When the lights come up at Dartmouth College tonight and — yet another — Republican presidential primary debate kicks off, the candidates on stage will gather during a moment when progressives and protesters are in the streets trying to make the case that banks and businesses are to blame for the economy.
Viewers of the debate in New Hampshire tonight will hear Big Business’ response: It’s actually the unions’ fault.
Here’s an ad that will run during the debate tonight in New Hampshire, as first picked up by Politico this morning:
The ad is sponsored by Americans For Job Security, a money group spun off from the Chamber of Commerce fund to fight union campaign cash back in the 1990s.
The group doesn’t disclose its donors, but here’s what we know about them from the last time their donors were revealed, as aggregated by Public Citizen:
Since early revelations that AJS was seeded with $1 million each from the American Forest and Paper Association and the American Insurance Association, the group has jealously guarded its list of funders. The National Journal reported in December 2003 that about 500 corporations and individuals ante up contributions “as high as $100,000” to AJS.
AJS’ big hook is Ritchie The Rat, a giant inflatable rodent meant to get “in the face” of the giant inflatable rodents unions have used to protest corporations.
Yes, it’s an inflatable rat-off.
But Ritchie’s other goal is to “stop big labor from infesting [get it?] the workplace.” The AJS ad seems to draw a clear line between labor and the growing anti-corporate protest movement across the the country. (Labor has signed on to some of the protests.)
“Greedy union bosses are calling the shots,” the ad’s narrator says, referring to Washington. “They want their payback.”
“They won’t take no for an answer,” the narrator says as shots of protesting workers fill the screen.
While it may be standard conservtive fare, the ad comes as Republicans are increasingly raising the alarm about the OWS protests. The whole “they won’t take no for an answer” thing is an interesting coda on all the class warfare talk.
Anyway, the protests will certainly come up in the debate, as will more than likely some attacks on organized labor. But the ad gives viewers a chance to see that message delivered in its purest form.
