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Some folks have been wondering why the liberal group Americans United for Change has been putting up ads in the home states of Senators Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter, thanking them for their leadership on the stimulus legislation and urging them to continue supporting the bill. This is sort of weird because the senators' leadership led to the bill losing a number of valuable provisions for no clear economic reason, which is not really the liberal position. I e-mailed the group's communications director, Jeremy Funk, to talk to him about it. Here's the reply:
I think I know what you’re going to ask – why the hell are we running these ads, right? Look, we know this has confused a lot of people – but, to be absolutely clear, these ads were not meant to endorse the Senate bill, but rather to acknowledge that without these members we wouldn’t be moving forward. In essence – we’re trying to put our arms around them and hold them throughout the process, especially when the bill comes out of conference, which we expect/hope to be better. This is an end-game strategy that acknowledges without at least 2 of these folks, we get no jobs plan at all, which obviously is not an option. Bottom line: we need a bill that is the most stimulative and creates the maximum amount of jobs while being able to pass the House and Senate.Of course, the organization could be running ads in these states attacking the senators for cutting school funding and jobs during these difficult economic times. Would that have been more productive? Probably not -- it would likely just get their hackles up and make them defensive, which is not the ideal situation to put them in when you're trying to get them to be bolder and join your coalition, especially when, as Funk points out, some of those cuts are going back in during conference.
-- Tim Fernholz
