10/21/2010

The Stimulus is the big focus of Republican Campaign commercials

From the WSJ:

Democrats running for Congress aren't saying much about the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan these days. But Republicans can't stop talking about it.

GOP candidates, party committees and conservative groups in recent days have unleashed dozens of television advertisements criticizing the stimulus plan as a costly failure.

Republican Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio, in one TV commercial, drops a copy of the stimulus legislation on a table. It lands with a thud as Mr. Rubio says, "This is the stimulus. Billions in spending, mountains of foreign debt, and countless regulations that Congress didn't even read. The only thing missing? Jobs."

The National Republican Congressional Committee said that of 112 ads it has run on behalf of House candidates as of Oct. 12, 52 had featured the stimulus package.

In all, at least 170 ads mentioning the word "stimulus" have run in the election cycle so far, according to data collected by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of a private company that tracks political advertising. The data was analyzed by FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

Of the ads reviewed, 62 used the phrase "failed stimulus"; others cited a "wasteful stimulus" or, pejoratively, "massive stimulus," FactCheck found. The program passed by Congress in February 2009 had an initial price tag of $787 billion. It has since risen to $814 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

A new poll for The Wall Street Journal and NBC News suggests a large share of voters remains sour on the stimulus. About 45% of respondents said the plan was "a bad idea," compared with 35% who thought it was "a good idea" and 20% who weren't sure or had no opinion. . . .

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