Americans for Prosperity Begins $25 Million Anti-Obama Ad Campaign
Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party organization backed by the Koch brothers, is set to begin a $25 million advertising assault aimed at President Obama, its largest effort to date.
The ad campaign is the latest example of how independent political groups funded by a small number of wealthy donors are shaping the presidential campaign in key swing states. Conservative groups and “super PACs” have been particularly aggressive, pummeling Mr. Obama on the airwaves as Mitt Romney’s campaign waits until after the Republican National Convention — when it will be legally permitted to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it has raised in recent months — to ramp up its advertising efforts.
American for Prosperity said that the first of several ads would begin appearing on Wednesday in 11 battleground states, including here in Florida. The campaign will last for three weeks — extending through Labor Day weekend — and includes Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The first ad, titled “President Obama: A One-Term Proposition,” hits the president over the rising national debt — an issue that conservative political groups like Americans for Prosperity and American Crossroads, which is run with the help of Karl Rove, believe is particularly powerful with swing voters in this election.
The commercial focuses on an excerpt from an interview Mr. Obama gave to NBC News at the beginning of his term in which he pledged to cut the debt. It was during that interview that he uttered the phrase that his rivals now regularly use against him: “I will be held accountable.”