Politico reports that Mayor Bloomberg has spent $400,000 in CD-24 in an effort to unseat Congresswoman Anne Marie Buerkle. Buerkle has been very outspoken in her criticism of Eric Holder over the Fast & Furious scandal.
Bloomberg dumping money in Pennsylvania
Bloomberg dumping money in California
Mayor Bloomberg is really spreading it around:
“… On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Independence USA committee spent $2,350,000 on a media buy to benefit Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Democratic State Senator in California who is trying to unseat the Democratic incumbent congressman, Joe Baca, whose positions on gun control the mayor has criticized …”
NRA rates Baca as B+ and McLeod as D.
Bloomberg dumping money in Florida
Da Mayor is spending $1.1 million attacking Florida Congressman Daniel Webster and supporting his challenger Val Demings.
Here is a video from last year when Bloomberg’s FixGunChecks billboard truck visited Orlando that features Demings.
NRA “One Vote” ad
Here is the second NRA television advert they are running in battleground states:
It’s better than the first one, but I’m not impressed with it either. Cut it down to ~45 sec. by removing some of Obama quotes at the beginning and the handgun ban part at the end along with changing the imagery of hunters to something along the lines of what Oleg Volk creates would make it more effective and appealing to a wider audience.
NYAGV political donations
The New Yorkers Against Gun Violence PAC made $250 campaign contributions to each of these candidates. Vote against all of them:
- AD-16, Michelle Schimel
- SD-22, Andrew Gounardes
- SD-37, George Latimer
- SD-40, Justin Wagner
Steck v. Whalen
In AD-109, Phil Steck is running a television ad attacking Jennifer Whalen for supporting, among other things, CCW. While it is not unusual for candidates to bring up their opponents stand on guns and/or endorsements from NRA/NYSRPA, I cannot recall anyone trying to make that an issue in a paid political ad. He’s not likely to get any $support out of NYAGV, Brady, etc. for doing it.
Gun control a forbidden topic this election
That explains it
I have not seen a single Obama/Biden yardsign anywhere and only two bumperstickers. Being a heavily Democrat state I found that a bit odd. This report at the Washington Examiner may explain the reason for their absence:
“A new survey of presidential campaign ads reveals that those from Mitt Romney and President Obama jazz Republicans, pushing GOP enthusiasm 42 percent higher than it was in 2008 for Sen. John McCain …”
Following Bloomberg’s money
According to NY1 reporter Zack Fink, Mayor Mike is going to do some ads for candidates he’s supporting:
Mayor bloomberg says he may do 1 or 2 ads for candidates his super pac is endorsing. Adds “There is not a lot of time left” for campaigning
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) October 23, 2012
I wonder if that will include former Congressman Dan Maffei who is in a tight rematch with Ann Marie Buerkle for the CD-24 seat.
Bloomberg has run a bunch of print and broadcast ads promoting gun control around the country before and received nothing in return. If he wants to blow some more cash on ads touting Maffei’s F rating from NRA all that will do is turn out the vote for Buerkle. NRA has already done a nice full color mailer on her behalf.