The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

As the nation turned its attention to the Democratic National Convention, conservative groups were again relatively quiet on the airwaves. We fact checked six television ads, including two extremely misleading attacks on Democratic candidates from the Adelson-funded YG Action Fund. In addition, Americans for Prosperity released an ad falsely comparing the Affordable Care Act to Canada’s single-payer health care system, Crossroads GPS continued its assault on North Dakota Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp, and the Club for Growth shifted its focus from Republican primaries to the general election.

30 Months, 4.6 Million Private-Sector Jobs

American Crossroads countered the convention with an ad blasting President Obama’s economic record and suggesting that he has taken the country “backward.” In fact, the economy now has gained 4.6 million private-sector jobs in the last 30 months, but government employment continues to shrink, restraining the overall recovery. The following chart shows the accumulation of private-sector job gains and public-sector job losses since the recession officially ended in June 2009:

pub-priv-jobs-jul2

Read more after the jump.

YG Action Fund: “Two Mikes”

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An ad from YG Action Fund accuses Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) of voting for “higher taxes on working people” and criticizes his support for the “failed stimulus.” However, the Recovery Act helped prevent an even worse economic crisis and actually cut taxes for the vast majority of working Americans. The ad also misleads on McIntyre’s role in passing the Affordable Care Act, which he opposed, by citing his vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker.

Read more after the jump.

YG Action Fund: “Something New”

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The Eric Cantor-linked YG Action Fund super PAC is attacking Bill Enyart, the Democratic nominee in Illinois’ 12th district, with an ad belittling him for having “little private-sector experience,” failing to acknowledge that his public-sector jobs have consisted of 30-plus years serving his country in the armed forces. The ad is also critical of Enyart’s suggestion that the economy is improving and of his support for the Affordable Care Act, but the private sector has added 4.6 million jobs over 30 straight months of growth, and repealing the health care law would have devastating consequences for the millions of Americans already benefitting from its reforms.

Read more after the jump.

Tea Party Express’ Kremer: Obama Doesn’t Love America “The Way That We Do”

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From an appearance by Tea Party Express chair Amy Kremer on CNN’s Starting Point, hosted by Soledad O’Brien:

NUTTER: What is the basis for questioning the president’s love for this country? How can you say that?

KREMER: I just, I don’t believe that he loves America the way that we do.

NUTTER: Based on what? We who?

KREMER: He is more about one world, I mean more about–

NUTTER: What does that mean?

KREMER: I just explained it to you.

Read more after the jump.

Club For Growth Action: “Typical”

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An ad from Club for Growth Action portrays Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) as a “typical Washington liberal,” citing his support for President Bush’s bank bailout, the “failed” stimulus, and the “government takeover of health care.” However, the financial rescue and the Recovery Act both helped the nation avert a more severe economic collapse, while the Affordable Care Act relies on private insurance companies to extend coverage. Despite the ad’s attempt to cast him as a hardcore partisan, Donnelly has the eighth most independent voting record among representatives in the current Congress.

Read more after the jump.

Heritage’s Rector: Liberals Want To ‘Replace Marriage With A Welfare State Family’

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From a September 4, 2012, Bloggers Briefing with the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector:

RECTOR: Okay now as I’ve said, having a child without being married is actually a stronger predictor of childhood poverty than dropping out of high school. Again, not recommending dropping out of high school, but this is a huge deal. And in every state in the United States I can guarantee you that in this at-risk population not once is any young boy or girl ever told, look, if you don’t want your children to be poor, it’s critically important to be married before you have children. Not once. Dead silence. Okay, so we pretty much guarantee this result because we never even offer them the information. If this is where you want to go with the house in the suburbs, these are the choices that you need to make in order to get there. You need to understand that a child that’s born outside marriage is 80 percent more likely to be poor than if you make other choices. And give them that information to empower them to begin to make other choices. Not that that would be a panacea, but as long as we have a gag rule about talking even why people are poor, we would have no chance whatsoever of ever altering this behavior, which is fine with the left because the left does not like marriage in the first place and the left basically has had a plan all along to remove marriage and replace it with a welfare state family, because none of these single-parent families can possibly be self-sufficient. They always require massive amounts of subsidies through the welfare system, not only for food, cash, and housing, for medical care, but also even if the mom is working you have to subsidize her daycare. So you end up basically with moms married to the welfare state, and if you’re a statist, that’s a good deal, okay. Not that you ever exactly set it out to plan that, but when things started falling apart the left has basically said that we’re not going to do anything to correct this situation.

Read more after the jump.

Crossroads GPS: “Big Difference”

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Crossroads GPS bolsters North Dakota Senate candidate Rick Berg (R) with an ad attacking his opponent, Heidi Heitkamp (D), over health care reform law and the stimulus, emphasizing their impact on the debt. In reality, the Affordable Care Act does reduce the budget deficit, and the “wasteful” stimulus helped prevent an even deeper recession.

Read more after the jump.

American Crossroads: “Forward?”

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American Crossroads is countering the Democratic National Convention with an ad claiming that President Obama has taken the country “backward,” citing what the ad calls “America’s worst economic recovery ever.” However, the ad ignores the severity of the recession President Bush left behind, as well as the decline in government employment (which conservatives favor) that distinguishes the current recovery from previous ones. Indeed, the private sector has grown steadily for the past 30 months, adding 4.6 million jobs during that period. Crossroads also dishonestly calls the Affordable Care Act a “tax on middle-class families” and blames the president for deficits that are fueled by Bush policies and the recession.

Read more after the jump.

Americans For Prosperity: “We Must Replace President Obama”

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In an ad deceptively likening health care reform in the U.S. to the Canadian single-payer system, Americans for Prosperity deploys a Canadian woman who sought care for a brain condition in the U.S., claiming that she would have died before she was able to get in to see the necessary specialists in Canada. The comparison is false, however, since health care in the U.S. continues to be based in the private sector.

Read more after the jump.

The Week In Conservative Attack Ads

This week, conservative power players descended on Tampa for the Republican National Convention. According to reports, leaders of conservative outside groups spent the week wooing GOP mega-donors, seeking even more cash for their final push to defeat President Obama.

Consequently, it was a slow week for the release of new ads. We fact-checked five conservative ads – four of them targeting separate Senate candidates, along with one unusual spot warning about “mass immigration.” Notably, none of them came from Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups, which sat the week out but made their presence felt in Tampa.

Read more after the jump.