets: “Telephoto”

California Future Fund for Free Markets is breaking the irony barrier with an ad supporting Proposition 32, which purports to ban special interest money from state politics. The ad criticizes “deals cut in the shadows,” but CFFFM is funded entirely by a single $4 million donation from a similarly shadowy Iowa group that does not disclose donors but has ties to the Koch brothers. This hypocrisy has substantive implications as well: Prop 32 claims to end special interest spending in California politics, but leaves gaping loopholes for the billionaires who are funding the effort while cracking down much more tightly on union political spending.

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The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

Earlier this week, Crossroads GPS made the unusual decision to pull its support from a competitive Senate race, dropping planned ads attacking Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill after tasteless comments on “legitimate rape” from her Republican opponent, Todd Akin, made headlines. The group’s multi-million-dollar assault on the airwaves continued across other states, however. Of the 13 ads we fact-checked this week, Crossroads GPS was responsible for five of them, attacking Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Bill Nelson in Florida, Martin Heinrich in New Mexico, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Jon Tester in Montana. We also looked at three ads from Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, three from the American Future Fund, one from the National Federation of Independent Business, and one from pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.Most of the spots mentioned the Affordable Care Act, with many misrepresenting the facts to sell support for the law as support for a budget-busting behemoth. All three American Future Fund ads referred to the “$2 trillion health care law,” a willful distortion that counts the law’s costs but none of the savings to obscure the fact that the law reduces the deficit. Five of the ads (three from Crossroads GPS, one from AFP, and one from Restore Our Future) spread misinformation about the “failed” or “wasteful” stimulus, which actually helped save the economy from an even deeper recession.

Focus On Florida

This week showed particularly heavy interest in the Florida Senate race between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Connie Mack. Three separate conservative outside groups targeted the Sunshine State, each ad taking a different tack. Crossroads GPS took advantage of public confusion over the Affordable Care Act’s impact on Medicare, dishonestly suggesting to Florida’s seniors that their benefits will be cut and they’ll lose control of their health care decisions. American Future Fund focused on the national debt, though it also mentioned the health care law and threw in a gratuitous line calling for Nelson to “protect seniors.” NFIB, a business group that received $3.7 million from Crossroads GPS in 2010, took a more personal approach, highlighting a Florida business owner who claimed that a “conglomeration” of regulations were impairing his businesses’ ability to grow.

Read more after the jump.