PrintFebruary 2, 2009
Dems step up the pressure on Republicans with partisan attacks
Nothing like burning a few bridges while we enter the age of "post-partisanship."
Ed Lasky forwards this bit of news from the Hill:
BREAKING – The House Democratic campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, seizes on House Republicans' unanimous vote against the stimulus package. Release out this morning: '[T]he DCCC is launching a Putting Families First [radio] ad and grassroots campaign in 28 targeted Republican districts. The ads focus on the Republicans out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy. The Putting Families First ads begin airing on Tuesday morning during drive time and will run for a week. In addition to the strategic radio ads in 28 Republican districts, the DCCC will also begin a grassroots initiative which includes targeted e-mails to 3 million voters and nearly 100,000 person-to-person telephone calls. House Republicans just don't get it.'
SAMPLE AD: 'Did you know Congressman Eric Cantor voted to bail out big banks, but opposed tax breaks for 95 percent of American workers? Times are tough, tell Eric Cantor to put families first.'
Ed adds:
Then there was Obama warning over the weekend to the Republicans to take it or leave it because now was not the time for partisan bickering (I thought that Congress was a place to debate and decide).
Not a word about Democrats who supported the bank bailout. Neither is there truth in advertising about "putting families first."
The stimulus bill puts Democratic constituencies and special interest groups first - not families. It's pittance for infrastructure spending gives the lie to the idea that this bill is anything more than a pork laden fiesta for Democratic politicians and their friends.
Dare the press call the Democrats out on this? I detect a growing puzzlement on the part of our media - not active opposition, mind you - but the light is definitely turning on in at least some of the major media on this bail out package. As more and more of the details are revealed to be waste and spending totally unrelated to getting the economy moving and creating jobs, the senate is feeling the heat and there is a chance - small at this point - that unless the bill is massively reworked, it could fail.
Both Democrats and Republican senators have raised serious questions about some of the details of the bill in recent days thanks in no small part to press reports that show this bill to be the boondoggle it truly is. If this continues, the Democrat's efforts to tar the GOP as uncaring louts will fail and might even redound to the GOP's advantage.
The problem is that mobilizing opposition to this monstrosity has been hard due to Obama's popularity and the fact that there just isn't a lot of time before the Senate will take this bill up. But with support for the measure crumbling among the people, restructuring this package to include more tax cuts and less pork gets closer to reality.
