Mike Allen reports in Politico that PhRMA and other White House friendly groups are going to launch a $12 advertizing blitz for August in support of the White House plan:
PhRMA’s participation is key, because the group has promised to kick in as much as $150 million for advertising and grassroots activity to help pass the president’s plan.
The debut ad is meant to shore up support among the conservative House Blue Dog Democrats, and to target swing senators. So it’s airing in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia. The first buy is expected to run for two weeks, with a weekly spend of around $3 million.
No it’s not. Here are the ConservaDem and GOP Senators in the targeted states, and also the Blue Dogs:
| State | ConservaDem | GOP | Blue Dogs |
| Alaska | Begich | Murkowski | 0 |
| Arkansas | Lincoln, Pryor | 0 | Berry, Ross |
| Colorado | Udall, Bennet | 0 | John Salazar |
| Indiana | Bayh | Lugar | Ellsworth, Hill, Donnelly |
| Louisiana | Landrieu | Vitter | Melancon |
| Nevada | Ensign | 0 | 0 |
| North Dakota | Conrad | Pomeroy | |
| South Dakota | Johnson | Thune | Herseth Sandlin |
| Maine | 0 | Snowe, Collins | Michaud |
| Montana | Tester, Baucus | 0 | 0 |
| Nebraska | Nelson | Mike Johans | 0 |
| Virginia | Warner | 0 | Glenn Nye |
In looking at the Blue Dogs who happen to be targeted by the ads, it’s important to remember that they have been PUSHING PhRMA’s deal with the White House since early July.
So how about the seven Blue Dogs on the Energy & Commerce Committee who held the bill "hostage?" In the end, four agreed to the deal, three did not:
Of the four who voted for the Deal — Mike Ross and Baron Hill get ads; Zach Space and Bart Gordon do not.
Of the three who held out and voted against the deal — Charlie Melancon gets ads; Jim Matheson and John Barrow do not.
The Blue Dogs who happen to get ads in their districts are a mixed bag. Mike Michaud actually supports a public plan.
This has nothing to do with Blue Dogs, they are only incidental to an ad buy. It’s a persuasion campaign giving Republicans and ConservaDems cover for voting for the "bipartisan" Baucus deal. The notion that it’s targeting Blue Dogs is only to give "liberal" health care reform advocates cover for letting their names be used on this.





53 Comments
Spotlight




Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Advanced search
Exactly.. Keeping the corporate fascist center firmly in place is all this is about with the leadership of the d party (and GOP, but they are irrelevant atm). The teabaggers and their sponsor were just pawns in this goal. To bad so many in the left lost sight of the big picture in the midst of a little manufactured idiotic chaos.
Sure bigotry and ignorance deserves ridicule and scorn, but the business of ridicule and scorn should never have helped protect everyone from Obama down in the D party who are simply selling out with nice polite words and equally devious deeds as this post demonstrates.
I mean, when have we been able to do anymore than ask for a pledge to support a robust public option? Discussing the details of a public option has practically vanished outside of a few corners of the blogosphere. Public option certainly not a detail in MSM or Town Halls. We can barely force progressive critters to give it lip service. It simply will not exist in any meaningful form by the time a final vote comes around.
We all have our own lines in the sand. I’m more than willing to forced by law to participate in a public option.. but I will not take the force of law demanding I purchase private insurance very well at all. And I don’t want government to subsidize such wasteful methods.
So its a waste of time why do I smell Rahm behind this deal?
Ok Rahm our ads targeting blue dogs is stupid you say lets see your ads change some votes you set the bar now lets see you get some results!
Rahm Results oxymoron Bwhahaha!
Didn’t Obama in New Hampshire this week admit around 37 million will remain uninsured with his (not) plan.. Hasn’t it been made clear foreign visitors (immigrants) and all women will be denied care too.
What the hell are people supporting Obama Rahm Dass and most D’s for?
We need ads featuring the relatives of people who died in Sarah’s Death panels!
http://www.adn.com/life/health/story/864670.html
We need ads from the un insurable, the people who have had family die because their drugs cost to much.
How far can $12 go in a advertising blitz?
Say more. Who are the “liberal” health care reform advocates you are referring to?
Of course, I’ve been of the opinion that the Blue Dog label has been a distraction from the beginning, one that covers up the fact that not all members of the Blue Dog caucus are behind the obstruction and that there are House members outside the Blue Dog caucus who are in the pockets of the healthcare industry.
This list looks like PhRMA’s boys and girls in Congress.
I think they’re not pushing them because the public option has the votes in the House. This looks more like a Senate ad buy to me than anything else. I’ve long heard that the Blue Dogs have less leverage after the bill was voted out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. If that’s true, it’d explain why they’re targeting Senators instead of Congresspeople.
I do think they should target Ross and other Blue Dog leaders to minimize the chances of a future revolt.
But you’re certainly right–they should target any House members who
Now, now, I’ve hung with Baba Ram Dass and he’s a cool dude.
Plenty we just ask the bank to give us a loan like the hedge funds got $36 to every $1 of collateral. Then we invest in blackmail. Any Blue Dogs part of the Family? It seems a good place to start if we are looking to blackmail people adultery seems to have been encouraged.
Grassroots bought and payed for, fair and square. Nice!
I would like P.Is watching Glen Beck, Bill O’Reily and Lou Dobbs who cuts their lawn, cleans their house, watches the kids are they Hispanic? When they go out to eat is the help legal?
Lets use some blackmail to change their coverage on healthcare or just destroy them I’m fine either way.
Methinks dey be in for a surprise.
You’ve raised some important points.
150 million I assume the Lake is getting some cash we have been covering healthcare since before the democratic primaries if not longer
http://www.google.com/search?h…..&aqi=
I just googled ThingsComeUndone and Healthcare 34,900 results I want some big pharma cash!
That’s the part that goes to the grassroots.
explain further if you please
I expect you’ve already been vetted.
OT
Why in trying to deal with invasions of privacy is the ACLU fanning the flames about “National Healthcare Service”? Why is it not “Your insurer is…” “Their requirements are…”
Pizza
I second that motion.
tried to tell ya how sorry i was about GIGI….namaste
Point of Order, Madame Chair:
Senator John Ensign of Nevada is a Republic, and a
conservativereactionary one at that. He is not a Conservadem, there might be hope of persuading him if he were.and found wanting
Thanks. I saw that but y’all were long gone. Click on my name and see what I’ll be up to on Sunday afternoons.
Interesting link the GOP is going nuts funny I thought the credit card and insurance companies had all this information and used it to raise our rates deny us coverage.
I saw no reference to National Healthcare Service in that video or the linked page. What are you referring to?
It’s not the GOP, it’s the ACLU; check the URL
Sorry just assumed what issue are they fighting for?
When it pops up with the $20 surcharge for a double-meat pizza, the voice says:
“Luckily we have an agreement with your national healthcare provider that lets you….”
Privacy from interlinked databases.
Les Paul has died at 94.
How High the Moon
Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is up and ready: “Undaunted by Criticism, Sarah Palin Again Warns of “Death Panels””
Yikes, I missed that. Not very nice at all. Unless it’s referring to a national company.
So have I.
Was making a point of how to many people are treating the Obama Rahms as if they were cool too.
Remake ? of an ad that came out in 04. Was the laugh of the intertoobz for a bit.
In several CSPAN replays of townhall’s I’ve viewed this week.. it has been made perfectly clear women’s reproductive health will be excluded from any type of public plan funding. Which probably means private insurers will further reduce such coverage.
Yeah, I know but I couldn’t resist. *g*
The devil made me do it.
The Blue Dog’s allies from the health care industry have betrayed them, as they seem to have betrayed the Obama administration. How now?
It’s very witty, for sure.
Requiescat in pacem. There’s gonna be a hell of a jam session tonight.
And that was one of remarkable things about the health care in France as shown in Sicko. It was quite amazing what they do there, what with their population falling.
Gotcha we should get on that point
RIP Mr. Paul. Your greatness will be with us forever !
ES !
Do you mean all aspects of reproductive care or just Abortions ? If any of this is excluded, we must go and sit on Capitol Hill until they are reinstated.
He and Mary Ford together again after 50 years. Hot time in the ol’ town tonight.
Abortion is always the key word… but, imo, you force doctors and hospitals (by not funding) to take health options off the examination room table… bad things happen.
But hey, what should we expect when Senate majority leader Reid and folks like AR Blue Dogs, Berry, Ross, and Senator Pryor are all anti choice too?
Les, Chet, Django, Charlie, Wes, Joe … hell of a cutting contest.
Looks like those pharma ads will cover (help) a lot of anti choice Dems.
Hmmm, let’s see what a stinging e-mail from a Canuck will get Pelosi & HRC to do.
“I will not take the force of law demanding I purchase private insurance very well at all. And I don’t want government to subsidize such wasteful methods.”
Corporate servitude is the goal. Our government has become a mechanism for corporations to manipulate law under the color of law, to leverage “the people” into servitude. The enemy from within! For profit or tax exempt/not for profit public charities for tax law purposes, corporations ration healthcare everyday and American’s are afraid of the government……………
The US government is to protect the right(s) of individuals from the abuses and excesses of government, individual(s) and corporations buying influence and law with campaign contributions! We do not have a more perfect union yet. In fact rather dysfunctional! We do not promote the general welfare with policy but rather protect corporations extracting vast sums of wealth from the population and the republic in the lust for corporate profit and power, while Americans die. The Gettysburg’s Address should be updated… to reflect the power corporations have consolidated to use government to leverage the governed, into corporate servitude!
“So that a government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth!”
To hell with demorats and rethugs alike beholding to corporate slime who now “quid pro quo” with campaign contributions for a government imposed “Life Tax!”
So why is SEIU, which should be in the forefront of advocating a public option, lining up with PhRMA and signing on to this ad campaign for the Baucus bill? If organizations like that don’t stand up for public healthcare, who will? The fix is in.
There is no Baucus bill. SEIU is not stupid.
The key here is the public option. Howard Dean is right: no public option, no bill.
The ads will help reform, but we have to make the public option happen.
Jane, Eve, and Slink are doing great with that.
Isn’t Ensign a REPUBLICAN? You’ve got him listed as a “ConservaDem.”