Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the national coalition of mayors working to reduce gun violence, began running a new television ad today targeting Sen. Kelly Ayotte.
The ad criticizes New Hampshire’s junior senator for claiming she supports background checks — but voting against the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey background check bill. “And that makes New Hampshire less safe,” warns the narrator:
In the U.S. Senate, there was a key vote for comprehensive background checks. Sen. Ayotte voted no.
Sen. Ayotte voted against a Senate proposal to require background checks. Ayotte was the only senator from New England to oppose the measure. Ayotte’s vote helped defeat a modest measure to prevent the seriously mentally ill from purchasing firearms.
Now Ayotte says she’s for strengthening background checks. But when it counted, she was a key vote to kill it. And that makes New Hampshire less safe.
The headquarters for the second most powerful gun lobby in the country is just across the highway from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The National Shooting Sports Foundation has turned its attention to the Granite State this week. The premiere industry association for gun retailers is running radio ads supporting Sen. Kelly Ayotte for her vote opposing expanded background checks for gun purchasers:
Gun owners and hunters, say thank you to our Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Thank you for standing up to political pressure from a big city mayor who thinks he knows what’s best for the rest of us. Thank you for voting to protect the rights of gun owners, hunters and all who cherish the freedom of our 2nd Amendment. And thank you for helping to protect jobs and our economy. Call 202-224-3324 to say thanks yourself.
New Hampshire is one of 13 states targeted by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun violence group in an upcoming $12 million ad campaign.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns will begin running the ads on Tuesday when senators are home for the congressional Easter recess. The campaign is focused on lawmakers who Bloomberg believes might be persuaded to support the Senate’s package of gun safety legislation.
The campaign also includes more than 100 grassroots events across the country on Thursday, March 28 as part of a National Day to Demand Action. Gun safety advocates are organizing events, petition drives and phone calls to congressional offices.
“The N.R.A. has just had this field to itself,” Bloomberg said. “It’s the only one that’s been speaking out. It’s time for another voice.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte is one of 13 Republican lawmakers targeted in the first ad campaign sponsored by Organizing for Action, the advocacy group formed by Obama campaign officials.
The online ads call on Ayotte to support a more robust background check system for gun sales. The beginning of the campaign coincided with a gathering of gun safety supporters in front of Ayotte’s Nashua office.
“We decided to focus on background-check loopholes today,” OFA spokeswoman Katie Hogan said. “It’s not that we don’t support the entire plan to curb gun violence; we do. But since there’s such a broad consensus about background checks, we thought it was important for us on our first ‘day of action’ to push members of Congress who have yet to take a stance.”
A recent WMUR Granite State Poll showed 94% of New Hampshire adults favor background checks for all gun sales to uncover felony convictions. 91% expressed support for closing the “gun show loophole” and requiring background checks for guns purchased at gun shows.
Ayotte has said she she is “willing to listen” to proposals that would improve the background check system.
The political consultants for Maggie Hassan’s gubernatorial campaign, Joe Slade White and Ben Nuckels, say the deluge of negative advertising this year made a decisive response even more critical.
Writing in Campaign & Elections, they share their rules for creating effective response media and offer as a case study, their response to the Republican Governors Association’s ad attacking Hassan for not paying property taxes.
“With a single decisive response,” they write, “we had made the deluge of attacks against Hassan actually work for her and against the opponent.”
Respond to the true message of the attack. The real message of the attack was an attempt to define Hassan as a tax-and-spend liberal elitist who plays by a different set of rules—someone who would raise taxes on you because it didn’t matter to her.
As in Judo, use the momentum of the attack itself to throw the opponent. Our response ad was very simple and straightforward. In truth, the Hassan family couldn’t pay property tax on their home because they didn’t own the home. … We caught the opponent in a lie, and we used that to discount the entirety of their ad.
Whenever possible make the message of the response about values that are personal and that strike a responsive chord. First, we called out the fact that the opponents were attacking Maggie Hassan’s family. A family’s home is a deeply personal value, and the fact that their ad made a false attack on Hassan’s family resonated instantly and powerfully with voters.
Pivot quickly to positive or to a counterattack. In this case, since the real message of the attack was that Hassan would raise taxes, we pivoted to the positive fact that she had signed “The Pledge” … to veto any broad-based statewide income or sales tax. …
A new set of audio ads supporting Carol Shea-Porter bring back Fred, the Granite State old-timer who was featured in a series of ads in the 2010 campaign. The four sixty-second ads hit Congressman Frank Guinta over his stance on Medicare and Social Security, women’s issues, the environment and personal ethics. The ads are paid for by “Friends of Carol Shea-Porter for Congress.”
The full series of audio ads follows below the fold.
Did you know that Representatives Bass and Guinta recently voted to give a huge tax cut to millionaires and billionaires — effectively handing them a check for $160,000, on average? That’s the question being posed by Americans for Tax Fairness in its Checks for Millionaires campaign.
New Hampshire Congressmen Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta are two of ten lawmakers targeted by the coalition of progressive organizations lobbying to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%.
The latest campaign ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne features a sound-alike version of the piano riff from Coldplay’s Clocks. I can’t watch it without hearing the lyrics:
Come out upon my seas, Curse missed opportunities Am I a part of the cure Or am I part of the disease
YG Network, an advocacy group with ties to vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, is launching a digital advertising campaign supporting Congressman Frank Guinta.
The issue ad is in opposition to S. 3412, the Middle Class Tax Cut Act, which would extend the Bush-era tax cuts on income up to $250,000. YG Network opposes letting the tax cuts expire on higher incomes and labels the bill “Obama’s tax hike.”
“Liberals don’t understand how to create jobs and fix our economy,” intones the narrator. “We need Congressman Frank Guinta to keep fighting for small business — tell him to vote for jobs by rejecting s. 3412 — the Obama / Reid / Pelosi tax hike.”
YG is short for “Young Guns,” the brash group of conservative GOP lawmakers who have worked to identify like-minded candidates, help them raise money, taught them political and fundraising skills and tutored them in conservative ideology. Former aides to the congressmen founded a Young Guns super PAC and two political non-profits, YG Network and YG Policy Center.
According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Guinta has received $20,000 in campaign contributions from Cantor’s leadership PAC, $10,000 from Ryan and $9,000 from McCarthy.
Friends of Democracy, a new super PAC targeting the outsize influence of money in politics, is launching an ad campaign against New Hampshire Congressman Charlie Bass. The ad will run for two weeks in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District.
Voiceover: Do you feel frozen out like this when it comes to Congress? No wonder. Corporate lobbyists have your congressman’s full attention. Your congressman, Charlie Bass, over took $166,000 from Big Oil, and voted to give them billions in taxpayer subsidies. If we don’t vote against Charlie Bass, middle class families will never get in the game.
Last week, during the back-and-forth over President Obama’s assertion that government plays a valuable role in supporting business, the Romney campaign released a web video, followed by a television ad, featuring Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson.
In the video, owner Jack Gilchrist is adamant that he, his father and his son built his company without any help from the government.
“My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company? … President Obama, you’re killing us out here. Through hard work and a little bit of luck, we built this business. Why are you demonizing us for it?”
Yesterday, John DiStaso reported — and Jack Gilchrist confirmed — that Gilchrist Metal Fabricating had a little help from the government after all.
In the late 1980s, Gilchrist Metal received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling nearly $500,000.
The company received matching funds from the federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (NETAAC).
In 1999, Gilchrist Metal received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority.
Ten percent of the company’s contracts are defense-related including two U.S. Navy sub-contracts last year and a 2008 Coast Guard contract.
Projected Democratic seats: 190
