Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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On April 15 U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) voted in support of House GOP budget plan authored by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee. For most of this week he’ll be strongly criticized for that vote by a new television ad campaign launched by Americans United for Change.
The ad, embedded below, is scheduled to appear in the upper northwest quadrant Monday through Thursday of this week, and asks “What were you thinking?”
In addition to King, the organization has nearly identical ads airing in criticism of U.S. Reps. Ryan, Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) and Sean Duffy (R-Wis.). In total, the ad buys are costing five figures and are being done in conjunction with an automated call campaign in 23 Congressional districts throughout the country that began last week.
In Iowa the automated calls follow this script:
I’m calling from Americans United for Change.
On April 15th, your Congressman Steve King voted to end Medicare and its guaranteed health care benefits. Instead, he wants to give seniors a voucher, forcing them to go out and find coverage from private insurance companies. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates this proposal will increase seniors’ out-of-pocket costs by $6,000 each year — and Congressman King is using the savings to give corporations and millionaires another tax break. Congressman King even voted to slash Medicaid funds that pay nursing home care for seniors and the disabled.
Call Congressman King at 202-225-4426 and tell him that cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for corporations and millionaires is just wrong. Tell him to keep his hands off our Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
While there has been little shortage over the years of progressive outrage directed at King, it hasn’t been commonplace for national groups to spend money in an effort to target him. This has been because the existing 5th District hasn’t been considered competitive. This particular ad buy signals that either national organizations view the newly remapped 4th District as being somewhat more competitive or that they believe a high-profile Democrat could make inroads come 2012 — or perhaps a bit of both.
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