Labor Ad Ties Limbaugh to the ‘Party of No’

Original Link: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/labor-ad-ties-limbaugh-to-the-party-of-no/

By Kate Phillips

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the nation’s largest and most politically active labor unions, and Americans United for Change, a labor advocacy group, have joined together to produce a TV ad that mashes clips of Republican congressional leaders’ reactions against the $787 billion stimulus package with Rush Limbaugh’s opposition to the White House initiative.

The commercial, which a group spokesman said would be broadcast on some cable networks and possibly the Sunday news shows early next week, attempts to paint Mr. Limbaugh, the talk radio show host, as the titular head of the Republican party.

It intersperses clips of American workers, teachers and foreclosure signs with the leaders using the word “no.” And the ad ends with Mr. Limbaugh’s declaration toward President Obama from a few weeks ago: “I want him to fail,” and then a narrator concludes: “Tell them America won’t take no for an answer.”

Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, offered this response to the ad: “The Democrats are running a permanent campaign rather than doing the bipartisan work of governing. These ads are part of the Democrats’ larger strategy to do something, anything to try to take the focus of their massive spending binge.”

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for Americans United who is soon to rejoin the Democratic National Committee as its communications director said: “Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. He says jump and Eric Cantor and other Republican leaders say how high. Limbaugh is better known among Republicans than any of the Republicans leaders in Congress and when he speaks they listen and follow just as they did in opposing en masse President Obama’s recovery package.”

The ad features Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, Senator John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Representative Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip.

No House Republicans voted for the stimulus bill, citing what they view as excessive spending rather than additional tax cuts. In the Senate, only three Republicans broke away from the minority opposition but that was enough to pass the bill.

In a statement, Mr. Woodhouse cited polls indicating broad public support for the stimulus package and Mr. Obama. Asked about those polls earlier this week at a reporters’ briefing, Mr. Boehner said he believed the public would be less content with the stimulus efforts once they began to “dribble out” across the country.

Interestingly, in recent days and weeks, Republican leaders have used the opposite word from failure in making pronouncements that they, too, along with the American public, want the president to “succeed” when it comes to economic recovery. They, of course, disagree with the avenues he’s taking to try to get there and continue to believe that saying no to more spending will somehow resonate with the public down the road.

As for Mr. Limbaugh, he’s a featured speaker tomorrow at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where many potential Republican presidential candidates for 2012 have been making appearances yesterday and today.