New Anti-Reform Scare Ad Targeting Seniors Was Created By Maker Of Racially-Tinged Willie Horton Spot
The massive ad campaign designed to frighten seniors about health care reform currently being waged by the 60 Plus Association, the self-styled conservative counterpart to AARP, is the handiwork of the same ad guru that created the infamous Willie Horton ads, we’ve confirmed.
The ad guru’s behind-the-scenes role suggests that scare tactics similar to those used in the racially-charged 1988 Horton spot have now been pressed into service to defeat health care reform.
Yesterday 60 Plus launched a seven figure ad buy targeting 15 House Dems in senior-heavy districts who voted for the Dem proposal, bashing it as a dire threat to Medicare that would saddle seniors’ grandchildren with massive deficits. Another 60 Plus spot last week warned that the Greatest Generation had already “sacrificed enough.”
Both ads were made by McCarthy Marcus Hennings. This firm’s president, writer, and communications consultant, Larry McCarthy, was the creator of the Willie Horton spot during the 1988 Bush-Dukakis presidential race. That ad infamously bashed Michael Dukakis for granting Horton a weekend pass from prison, leading to the murder of a little boy.
You can see the credit for McCarthy’s firm right at the beginning of last week’s 60 Plus spot. A source familiar with the creation of this week’s ad confirmed it was made by the same firm.
The well-funded 60 Plus presents itself as a group that’s all about protecting the interests of seniors. But its ad campaign was created by one of the most hard-boiled GOP operatives of the last generation — one well schooled in some of the nastiest ad tactics in memory.
Thanks to our reporter Ryan Derousseau for research help.
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Update: It’s also worth noting that the 60 Plus Association supported Bush’s plans to privatize Social Security, too.
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Is it just me but doesn’t that ad seem a little weak. I think the whole senior scare tactics have already played themselves out especially since the House bill closes the donut hole. The rest of their comments have already been debunked IMHO.
They spent the summer scaring people and I would think by now it would cease having the same affect.
With a name like mccarthy, one wonders why he would resort to dishonest scare mongering.
AARP response – meh.
@lmsinca: I’m not sure if you saw this article at TNR about plugging the hole? The net effect is greater demand for brand name drugs – allowing the pharmaceutical companies to increase prices. They’ll end up making more money than they otherwise would have.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/new-evidence-pharmas-sweetheart-deal
It’s totally sickening that once again teh Repugs are appealing to the very worst in us. Their telling The Greatest Generation they’ve sacrificed enough.
In other words, Grandma, you’ve given enough to the future- you can turn your back on it now because god knows, people in their 70s and 80s shouldn’t worry about what the next generation will be facing.
Be sure to spend all that retirement yourself and get buried in your jewelry.
You’ve sacrificed enough.
[rollseyes]
Well, as long as Obama doesn’t pop his smiling, helmeted head out of a tank hole for a photo op, Dems will be OK.
Seriously, the biggest danger to so-called vulnerable Dems will come from voter backlash against a do-nothing Congress. That’s what happened in 1994, and it could happen in 2010.
“Seriously, the biggest danger to so-called vulnerable Dems will come from voter backlash against a do-nothing Congress. That”
well the voters need to be reminded what happened next after the ‘94 election.
They impeached our president.
It will be the biggest dumba*s*s thing liberal voters have ever done if they let the Repugs take back over.
I’m never forgive the left. NEVER.
“Obama doesn’t pop his smiling, helmeted head out of a tank hole”
LOL.
I’ll never forgive
“the biggest danger to so-called vulnerable Dems will come from voter backlash against a do-nothing Congress.”
Don’t think so. Vulnerable Dems are in +Republican districts – the backlash will be against supposedly moderate Dems that too fully embrace a perceived liberal agenda. After his losses in 94 Clinton governed more from the center. The voters punished Dems back then not because they did not pass h/c reform, but because they tried to pass h/c reform that the majority did not like.
man, that helmet moment was horrifying, both because of what he did and how nuts the media went over it….
““Obama doesn’t pop his smiling, helmeted head out of a tank hole”
LOL.”Who ran his campaign? I was thinking it was Donna Brazile.
Whoever it was should never be allowed to run another campaign. WE could have won that election – but we needed a different candidate.
sbj
I read that TNR post, I read most of their’s every morning. There were an awful lot of if’s and maybe’s and there is always a huge demand for generics so I’m not so sure I agree with Cohn on that one.
Having said that, I am one of the biggest complainers here of Corporate influence on legislation as it passes through the halls of Congress, and that is on both the right and the left.
How much sense does it make to think that Obama is going to totally undercut everything he’s trying to do by making some kind of ’sweetheart’ deal with Big Pharma?
It just makes no sense.
I forget…who was it who said…”you can fool some of the people”…of course we can still have a laugh at how Bush f’d that one up…but there was a letter to the ed in the St. Pete Times recently from a woman in here late 70’s.that shows SOME seniors are getting it.
She said how embarrassed she was by the selfishness of her generation. She added that her wonderful Medicare Advantage plan paid for her gym dues but that it simply didn’t seem fair in light of all the young people who had to do without health care while her’s was taken care of even including her gym dues. She concluded she could give up Medicare Advantage and pay her own gym dues if it meant EVERYBODY had access to affordable health care. What a truly patriotic granny!!!
via dkos – ACORN is suing the US government to restore its funding.
somewhere, qb’s head just exploded.
Actually before QB goes bonkers let me correct my error…it wasn’t the bromide about “you can fool etc.” that Bush messed up…I confused it with his fun with the old “Fool me once…etc.” And so in the spirit of Sean Hannity I correct my mistake.
“She concluded she could give up Medicare Advantage and pay her own gym dues if it meant EVERYBODY had access to affordable health care. What a truly patriotic granny!!!”
Ah – what a sweetheart. That’s the attitude I’ve almost always seen in the Greatest Generation and that’s one reason these appeals to selfishness make me so mad.
She’s practically a Bodhisattva.
Here’s a nice article from a reporter who just happened to meet Obama at Arlington yesterday while visiting a fallen friend.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/12/2009-11-12_my_solemn_surprise_meeting_with_the_president_at_my_friends_resting_place.html?print=1&page=all
Oh but amk, isn’t Acorn resposible for the entire economic meltdown of 2008 almost single handedly, with a little help from CRA, Fannie and Freddie and Barney Frank?
Imsinca = that was lovely – thank you so much for that link.
I believe with ever fiber of my being that it would never enter Barack Obama’s head under any circumstances, to mock someone who was being executed on his order in hours, as Bush did.
That was just Bush revealing his very core when he made fun of Karla Faye Tucker.
Just like I cannot imagine another president – not even Bush I, just sitting like a deer caught in the headlights for over 6 minutes while the country was under attack.
Man the Repugs have a hell of a lot of nerve complaining about anything ever again after one Massive FAIl after another for 8 goddamn years.
what a nightmare.
Greg loves polls. Thought he’d like this Pollster trending average.
Looks like Dems take the lead and Republicans continue to tank.
Thanks Mike, will include in roundup. Today’s Bash Greg day! Fun times.
Hey Greg! What about the Quinnipiac polls for Dodd and Portman?
You know we love ya Greg.
heh. Interactive newspaper. Neat.
sbj, you mean for an election over a year away!
Heck, loads could happen by then. Economy could turn around. Obama could get bin Laden. Minority leaders Boehner and McConnel could get caught up in a massive C-Street love scandal.
A year is a lifetime in politics!
Happy Hour roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/afghanistan/happy-hour-roundup-112/
tons of substantive stuff. Okay?
“tons of substantive stuff. Okay?”
Uh oh. I think we better take it easy on Greg for awhile.
Ethan – you listening?
You mean the racially-tinged Willie Horton that never once mentioned his race?
Republican media consultant Roger Ailes, and now Murdoch’s right hand man at the Fox Republican Propaganda Channel, was reported to have had a hand in pushing the racist Willie Horton politcal ad that helped Republican Presidential Candidate Bush 1.
“Described by fellow Bush aide Lee Atwater as having “two speeds–attack and destroy,” Ailes once jocularly told a Time reporter (8/22/88): “The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it.” Later, as a producer for Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived TV show, he was fond of calling Bill Clinton the “hippie president” and lashing out at “liberal bigots” (Washington Times, 5/11/93).”
via: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067