I Stand Corrected... And This IS The Way You Do It... Bravo Dems !!!

[WillyT]

Kochs aide slams Democratic ad buy
By BURGESS EVERETT | Politco
3/21/14 6:15 PM EDT Updated: 3/21/14 7:08 PM EDT



<snip>

An aide to the Koch brothers on Friday ripped into a massive Democratic ad buy that attacks the billionaires across five Senate battleground states.

In reaction to a $3 million ad buy in Colorado, North Carolina, Arkansas, Michigan and Louisiana by Senate Majority PAC, a spokesman for Koch Industries accused the group of “negative cynical, divisive, and dishonest attacks” against Charles and David Koch.

The big spending by the Democratic group “is the latest round in a series of attacks and attempts to silence private citizens who dare to disagree with the policies of the Majority Leader and the current administration,” said Philip Ellender of Koch Industries. “Rather than focusing on job creation and improving Americans’ lives for the betterment of this country, Senator Reid has decided to focus instead on intimidating political opposition and squelching dissent.”

Senate Majority PAC has strong ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the millions of dollars it’s used to attack the records of Democratic senators on Obamacare and climate policy.

The spending by Senate Majority PAC will run for two weeks and seeks to paint Republican Senate candidates as supportive of policies that would benefit the Kochs and billionaires, according to the New York Times. It’s part of a party-wide strategy to draw attention to the conservative benefactors and the policies that they support. The strategy is increasingly being embraced by Democratic senators on the receiving end of AFP’s barrage.

“This ad campaign is about showing voters where these Republican Senate candidates stand on issues important to seniors and the middle class. And in every case, these candidates side with out of state billionaires over middle-class families in their state,” said Ty Matsdorf, a spokesman for Senate Majority PAC.

<snip>

More: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/koch-brothers-aide-slams-democratic-ad-buy-2014-elections-104911.html?hp=r3

[Jackpine Radical]

1. "Seeks to paint Republican Senate candidates…" BULLSHIT!

"REVEALS Republican Senate candidates…" would be the honest way to phrase that.

[WillyT]

2. LOL !!!

[villager]

3. I will be stunned if we get through the whole elction season without some "Democrat" apologizing...

...for the ads.

[WillyT]

4. They Better Not...

[villager]

6. No my friend, they'd better not. Aside from the fact it's what they always do.

Cravenly caving in, again and again (and gee, tell me again why we don't have a motivated base in midterm elections!?)

[WillyT]

9. I'm A Skeptical Optimist... I Doubt It, Yet I Root For It...

If that makes any sense.

[kairos12]

41. A skeptical optimist, that is a well grounded view of things.

[MADem]

8. Prepare to be stunned.

You seriously think these guys are screwing around?

The operation is in seasoned hands. Longtime Reid strategist Rebecca Lambe and Reid’s former chief of staff, Susan McCue, are leading the charge — along with Craig Varoga, who runs the Patriot Majority. Two other veteran political operatives who once led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — J.B. Poersch and Jim Jordan — are also spearheading the effort, as are veteran Democratic fundraiser Monica Dixon and longtime Democratic attorney Marc Elias....Lambe and McCue have been powerful Reid advisers for years, helping lead the senator’s upset victory in Nevada last year. And Elias is a well-known Washington attorney who argued Al Franken’s successful recount fight before the Minnesota courts in 2009. Reid is not personally involved in this effort, sources say.

This is the "They brought a knife, we brought a gun" answer to American Crossroads...and this isn't their first rodeo, either.


http://www.senatemajority.com/

http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00484642

[WillyT]

10. Oh MADem... I Will Fly To Mass, To Kiss Your... Cheek, If This Works Out !!!

[MADem]

12. These guys are serious. I think they scare the ever loving crap outta the GOP.

This is one way that we grabbed their "Citizen's United" and put it where the sun don't shine.

Now, our view is, of course, that we need to get the money out of politics...that said, we're not suckers. This is a YOU FIRST game. They raised the stakes and now they're forced to live with the consequences. They MADE us do it--and we do it BETTER.

The jerks didn't count on the fact that more people want to back the party with a few decent values, that gives a shit about the poor, kids, education, jobs, housing, social safety nets, and so on, than want to back the party of NO and Screw You, Serfs and Pull Yerself Up By Yer Bootstraps, and ... well... racist, sexist assholes!

I like this PAC. They don't play!

[rhett o rick]

17. Good news. I am ready to fight. nm

[mountain grammy]

21. Bring it! I want them to scare the living crap out of the GOP,

they say the silliest things when they're scared.

[passiveporcupine]

37. this majority pac is still going

it is fighting for the senate dems. Why don't we have one for the house dems? We need to get the house back.

edited to say...there is a house majority pac. Maybe we need to join them for this year's battle?

http://www.thehousemajoritypac.com/

[MADem]

38. These guys are bringing it--it's a worthwhile place to put a few bucks, IMO! nt

[villager]

11. Every since they mowed down RFK, frankly, I've seen Democrats bring nothing but soggy cornflakes

...to the election buffet.

I suppose McGovern gave it a go, but he was in turn "mowed down" by the MSM, which wasn't even as badly owned/fraudulent/worthless then as it is today.

Democrats have pissed away attack points again and again and again.

So yes, I will be stunned if they actually stick with this, and land blows.

Though of course, like WillyT., I am hoping --against all reason and experience -- that they do.

[MADem]

13. This is two PACS melded together that did some serious damage last cycle.

Remember Sharron Angle? Of course not. This PAC ATE her for lunch! They chewed her up and spit her out.

This PAC has one job, and one job only, and that's keeping the Senate.

How do you like THIS success rate from the last cycle?



http://ballotpedia.org/Senate_Majority_PAC#2012_elections

I'm telling you, these guys don't play. This isn't about anything save keeping the Senate Majority--that's what they're in business to do.

[villager]

14. Well, perhaps the narrow focus will help

Again, MADem, I would like nothing better than to be shocked at seeing actual Democrats... with actual gumption. "True grit," as it were.

[MADem]

16. The House has a PAC too, I believe.

Individual Senators have them, and there are a few others in the mix.

Our side is taking their rules and beating them over the head with 'em. The "infrastructure" is there to get our message out. Now we just have to get out to vote!

[mountain grammy]

23. They are doing better than the right wing PAC's

They had some pretty miserable results.
I know many seniors who would be bedridden, wheel chair bound, sick, miserable, and, finally, dead if not for Medicare. Yet, they are staunch Republicans. Every time I'm talking to a senior who just had a hip or knee replacement, or bypass surgery, or whatever medical procedure that improved their lives, I say, thank God for Medicare. You do know Republicans will end Medicare and give you a voucher for about $15,000/year. Think that would cover that procedure you just had done? No? Well that's Paul Ryan's budget and all Republicans voted for it. Republicans will end Medicare. Have a nice day.

[MADem]

28. Keep spreading the word, mg--one voter at a time! nt

[okaawhatever]

5. I can't wait until MSM covers their sale of oil refining equipment to Iran through an company they

own in France. The flag pin wearing candidates on the right will have to acknowledge taking campaign money from these "patriots"

[okaawhatever]

7. there is a secondary effect here. The Kochs are private people and hate publicity. Their business

affairs are very hush hush and the secrecy they demand in their own company is downright creepy. time for a little sunlight into their affairs.

[annabanana]

15. They can't HANDLE the truth!

[zeemike]

18. You are right, that is the way to do it.

But 3 million is just a drop in the bucket in todays political terms...but it is a start.
And perhaps it will catch on.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

19. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this aide used to be a Democrat...

This a-hole Philip Ellender used to be a Democrat. Heck, even his family was Democrat! However, money has turned this a-hole into a NEO-CON who consistently tries to justify what he once was with bs and becoming tongue-tied.

...The great-nephew of the late Democratic Sen. Allen Ellender of Louisiana, Ellender’s career before joining the Kochs was mostly spent working for Democrats and environmental groups in his native Louisiana. He is still registered to vote as a Democrat and remains on the board of the Nature Conservancy chapter in his adopted home state of Georgia.

In an email interview, Ellender rejected the idea that there is any inconsistency between his political background and his job with Koch. Describing himself as “a classical liberal,” Ellender said he has never been as committed to a political party as to a small-government, free-enterprise ideology that matches precisely the one espoused by the Kochs.

And he said he favors environmental regulations based on “sound science and economic cost-benefit analysis” but never supported proposals like the cap-and-trade legislation backed by Nature Conservancy and opposed by many conservatives.

Still, his role with the Kochs leaves some who knew him in Louisiana searching for explanations.

“I’m actually a little bit disappointed that Philip works for the Koch brothers, because he seemed to me to be one of the good guys,” said Melissa Flournoy, a former Democratic state representative who in the early 1990s worked with Ellender at the Council for A Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan public interest group in Baton Rouge, and said she would have considered him “a progressive.”

George C. Kennedy, a veteran Louisiana political consultant who worked with Ellender on a Democratic campaign, said his politics have evolved but in a way that reflects the region as a whole.

“If you look at the story of Phil Ellender, you’re going to see a metaphor for the entire sea change of politics among elites and movers and shakers in the Deep South,” Kennedy said. “You’re going to see a guy who came up with a Democratic heritage, some money and influence, who evolved as a young man into a hard-right conservative.”

Ellender got his start in politics working on the 1987 gubernatorial campaign of Buddy Roemer, an up-and-coming young Democratic congressman running as a reform-minded environmentalist who later became a Republican. After Roemer won, he appointed Ellender to the state Mineral Board, which leases state lands and water-bottoms to oil companies for drilling.

Ellender resigned two years later out of his concern over a potential conflict with his work for the Nature Conservancy — for which he was raising money, including from some of the same oil companies to which the Mineral Board leased drilling rights.

“In order to maintain the highest standards of accountability that you have instituted in public service, and in order to maintain the credibility of myself, your administration, and The Nature Conservancy, I have concluded that the best solution is for me to resign,” Ellender wrote in 1990 letter to Roemer.

Ellender went on to work for the Council for A Better Louisiana and briefly for Roy Fletcher, a prominent Louisiana-based political consultant who worked for Democrats and Republicans, before being hired in 1994 by a Baton Rouge lobbying firm, Harris, DeVille & Associates. It guided Koch through tricky situations with environmental groups, local press and government permitting agencies.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56628.html

He's a sleezeball.

[truedelphi]

32. Very interesting. n/t

[JDPriestly]

20. Sounds like a good campaign by Democrats. We're finally calling out these greedy Republicans.

Let's see the Kochs deny any of the facts in the ads. Bet they can't disprove a word.

[mnhtnbb]

22. I can't wait to see these ads here in NC since we've been bombarded

by Koch Bros Americans for Prosperity ads with all their BS, greed, and lies.


I really hope they give it to these a$$holes.

[Aerows]

24. If the Koch Brothers and their bought and paid for politicians

can't stand the political heat, they need to get out of the political kitchen. Please, get out of the political kitchen and preferably quietly go some place that will surely be more to your liking, such as hell, Koch Brothers.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

25. Scott Brown Begs David Koch For Money - YouTube

[MannyGoldstein]

26. When one shines light on cockroaches, they scurry. nt

[senseandsensibility]

27. Of course there will be some blowback,

and most of the corporate media will do the Koch's whining for them, but I hope the Dems don't back down.

[Art_from_Ark]

29. I am particularly interested in how this will play out in Arkansas

The polls are all over the place right now, with 11 showing Tom Cotton (R) ahead of Mark Pryor (D) by up to 8 points, and 8 showing Pryor ahead. All polls show large numbers of undecideds.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2014-arkansas-senate-cotton-vs-pryor

[sheshe2]

30. WillyT...

Sometimes I just gotta say, I luv ya!

[WillyT]

31. Right Back Atcha, sheshe2 !!!

[Jefferson23]

33. Highly Recommend Thanks for posting. n/t

[spanone]

34. bwahahahahahaaa...they can sure dish it out...but

[A Simple Game]

35. Do I see a debate between the Koch brothers and two Democratic Senators looming on the horizon?

No, I didn't think so either.

[malaise]

36. They are 100% entitled pricks

Only they can attack - only they can run ad campaigns - unfreakingbelievable!!

[Triana]

39. "It takes some brass to accuse someone else of doing what YOU did..."

-Bill Clinton, exposing just this kind of hypocrisy from Republicans and their owners.

There they go again...

[czarjak]

40. David Koch...

"All I want is my fair share, and that's all of it." Sunday School lesson Dave?