Conservative Groups Spend Heavily in Senate Races

Already, they have committed at least $17 million to television commercials in more than a dozen states from Florida to Hawaii, in most cases dwarfing what their Democratic opponents have spent. Their plans call for an effort that will exceed $100 million by Election Day, strategists for these groups said, far surpassing their efforts in 2010, a high-water mark for outside money in politics.

In the weeks ahead, they will pour more resources into states like Nebraska and Missouri, which have already seen some of the heaviest spending, in addition to intensifying their campaigns in New Mexico, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Their immediate objective: use hard-hitting television ads to tether Democratic candidates to the budget deficit, lackluster economic growth and the perception that government has become too intrusive and unmanageable.

Except for the candidate, and the phone number that flashes on screen at the end, the ads follow a strikingly similar script.

Senator Fill-in-the-Blank supports business-smothering regulations and will raise your taxes. He also added trillions to the deficit by voting for “Obamacare” and will cut your Medicare.

In Missouri, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, has been buffeted with more than $2.2 million in television ads from Crossroads GPS, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group called the 60 Plus Association, which bills itself as a right-leaning AARP and uses Pat Boone as its pitch man. “Call Senator McCaskill,” Mr. Boone says in one ad. “Tell her unaccountable bureaucrats should never have the power to deny you the care you deserve.”

Ms. McCaskill and her allies have countered with ads of their own but are being outspent by more than 3 to 1, data from Kantar Media show.

In Nebraska, Bob Kerrey has been mocked as a liberal Manhattan interloper in a trio of TV commercials from Americans for Prosperity. In one, set to music that vaguely recalls Bernard Herrmann’s score from “Psycho,” a narrator warns, “Bob Kerry is moving back to Nebraska, and he wants to bring his liberal agenda back to our Nebraska home.” Stern-faced citizens object. “Not in my house,” says one man. “Not here,” says another.

Mr. Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor and senator who left office a dozen years ago to run the New School in Manhattan, has responded with nearly half a million dollars in commercials of his own. That is a considerable expense for his fledgling campaign, and almost as much as the amount of cash he had on hand at the end of March.

The conservative groups’ strategy makes clear that they — traditional Republican allies like the Chamber of Commerce along with newer players like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-affiliated venture, among others — intend to be even more aggressive this year than they were in 2010, when they greatly expanded the role of outside money in Congressional elections.

By forcing their opponents to respond with expensive ad campaigns of their own, these conservative groups are achieving at least part of their goal. But their strategy is not without its risks, namely that they are dumping money into advertising long before voters are really paying attention.

The focus on the Senate reflects conservative hopes for a sweep of the White House and both branches of Congress, and frustration with the Senate’s role in blocking legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House, especially on the budget and fiscal issues that have come to dominate the debate in Washington.

“You could argue that what happens in the Senate and the House matters more on a day-to-day basis, on key legislative matters, than an administration does,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity.

The Chamber of Commerce, which, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent more than $30 million on Congressional races in 2010, said it will commit “measurably more” this year to House and Senate campaigns in what officials called the most significant political effort in its 100-year history.

“We’re going to shape the environment now instead of waiting for the environment that comes to us later,” said Rob Engstrom, national political director for the Chamber of Commerce. For over a year, the group has enlisted strategists to comb through candidates’ voting records and public statements, looking for material useful in an ad.

“We’re prepared to quickly engage if developments warrant,” he added.

Crossroads plans to spend about $60 million on Senate races alone and an additional $30 million on House races. That would more than double what it and its sister organization, American Crossroads, spent in 2010. These sums will come atop the nearly $18 million in air time that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has reserved for the fall.

Americans for Prosperity, which has been an important supporter of the Tea Party movement, and others promoting various aspects of the conservative agenda, like Club for Growth, a group that promotes fiscally conservative and free-market principles, have each vowed to spend millions more.

Democrats acknowledge that they are outgunned, but expect the Republicans’ financing advantage to dissipate as the general election nears. Money being spent on ads now, Democratic strategists argue, is being wasted on voters who are not paying close attention to their local races. And it will leave less money for Republicans and their allied groups come the fall, they contend.

“Even Karl Rove’s money becomes finite at some point,” said Matt Canter, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who added that Democratic incumbents had plenty of cash on hand that would go further because candidates, unlike outside groups, get the lowest possible advertising rates. “We will not be outspent in practice as much as it might appear.”

In addition to lacking the large donors who have provided much of the money for outside conservative groups, Democrats find themselves at a further disadvantage because President Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee do not plan to finance the Congressional campaign committees this year.

Democrats are trying to turn their underdog status into a political benefit by using it to raise money and portray their Republican opponents as beholden to their big contributors. Indeed, Ms. McCaskill features the attack ads being run against her in an ad of her own that rails against the “special interests” behind the commercials.

“What they’re doing to Claire McCaskill is nothing compared to what their special interest agenda will do to you,” the narrator says, going down a list that includes tax breaks for the wealthy, “ending Medicare as we know it,” and trade policies that benefit China over the United States. “Claire says, ‘Make it in Missouri,’ ” the announcer adds, pronouncing it the way many locals do: Muh-zhur-UH.

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Democrats’ favorite ‘conservative Republican’ economist is neither Republican nor conservative (Daily Caller)

As the fight over President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act heats up on Capitol Hill, Moody’s economist Mark Zandi would seem like a dream come true for liberal pundits and Democratic politicians alike.

When progressives try to make the case that all the economy needs is more spending to boost economic growth and job creation they often turn to Zandi, a former advisor to Senator John McCain’s 2008 campaign for president, as exhibit A.

“Republican economist Mark Zandi declared the President’s plan would keep the U.S. from sliding back into the recession, add two points to the GDP, and add 1.9 million jobs,” Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said on the floor last week.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” former President Bill Clinton argued that Zandi’s belief that over one million jobs could be created by the president’s new jobs plan is proof that such rosy predictions are supported “right across the economic board.”

Writing in Slate earlier this month, Jacob Weisberg said that the benefits of a new stimulus package were “received wisdom among economists, including many conservative ones.” Specifically, Weisberg cites Zandi — “John McCain’s economic advisor” — who has argued that the 2009 stimulus prevented unemployment from rising another two percentage points.

It’s true that Zandi supports more stimulus spending. “The fiscal boost from the jobs package next year would be larger than in the first year of the 2009 economic stimulus,” Zandi said in a statement released by the White House last week. However, the implication that Zandi is a conservative Republican is, at best, deeply misleading. (RELATED: New Obama plan promises to raise taxes, worry Democrats)

To his credit, Zandi has never tried to hide his ideological beliefs. “I’m a registered Democrat,” he told The Washington Post in a 2009 profile. He worked with McCain not because he agreed with the GOP’s economic agenda but because of his policy of “help(ing) any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat.” According Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic advisor, Zandi was brought on to the campaign to provide instant analysis of economic news, not to set policy.

Democrats first began citing Zandi’s tenuous conservative credentials and support for government spending during the debate over Obama’s original stimulus plan. “I’m just saying what Mark Zandi from Moody’s, an adviser to John McCain, is saying: You have to have a package of this robustness if you’re going to make a difference,” then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference in early 2009.

New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer had referred to him as a “conservative Republican” in an interview with Fox News the month before.

At the time, some in the GOP complained to the media that Democrats were getting away with implying Zandi was a Republican who backed their plans. “He’s doing a press call with Schumer today and he’s advising Democrats on this bill,” said one GOP staffer in an email to The Post, “but he’s always cited as a ‘former McCain adviser’ as if that means he’s a Republican endorsing the Democratic proposal.”

With the Obama administration pushing for a new round of stimulus spending, some conservative advocacy groups are pushing back on the Democrats’ assertion that Zandi is a right-leaning economist.

“Mark Zandi is a registered Democrat and an advocate of Keynesian economics,” says Barney Keller, a spokesman for the influential Club for Growth. “He’s about as conservative as Paul Krugman, and wrong just as often.”

Zandi could not be immediately reached for comment.

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Howard Dean called a ‘fiscal conservative’ (Daily Caller)

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean showed he wasn’t opposed to being labeled a fiscal conservative at a panel held by the National Press Club on Thursday.

At the event, which aimed to address the growing burden of Medicaid, the ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee admitted his belief that Medicaid block grants can work under certain conditions.

“Many people don’t know this, [but] Gov. Dean is actually a fiscal conservative,” panel moderator Ray Scheppach said, eliciting a smile from Dean.

Dean also reiterated his less liberal tendencies in his comments on the federal government’s approach to Medicaid funding.

“I hate to say this, and sound like a real fiscal conservative, but I don’t think the federal government should do much,” Dean added. “If we keep feeding the beast it’s going to keep getting bigger,” he said, leading Scheppach to note that Dean’s values sometimes stray from those of the Democratic Party.

But Dean’s policies haven’t always resonated with fiscal conservatives. He has long been a proponent of raising taxes in certain instances and was quoted by MSNBC in April as saying the only solution to the deficit problem was to “cut spending and raise taxes.” (Howard Dean: Boehner is a ‘good Speaker’)

And despite his latent right-wing comments, Dean’s not about to jump his party’s ship: While expressing some support for block grants, Dean carefully noted, “I’m not sure I like Paul Ryan’s block grant [plan].”

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