A Washington Post article reported that the pro-Iraq war campaign by the nonprofit organization Freedom's Watch is part of a “burst of effort” that “has been striking, if only because Democrats left for their August recess confident that Republicans would be on the defensive by now. Instead, the GOP has gone on the attack.” However, two analyses of the Freedom's Watch ad buy concluded that some 90 percent of those members of Congress targeted by the campaign are Republicans.
Wash. Post suggested pro-Iraq war ad campaign is an “attack” on Democrats, despite its reported GOP focus
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An August 22 Washington Post article by Jonathan Weisman and Anne E. Kornblut reported that Freedom's Watch, a pro-Iraq war nonprofit organization, “will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for [President] Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress.” The Post went on to report: “The burst of effort has been striking, if only because Democrats left for their August recess confident that Republicans would be on the defensive by now. Instead, the GOP has gone on the attack. The new privately funded ad campaign, to run in 20 states, features a gut-level appeal from Iraq war veterans and the families of fallen soldiers.” However, two analyses of the Freedom's Watch ad buy concluded that some 90 percent of those members of Congress targeted by the campaign are Republicans, evidence rebutting the Post's suggestion that the GOP is “on the attack” against Democrats and not “on the defensive.”
The Post reported:
Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.
And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.
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The burst of effort has been striking, if only because Democrats left for their August recess confident that Republicans would be on the defensive by now. Instead, the GOP has gone on the attack. The new privately funded ad campaign, to run in 20 states, features a gut-level appeal from Iraq war veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, pleading: “It's no time to quit. It's no time for politics.”
“For people who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming,” said Ari Fleischer, a former Bush White House press secretary who is helping to head Freedom's Watch.
However, in an August 22 entry on the Chicago Tribune blog The Swamp, reporter Frank James wrote that the Freedom's Watch ad campaign is aimed at the same “vulnerable” Republican lawmakers who have been targeted by anti-Iraq war groups:
Anti-Iraq War groups have been attempting to pressure Republican lawmakers seen as vulnerable politically, lawmakers who have also questioned progress to date in Iraq, in order to win more votes in Congress for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq sooner rather than later.
But a new conservative group called Freedom's Watch is attempting a counterstrike, launching ads today to pressure those same lawmakers to stick with President Bush who refuses to accept a timetable for withdrawal. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher is a strategist for the organization.
James cited a press release from the progressive group Americans United for Change that broke down the Freedom's Watch ad buy by candidate. According to the press release, as quoted by James: “A close examination of the ad buy shows that Freedom [sic] Watch is targeting congressional Republicans with a direct message -- stand with Bush's failed Iraq war strategy.” A list of the group's ad buys reproduced in James' entry identified 32 Republican members of Congress, and only two Democrats -- Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Rep. John Barrow (D-GA).
In an August 22 Americablog entry, Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org Political Action, produced an expanded list of Freedom's Watch ad buys, which identified 37 Republican lawmakers and only four Democrats -- Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN), Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD), Pryor, and Barrow. Matzzie cited MoveOn.org researchers for the data.