This new ad will air in New Mexico and Ohio in a $350,000 ad buy. The ad is the work of BornAliveTruth.org, a 527 group.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anieuWFWe8s[/youtube]
From the AP:
The abortion ad, a $350,000 spot that will appear during the next week in Ohio and New Mexico, aims to cast Obama as out of the mainstream, even among abortion rights advocates. Aired by BornAliveTruth.org, it single out his efforts while in the Illinois Senate to defeat the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Obama and abortion rights forces in Illinois have said the bill would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade.
BornAliveTruth.org is organized as a nonprofit entity commonly known as a 527 for the section of the tax code that regulates such groups. Unlike political action groups, these organizations can raise money from individuals in unlimited amounts. The main donor of BornAliveTruth is Raymond Ruddy, a prominent anti-abortion figure in Massachusetts who supported Mitt Romney for president in the GOP primary.
The ad features Gianna Jessen, a 31-year-old motivational speaker from Nashville, Tenn., adopted as a child after a failed abortion. “Sen. Obama, please support born alive infant protections . I’m living proof these babies have a right to live.”
As a state senator, Obama opposed three legislative efforts, in 2001, 2002 and 2003, to give legal protections to any aborted fetus that showed signs of life. The 2003 measure was virtually identical to a bill President Bush signed into law in 2002.
While Obama has said he would have supported the federal law, he and other opponents of the Illinois bill have said it would have had greater consequences on state laws governing abortion. The Obama campaign also has pointed out that Illinois already had legislation protecting aborted fetuses that were born alive and were considered able to survive.
Jill Stanek, an organizer of BornAliveTruth, said the Illinois legislation would protect pre-viable fetuses as well. “He took a leadership role in seeing that this bill did not see the light of day,” she said.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I love it and I haven’t even watched the ad yet. This combined with Ayers, Wright, Rezko and “bitterclingers” wins us PA and MI not to mention OH and most other swing states.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I love 527′s, especially when there is so much to expose. Obamanation is going to be so buried answering for his checkered past that his lame-o message for “Hope” and “Change” is going to be washed over big time! Oh, but wait, isn’t that ALREADY happening???
September 15th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
After watching it I like it even better. It isn’t dark and biting like many attack ads. Instead it is formatted more as an informational ad, which is what makes it more effective.
The real key in this ad is not the $350,000 but instead all of the free airtime it will get on network news as they discuss this issue.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
O.K. – effective ad – works for the social conservative who are already going to vote for McCain – we need a good 527 ad showing Obama and Jeremiah Wright together with Wright speech hating America.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
this will play well in New Mexico with Hispanics and with blue Catholics in Ohio.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
#4 there was an article in yesterdays Washington Post that the Billioniare from Texas behind the swift ads are getting ready to let BO have it. They are a 501c4 group, that way their names are confidential.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
JamesB,
This ad works for a few reasons.
1) There is a significant group of social conservatives who mistakenly believe that Obama is a moderate on the issue. This combined with McCain’s wrongly perceived moderation on social issues, allows them to vote for Obama on the basis of other issues where they perceive a greater difference.
By educating them on just how extreme Obama is on social issues, some voters will chose to vote against Obama on this issue even though they agree with him on other issues.
2) This ad will motivate social conservatives to help with GOTV and other grassroots activities.
3) It also may help to motivate a small number of social conservatives who don’t like McCain and were planning to sit this one out.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Think Eastern Ohio, where Hillary beat Obama in every single county in the primary. Where the district is represented by a 100% pro-life Dem, Charlie Wilson.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Why only $350,000? That’s pocket change in this election.
John McCain should officially take up this line of attack and go for a $10 million ad buy.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I bet Obama wishes he had voted “present” 4 more times.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I thought Romney supporters were too miffed to help McCain in any way.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Speaking of counties in Oh-Hi-Oh carried by Senator H-to-the-R-to-the-C, the speculation that Bama-Obiden may toss the Biden part under a bus in favor of the Senator from New York keeps mounting:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/why_obama_might_pull_an_eaglet.html
September 15th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Raj, I can’t speak for all Romney supporters, but I’m glad Romney wasn’t selected and plan on voting McCain/Palin in Nov.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
#12 He wouldn’t do it as it’d be political suicided for both him and Senator Clinton.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Biden the albatross. Even Biden agrees that Obama lacks judgment (based on his critique of Barrack’s choice in running mate).
Of course, in two Presidential campaigns, Biden was a proven vote getter!!! Who could have seen this coming???
September 16th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I concur, effendi. Whether Bama casts his Obiden on the waters is not the important issue for me, however. The issue for me is that this speculation exists at all. Democrats famously do not like to lose, and they also quite famously shoot their wounded. Their growing dissension and even sedition in their ranks has become too obvious for anyone but the media to ignore.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Alan Colmes was rather restrained and tongue-tied as he tried to debate the woman in this ad. If the ad can shut down Alan Colmes, it will have a huge impact.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:06 am
MWS. Here is a great new social networking site for politics, activism, and political organizing: politics4all.com. Please join. We’ll get along famously there I’m sure.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Alan Colmes is a bore anyway. I can’t even stand Hannity, but he slaps Colmes around like a ragdoll every night.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Colmes is still lying about the bill being meaningless. He usually has more integrity than that.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Seriously. What a flunkie this guy is.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Fantastic ad. It’s not horrifically dark, which means it won’t turn off independents. It doesn’t accuse Obama of infanticide flat out, which is important, because voters who don’t know the facts (all of them) would be inclined to dismiss an ad that used a word like infanticide, under the belief that it surely must be false. I’m of two minds about whether they should have pointed out that it passed 98-0 in the federal senate. That would have highlighted how extreme his vote was, whereas now a few moderates who like Obama might be inclined to assume the ad is a distortion anyway. That said, info like that would have disrupted the personal nature of the ad. I suspect it’s not the last of it’s kind and the next one address that part.
But, how in the tank is the AP for Obama?
“The Obama campaign also has pointed out that Illinois already had legislation protecting aborted fetuses that were born alive and were considered able to survive.”
Pointed out? How bout “claimed”? Because that’s demonstrably false. Fetuses that were considered able to survive by the original doctor, prior to inducing labor, were protected, though not by law per-se. But, this wasn’t an abortion in any meaningful sense. In fact the entire procedure per-se. It’s just induced labor at an extremely early point in the pregnancy (generally five to six months). This makes it de-facto abortion, if the fetus is thought to be unviable.
If it’s thought to be viable, it’s just a normal, albeit early, birth. The point here though, is that doctors were getting it wrong; they were inducing labor on what they thought were pre-viable fetuses, and then sticking those fetuses on soiled rags, in utility closets, even when they turned out to be breathing and alive after the induced labor. Whether all of them were likely to live, even with medical treatment, is almost beside the point. A baby has exited the womb. It is alive, sometimes for hours. It no longer interferes with the mother’s autonomy.
Yet, Obama decided that, because the original doctor believed the fetus was “non-viable” (it would die eventually), it didn’t matter how the fetuses were treated once they’d exited the womb. Because, it was likely to die anyway we shouldn’t protect it, because doing so might somehow open a doctor to legal liability or influence the mother’s original choice. So no AP, Obama did not point out that “Illinois already had legislation..blah blah blah”. He claimed, and his claim was factually incorrect. And you folks need to start being journalists and stop with this embarrassing nonsense.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:01 am
The thing I worry about, is that this is going to desensitize people. Too many Americans have decided they’re going to vote for Obama, come hell or highwater. The vast majority of them would, if the Born Alive Infant Protection Act wasn’t connected to Obama, recoil at this vote and this practice. But, because many of them are determined to vote for Obama, they’re going to try to convince themselves that it’s ok. And another piece of our moral fabric will be in tatters. In fact, this is the biggest problem with Obama’s candidacy in general; in order to vote for him, millions will ignore things or accept things that they would have never have ignored or accepted in anyone else. They would have never have accepted Wright pre-Iowa. They would have accepted a candidate launching his political career with an unrepentant terrorist, pre-Iowa. But, now some of them have internalized these things as “acceptable”.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Interesting, I just read her book from some years ago and wondered what had happened to her. I believe she has cerebal palsy or something like that from the failed abortion, and she has had numerous run-ins with the left who really wish she was never born.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Ouch. Effective without over playing it.
Heard her life story on the radio yesterday, very moving.
September 16th, 2008 at 7:38 am
The Obama campaign has put out successive waves of misrepresentations and distortions on this issue, attempting to explain away his record. The Naitonal Right to Life Committee has produced a “white paper” that gives each major Obama distortion and then provides the documentation that refutes it. The White Paper is here:
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/ W…gust282008.html
For example, the Obama campaign recently came up with the claim that the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was unnecessary, because an existing Illinois law already protected all infants born alive during abortions. This claim is demonstrably false. The real reason Obama opposed the bill, as he explained at the time, was that he thought it was unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade to define what he called a “previable fetus” as a person — even though the bill applied only to babies who were entirely born, and alive. Here is the entire text of the bill that Obama killed, in the committee he chaired, on March 13, 2003:
AN ACT concerning infants who are born alive. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Statute on Statutes is amended by adding Section 1.36 as follows: (5 ILCS 70/1.36 new)
Sec. 1.36. Born-alive infant.
(a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative agencies of this State, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
(b) As used in this Section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
(c) Nothing in this Section [the bill] shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.
Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon becoming law.
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
http://www.nrlc.org
September 16th, 2008 at 7:40 am
It looks like I committed some kind of technical error in posing the link above — here is the actual link to the NRLC “white paper” that gives counterpoints to each point of Obama disinformation on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act:
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/WhitePaperAugust282008.html
September 16th, 2008 at 8:27 am
There’s a new Quinipiac poll that have Obama up 3 in……………..NEW JERSEY.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:30 am
It is a bit of a shame that we do not have 527s running against Congressman Wilson and his son running for State Senate. Yes, they may be Pro-Life, but their Socialist clowning around must be stopped. Let’s hope Mr. Ginter can get rid of one of these Left Wing clowns.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Wow… what a great ad!
September 16th, 2008 at 8:38 am
McCain 48-47 in daily Rasmussen.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:40 am
23 “The thing I worry about, is that this is going to desensitize people. Too many Americans have decided they’re going to vote for Obama, come hell or highwater.”
I worry about this a lot too. Along with – even if Obama loses – the Oprah/Hollywood support and the media anointing of him makes it cool to vote Obama and makes it possible that a whole generation of malleable voters (typically younger) might turn center-left (or even way left) permanently. Much in the same way I became conservative because I liked Ross Perot and detested Clinton, I can see the media hating everything McCain does when he vetoes Democrat bills.
Our job is to make hell and high water come and rain down on this guy the next 7 weeks.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:40 am
28
I saw that! McCain down by 3 in NJ? Wow…
September 16th, 2008 at 8:42 am
The content of the message is fine. The messenger is great. It adds a personal touch that is often lacking in these issues.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Read this statement from BO, it looks like he did everything he was accussed of in the NY Post article yesterday:
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/024417.php
September 16th, 2008 at 9:00 am
#33 Let me go out a limb here. NJ will stay blue. VA and NV will stay red.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am
#36 It’s the fact that Obama should be up by more than just 3 in New Jersey and by more than 6 in New York.I have a feeling he may lose a blue state that is traditionally blue.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:13 am
36
I’ve gotta agree with you. NJ just won’t go red, unless McCain sweeps in a landslide ala Reagan.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
If Obama is having to defend in NY and NJ that means less ad buys in the “swing” states.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:31 am
#39 But you could make the same argument for McCain in NV, CO, VA and NC. It would be a colossal blunder for McCain to start allocating resources in NJ and NY. #38 is right….if McCain wins in NJ, he’s already won the other states he needs to hold and are truly battleground. I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think so.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:41 am
This is gut stuff. Palin made me somewhat enthusiastic about the McCain ticket, but when I found out about Obama’s born-alkive opposition was when I decided not to sit out this election. I’ve contributed to this 527. New Mexican swing voters are pretty pro-life, this could make a big difference. Even the parishes with liberal priests still have big banners outside saying ‘abortion stops a beating heart,’ that kind of thing.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Wow. I honestly think this is THE issue. Culture of life, or culture of death. Choose life.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Billy, I’m proud of you for this post. This shows that Franciscan University students can only renew the culture. You should be proud that tomorrow is your 9 month anniversary since you’ve declared your support for John McCain….that aboy!!!