Kaine slams conservative group for launching attack ads on Sept. 11 anniversary
If you thought the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks would bring a temporary halt to negative political ads, you thought wrong.
Crossroads GPS, the conservative advocacy group co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove, chose today to unleash three new attack ads targeting Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s open U.S. Senate seat. Kaine swiftly condemned Crossroads, which doesn’t disclose its donors and is pouring millions of dollars into Virginia in an effort to influence the Senate and presidential races here.
“Today is a day that all Americans stand united in the memory of those we lost on September 11, 2001 and in the years since,” Kaine said. “Their sacrifice reminds us we’re not Democrats or Republicans first. We’re Americans first.
“Both presidential campaigns rightly suspended negative ads today. It is a sad reflection of the divisiveness of our politics that outside groups like Crossroads GPS cannot set aside false partisan attacks even as our elected officials and citizens of all walks of life, political parties, and religious faiths join together to honor the dead, thank our first responders and service members, and celebrate the freedoms we enjoy as a nation.”
Kaine’s campaign said it would issue a rebuttal to the Crossroads ads on Wednesday.
In a statement announcing the new ads, supported by a $1 million buy, Crossroads spokesman Nate Hodson said the group “will keep turning up the heat on Tim Kaine until he starts putting Virginia’s interests first.”
One of the three Crossroads ads links Kaine to defense cuts that could occur under last year’s bipartisan agreement authorizing an increase in the federal debt limit. The agreement called for a congressional “supercommittee” to come up with a long-term plan to reduce the deficit and for automatic spending cuts to occur if the panel failed. Kaine supported the debt-limit deal, as did Republican congressional leaders.
But Kaine’s Republican opponent, former Sen. George Allen, has criticized it and accused Democrats of using looming defense cuts as leverage to increase taxes. Kaine has said that Republicans are using the spending cuts as leverage to win more tax cuts for the wealthy.
“I believe Congress can still find a deal to avoid the need for cuts that are going to jeopardize our nations’s defense,” Kaine said in a July debate with Allen at The Homestead in Hot Springs. “They’re getting paid; they should do their jobs.”
Two other Crossroads ads released today hit Kaine for proposing “harsh funding cuts for Virginia schools” during his term as governor. One of the ads is tailored for a Northern Virginia audience.
The ad called “Teeth” refers to $357 million in school funding cuts that Kaine proposed in the two-year budget he submitted to the General Assembly in December 2009, a few weeks before he left office. The cuts were part of a strategy to offset a $4.2 billion revenue shortfall in the depths of the economic recession.
The ad fails to note that Kaine proposed using federal stimulus money to offset a portion of the state cuts. It also fails to note that the General Assembly and Kaine’s successor, Republican Bob McDonnell , ended up enacting a budget that cut state direct aid to schools by $645 million.
The ad also uses a quote from the chairwoman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors calling Kaine’s proposal a “kick in the teeth.” The quote actually refers to Kaine’s proposal to delay a scheduled update in the local composite index, a school funding formula based on a locality’s ability pay for basic education requirements. Kaine proposed freezing the adjustment, which would have sent a greater share of state dollars to Northern Virginia at the expense of other localities.
The General Assembly ultimately lifted the freeze. But it also provided a full “hold harmless” payment to affected localities in the 2011 fiscal year and a 50 percent payment in 2012.
– Michael Sluss
September 11, 2012 - 4:03 PM
Seems kind of double-standardy for Kaine to whinge today about the other guy’s negative campaigning… today. He couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?
What’s “whinge?”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whinge
http://cdn1.hark.com/images/000/006/087/6087/original.0
Yeah, we’re worried about a state attack ad on 9/11 when his party’s president was not worried about real attacks, terrorist attacks that ultimately killed 4 US citizens.
Instead, he chose to fly to Vegas to collect a big check after advising America, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas”. I guess that’s unless you plan on blowing a bunch of cash on HIM.
Yes, it is just too bad Obama did not behave more like this guy:
“He sprang from his golf cart at 6:15 a.m. and said he was “distressed to hear about the latest suicide bombers in Israel.”
Just over four hours before, as Bush slept at his parents’ seaside retreat, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bus in Israel, killing nine passengers.
Bush, wearing khakis and a knit shirt, was holding a driver in his gloved left hand. The rest of his foursome, including his father, former president George H.W. Bush, was waiting. However incongruous the setting, the president plunged ahead. “There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them,” he said. “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.”
His business out of the way, Bush barely paused for breath before saying, “Thank you. Now watch this drive.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43789-2002Aug4?language=printer
Obviously the man knew how to handle a crisis.
@Sandi – you are going to bring up Bush playing GOLF? ROFLMAO – Obama has played how many rounds of golf?
“Bush played 24 rounds of golf during the first 2 » years of his presidency, but then, six months into the war in Iraq, decided to stop. “I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said in an interview in 2008 with Yahoo and Politico.com.”
“June 17th, 2012 04:20 PM ET
‘Golfer-in-chief’ hits 100th round as president
Posted by
CNN’s Kevin Liptak
(CNN) – President Barack Obama celebrated Father’s Day on Sunday with a round a golf – his 100th as president, according to a calculation by the television travel pool.
Obama marked the milestone with a game at the century-old Beverly Country Club in Chicago, and hit the links with regular partners Eric Whitaker, Marty Nesbitt and Marvin Nicholson. The president was in Chicago to celebrate the wedding of senior adviser Valerie Jarrett’s daughter, which took place Saturday, and will fly to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, later Sunday for a meeting of the G-20″
Do you like cherry or grape Koolaid, Sandi?
The GOP sound bite du jour…”Obama plays golf.”
No wonder Rmoney is getting his butt handed to him.
@Kristen “his butt handed to him” is your only retort? Weak lady, weak.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting support from 46% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns 45% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
@Sandi @Kristen Sounds like you and Doto have something in common. You seem to respond for each other.
Is Rasmussen the only poll you know? I tend to read “a bunch of ‘em”:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Yeah Bush’s bum knee and terrible gaffe had nothing to do with that Executive decision!.
“According to a database held by CBS News the statement is not entirely accurate. He did cut short a round of golf at the 12th hole on that day, but his last recorded game came two months later, October 13.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/15/georgebush.usa
http://www.anamericanlion.com/2012/05/no-more-golf-mr-president.html
New to blogging Kathie? That is how it is often done. Sometimes it is 4 to 1 when the right wingers get on a roll. Nice to know you will not be joining in…
#6 I’m so glad to hear that Bush decided to work every single minute of the day and never relax, Kathie.
Oh, you say he didn’t do that?
Whew, Ithought you guys had disappeared. It was just getting fun. Looks like I am outweighed here 4:1 but I love it!
@Sandi Looks like you use the internet search engine very well. Good job! Which of the pollsters was the most accurate in 2008? Hmmm…
Why would the liberal media want Obama to look like he is still ahead, why who wants to send money to a loser? A lot at stake here.
#14 “Looks like I am outweighed here 4:1 but I love it!”
Gee, Kathie, you’re just so brave to take us all on like this.
Can you count? Yeah, we are really ganging up on you.
“Sandi @Kristen Sounds like you and Doto have something in common. You seem to respond for each other.”
I’m sorry…what?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa
And Obama’s lead is almost 4 points, and rising. Rmoney, meanwhile, has craftily managed a negative favorability rating. Look for the smart GOP money to start being thrown at House and Senate races.
As for disappearing…some of us work.
@Sandi and I quote “#12 New to blogging Kathie? That is how it is often done. Sometimes it is 4 to 1 when the right wingers get on a roll. Nice to know you will not be joining in…”
So you are saying the conservatives are 4:1?
I am quite new to the scene, but I surely haven’t seen consistent 4:1 postings from the right. I have actually witnessed the reverse.