pa2010.com Staff | pa2010
Democrats are staying on the attack against Pat Toomey, using a new TV ad to once again blame the GOP Senate candidate for the financial crisis.
The new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, embedded at bottom, comes two weeks after the party first went on the air in Pennsylvania, and just a couple days after Democratic nominee Joe Sestak started running his first ad. Toomey and his conservative allies have been hammering Sestak on the airwaves for months.
The latest 30-second spot seems to repeat the misleading claim that Toomey “pioneered derivatives” that “nearly wrecked our economy”–the same charge that fact-checkers took issue with in the DSCC’s last ad. In the 1980s, Toomey traded currency derivatives, but the so-called credit default swap derivatives that many blame for the 2008 financial crisis weren’t developed until Toomey left the industry. The DSCC is on slightly firmer ground this time in simply saying that Toomey “pioneered” derivatives and that derivatives “nearly wrecked” the economy–but the claim is still misleading.
“The evidence is clear,” the ad says. “Pat Toomey stands up for Wall Street, not you.”
The ad also continues the Democratic onslaught against Toomey’s position on Social Security. Toomey has long been one of the leading advocates for personal investment accounts as an alternative to Social Security–the plan pushed by former President George W. Bush that is widely referred to as privatization. Toomey has avoided the word privatization–language conservatives believe is unfairly loaded–but has maintained his support of the policy itself.
The ad says that Toomey’s plan would put “your Social Security at risk in the stock market”–a claim that is accurate in the broadest sense but still somewhat misleading. Most privatization plans call for only optional personal accounts, and even then, benefits would largely continue to come from the government-run Social Security program.
“Privatizing Social Security, helping Wall Street,” the ad says. “Pat Toomey: He’s not for you.”
The original version of the story appears here: http://www.pa2010.com/2010/09/dscc-keeps-up-derivatives-attack-in-new-ad/
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