MoveOn Sinking $500,000 Into New Ad Linking Elizabeth Dole To McCain And Big Oil
We've just learned that MoveOn is about to sink half a million dollars into a huge ad buy in North Carolina linking Elizabeth Dole, who's facing a tough re-election fight, to John McCain and Big Oil.
Here's a first look at MoveOn's spot, which will run statewide starting tomorrow night:
The ad, which highlights GOP support for tax breaks for oil companies, will be released sometime today in honor of McCain's high-profile trip to an oil rig.
It's likely that the spot foreshadows more ads from MoveOn linking GOP Senate incumbents to Big Oil and McCain. Though some polls show public preference for McCain's position on drilling, MoveOn and Dems believe that hammering away at the links between the GOP and the big oil companies can change the conversation in their favor.
OUTSTANDING for us here in NC. Replacing Dole would be a such a plum for us. She is a GOP hack who has taken the party line on BUSH's issues 100%and her husband can't even vote in NC. Thank you MOVEOn!
August 19, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Sinking" is exactly right.
Because NC likes McCain better. He's leading by 6 points.
August 19, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I live in NC, hell i live in a red area of NC. I have seen one McCain bumper sticker. Only one in over a month. I see many many Obama stickers every time i go out. So i think "love" is the wrong word.
August 19, 2008 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like a great reason to hit both Dole and McCain in the same ad.
August 19, 2008 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have to agree with M-H-G: I live in NC and travel weekly from Charlotte to Raleigh and back. During all that interstate driving through both red and blue areas, I have seen hundreds of cars with Obama bumper stickers. I have seen exactly two with McCain stickers.
Not exactly a scientific poll, but at least some indication that McCain doesn't have very enthusiastic support here.
August 19, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
They should go national and hit McCain hard.
August 19, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good ad. Good thought by MoveOn. Tie McCain, and the local incumbent to big oil where ever appropriate. It will turn both politicians toxic and will force McCain to defend everywhere.
August 19, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The gas price is only at $2.23 on the sign. Why didn't they find a current one at four bucks or one of the sardonic ones listing "your firstborn" or "arm and a leg"?
August 19, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The voiceover at that point says something about 'rolling back gas prices.' I think the graphic with the lower prices was meant to convey that.
August 19, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still can't believe that Libby Dole thought she was substantive enough to run for President, after mismanaging the Red Cross for 8 years. And they call Barack presumptuous!
August 19, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, boring. They should get more graphic on the environmental catastrophes of off shore oil drilling. Show some of the disgusting sludge washing up on shorelines from spills. Throw that in and a short bit on why only oil cos make out from the drilling, it won't help the public one iota because of worldwide demand which is increasing dramatically from china and india. Let's get graphic folks.
August 19, 2008 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, so I guess I missed it. What happened to Move On agreeing to not pull these 527 stunts? Or would this be under some loophole?
August 19, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
They need to do more. They are not stunts, they are a very effective means of getting more hard hits out there. Your point?
August 19, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Amelie, it's just that Obama asked them not to and they agreed to at one point.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/moveon-terminates-its-527/
Those type of attack ads I would think would be a part of that. But that's were I'm wondering. No need to be snide.
And anyway, do we really want more ads like that bullshit one with the mother and her baby 'Alex'. I personally don't like giving Bill Kristol easy comebacks like "It's unlikely that little Alex would ever go to Iraq under a McCain presidency because even at the end of two terms, he'd only be 9".
I'm more of the Jon Stewart persuasion where he says:
MoveOn.org: 10 years of making even people who agree with you cringe. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=174767&title=local-campaign-ads&byDate=true
August 19, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mean to be snide, I am totally frustrated. Check out the link below: Unfortunately, nasty ads are winning, and we are seeing none hitting back. There are several issues that could be used against McCain and instead there is silence. Media totally is a large part of the problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/progressives-sound-alarms_n_119843.html
August 19, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I apologize if I sounded snide. That was not my intent. I had just gotten off the phone with my husband telling me how everyone at his job supports McCain because of experience. I personally think it is because of color, experience being used as an excuse, but in any event, same results. Dumbed down America. The nation of 'post literacy' I believe.
August 19, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's alright, I completely understand that. Thanks though =-D
August 19, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, but what the hell are you talking about? This is an ad about John McCain and Elizabeth Dole. You wanna tell me how Barack Obama is involved?
August 19, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moveon was asked by the Obama campaign to not run any ads on his behalf. And they aren't.
August 19, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Precisely.
I guess that means that MoveOn can never ever run any ad against anyone, anywhere, or it will be Barack Obama's fault if it does.
August 19, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Short, to the point, well done.
August 19, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, this is helpful. Thanks mr. bill for praising mcbush's energy policy. Especially, when moveon (an organization originally created to help you with your impeachment) is pumping money into ads slamming mcbush's and republican energy policies. We dems and the american people appreciate it. WTF!!!!!! This bozo needs a long, long vacation with island women in the south seas until november. Anybody but the clintons in 2012 and 2016. Pathetic.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/bipartisan-praise-from-bill-clinton/
August 19, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael: I read that and totally wanted to smack the guy. He just cannot get over his (oops, Hillary's) loss. I agree, WTF.
August 19, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is just mind boggling. Can anybody honestly say that the clintons are supporting obama? Can anybody truthfully say that they aren't trying to make him lose in november so that they can run in 2012? It's absurd. I really wish that they would go away. There are more quotes from them slamming obama and praising mcbush than anything remotely favorable for obama. Pathetic.
August 19, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've tried to give the Clintons some slack, particularly Hillary, but after reading that this morning, I decided that neither deserves it.
And people wonder why Obama isn't miles ahead of McCain at this point. Obama's fighting off McCain with the "help" of the Clintons, and their deranged PUMAS.
Given that McCain had months to get ready for the general election, a better question would be "Why isn't the Maverick steamrolling Mr. String Bean?"
August 19, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also, I decided today I will just go nuts seeing Cindy McCain for four years. She is the most cold, stand-offish person I have ever seen. And to totally pretend she doesn't have a half-sister, all this tripe about being an only child? She is horrible!
August 19, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not often that I've defended Bill Clinton - especially, lately - but, I think we may be unfairly ripping him here.
First of all, we don't really know the context of his remarks. But secondly, from what context the report does give us, he seems to be saying that Obama is the best candidate when it comes to combatting global warming while acknowledging the truth about McCain - that he is ahead of most other Republicans in facing the issue. Obama himself said much the same thing about McCain just a couple of months ago (http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/obama_mccain_has_failed_us_on.php), as has the League of Conservation Voters (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0214/p12s01-wogi.html).
That said, McCain's scorecard with the LCV is FAR LOWER than Obama's (mid-20's vs. mid-90's). And, Bill points out that Obama is superior to McCain in this regard.
August 19, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think they started this way too late. The ludicrous notion that "drilling here, drilling now" will significantly affect gas prices has already taken hold. The Dems needed to be on this sooner.
August 19, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, the dems allowed the republicans to manipulate the narrative, AGAIN! Pathetic. All the oil companies want is the leases so that they can sit on them. They have no intent on drilling at any time in the near future in any event. They'll sit on the leases as oil goes through the freaking roof so that they can make more money. Unbelievable.
Why can't dems be more proactive? It's very distressing. The leadership should take a breather for a couple of days, get around a table and figure out how to manipulate the narrative away from defining obama and oil drilling and to defining mcbush. Come on guys and gals, get with the program.
August 19, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was in reply to CT Voter. Damn commenting system.
August 19, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got it.
At times, the Dems remind me of Charlie Brown. Always believing that Lucy will hold the football this time. The Dems always seem to believe that the voting public won't buy the Republican bullshit this time.
Wonder what it will take to convince them that yes, the voting public will always buy Republican bullshit because the Dems aren't doing a good job of offering alternatives.
August 19, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good analogy and so true. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Dems have to get in the defining, soundbite and stupid props business. Unfortunately, that's what 80% of the voting public buys. They just don't pay attention.
How about a soundbite that mcbush is for welfare for the rich? The rich wouldn't be so rich were it not for the work of the other 98% of the population and the us infrastructure that is crumbling. Or how about mcbush is for corporate welfare for the same reasons.
August 19, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the ad I would like to see someone run... the news is a little old, but the satirical arrow is razor sharp....
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ea0b05d406
August 19, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for MoveOn, I'll send them another $25.00
August 19, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope this ad gets aired in Maine (Susan Collins, Rep incumbent) and Minnesota (Coleman, Rep incumbent) - With these states very high heating bills it should work very well for Democrats. Perhaps MoveOn.org should focus on the states with Republican incumbents plus high winter heating bills to make the most of their investment. Also, I loved the add you showed yesterday with the graphs showing McCain voting 100% of the time with Bush be this year. This was quite powerful. I'm still waiting for Biden to announce hearings on the Georgian situation.
August 19, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain has voted 100% with Bush this year because neither of them vote in the Senate.
August 19, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pelosi has the poison pill legislation that will call the repups bluff. She'll hold a vote on legislation allowing offshore drilling in exchange for the elimination of oil industry tax credits, royalty breaks and leases they aren't using...
The Repups will vote against it - making it apparent that greater production from offshore drilling is less important than oil industry tax breaks.
She just needs to make sure the legislation is a clean, so there's no "I voted against it because it contained x.
August 19, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? Are you speculating or is that the game plan? I like it by the way. They should put in the legislation a sunset provision on all leases, so that the oil companies use it or lose it.
Also, it should be made abundantly clear how much oil they are sitting on now that they aren't drilling. Not the acres of land, but the estimated oil under those acres. Every time they throw out the 68 million acres of land, the response is that there is little oil there, if any. They have to have an estimate of what's there, or they wouldn't have leased the land in the first place.
August 19, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
As far as I know, that is the game-plan. I'm speculating as to exactly what's in there but it should be along those lines.
Eliminating tax/royalty benefits, a holdover from when cheap oil meant domestic production was unprofitable, is just good policy. Such subsidies invariably outlive their raison d'etre and turn into pure profit for the beneficiary, straight out of the treasury and our pockets.
Use it or lose it is actually a good market-based policy because it increases competition by giving smaller players an oppurtunity to undercut larger players and attempt to produce marginal sites. A well in every yard!
In reality is that it'll take years before there is any new drilling, but exploration means we'd get a better idea of how much oil there is out there - probably a lot less and a lot more expensive to pump than the CW suggests. In the end you're taking another drilling myth off the petroleophiles' list.
August 19, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's going to be a problem.
Last I heard, she had CA and FL excluded from off-shore drilling. That's a workable excuse for McSame to vote against it.
Silly, kinda. With local (state) veto included, CA (and likely FL) were never in danger. The enabling legislation would never pass the CA legislature.
August 19, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, Pelosi should call the act the "Drilling for America's Freedom Act" or some such nonsense. That would stick it to the wingers.
August 19, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
MichaelA,
excellent suggestion, taking a page out of the right wing playbook.
1- Republicans give large cotton growers a big tax cut.
2- American Flags made from Cotton.
#- Republicans call their bill the "WE LOVE OUR FLAG BILL"
August 19, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are absolutely right CT Voter. Dems must stop wringing their hands and start to fight. TPM can show us the way by printing headlines that fight GOP talking points instead of promoting them. Look at the front page right now and see how TPM uses the exact verbage the GOP pushes. It's like I'm looking at a right-wing website.
August 19, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a clintons in 2012 website, which I guess could be construed as a right-wing website.
August 19, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree, strongly, with your characterization that it's a Clintons in 2012 website. I think that is pretty insulting to Sargent and Kleefield. Because they do not enthusiastically trash Clinton doesn't mean they are pro-Clinton.
And sure, if you cherry picked the headlines and stories during the primaries, you could argue that they were only publishing Clinton stories, but the only way to make that claim was to do some cherry picking.
Just my 2 cents.
August 19, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, I'm not advocating that they trash the clintons. They actually stopped the clintons for vp stories, that were on a daily basis, some time ago. I am talking about the spin on headlines and stories by the way. The spin is to make obama look weak or in trouble, virtually always. Like the ad buy piece, the spin was against obama, notwithstanding obama outspending mcbush over-all and the failure to include the operations expenses that obama is spending.
Just my two cents as well.
August 19, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree about the headlines, Michael A, but I can't fault TPM for that--the climate of political discussion is such that for whatever Event X is, it's going to be perceived as an obstacle for the Democrats and no problem for the Republicans. I'm not surprised that it seeps into the headlines at TPM.
And the political blogosphere is filled to the brim these days with all the talk of "Why isn't Obama doing X NOW, RIGHT NOW????@?##?!?" and that probably seeps into the consciousness as well.
August 19, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points, you are probably right.
August 19, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT Voter -- I do fault TPM for the headlines. I wish they would make a greater effort to refute GOP talking points up front rather than uncritically repeating them.
August 19, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're absolutely right, Michael A. My guess is Republicans love TPM - the headlines constantly affirm their talking points. Who needs to actually read the content?
August 19, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
CNN has been running part of a McCain speech where he attacks Obama, its been on a few times since 6:00am, it runs uninterrupted for 2.75 minutes. I timed it. They didn't follow with an Obama piece. After they ran it this time, 2:50 pm, they went right to a Battle of the Sexes story.
We need MoveOn.
August 19, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I noticed that from cnn every time I watch them. They air minutes of attacks by mcbush and then they air minutes of whining by obama. They never air obama's attacks of mcbush. In order for obama to try and control the narrative, he has to stop whining about the attacks on his patriotism and such and just go on the attack of mcbush, which would hopefully get air time. When I say "attack," I don't mean slime, I mean defining mcbush for what he is, bush on steroids with policies screwing the american people. None of obama's defining of mcbush gets air time, only the whining.
August 19, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks miguelmas, for the link. That was funny!
Wish we could get free publicity ("journalistic disscussion") of that one going.
August 19, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
JohnW1141
I saw that too. Glad to know I'm not imagining. Not only that, they showed Obama at a VFW convention speaking but they gave you no chance to see if he got a positive response.
August 19, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
soupson58,
now CNN is running a video of McCain on an oil rig in the Gulf bashing Obama with no Obama comeback.
I predicted some time back that the Democrat nominee won't have to worry about the Republicans as much as they have to worry about the Media.
August 19, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an avowed, practicing liberal, I wonder why the USA can't just start its own oil company.
It seems to have worked elsewhere.
Oh! That's right. Unless a billion dollars is being made every few days for the already rich, it isn't fair trade.
August 19, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's alright, I completely understand that. Thanks though =-D
August 19, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, there lies the loophole. I suppose it's not really a loophole, but still it seems to me if you're targeting the DIRECT opponent of Obama, even if you're not saying Obama's name in the ad, that's a bit like crossing your fingers behind your back in the promise to me. I mean sure, they could always vote third party, but really they're saying vote obama. But just not saying it.
August 19, 2008 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's get real here. The basic truth is that Democrats and my fellow African-Americans are to FUCKING LAZY TO GO AND VOTE!! In NC and Georgia, there are supposedly 500.000 black voters ... not even registered. What da F ... is Obama doing with all that money? All he needs to do is to focus on Florida and Ohio, win those and the rest will follow.
We can cuss the rednecks all we want about voting for Big Oil and against their own interests, but in the end Afro-Americans do just the same: they DON'T vote, which is against their own interest.
August 19, 2008 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Coloured European Observer,
Hmm...for someone who claims to be supposedly African-American you have a habit of referring to us in the third person. Your premise is flawed: WE VOTE, even when disenfranchised. Ever heard of Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan, The Voting Rights Act, or "hanging" chads?
August 20, 2008 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I like it. It talks about the lost opportunity costs inherent in keeping the GOP in power.
August 20, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink