Throwing Everything At The Wall
by digby
According to Republicans, this is government propaganda:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted the Obama administration Tuesday over a color brochure promoting the benefits of the new health care law that is being mailed to Medicare recipients. The Kentucky Republican held up a copy of the four-page pamphlet from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services while delivering his morning floor remarks. He referred to the mailer as “nothing short of government propaganda paid for by the taxpayer.” McConnell charged the administration with hypocrisy given that it previously ordered private insurance companies to refrain from sending policyholders information that prompted skepticism of the new health care law. “Just yesterday, I came across a recent flier from the Department Health and Human Services that does the very thing the administration didn’t want private companies to do,” McConnell said, just two hours before President Barack Obama was scheduled to join Senate Republicans for lunch. “So this is a complete outrage, and it’s precisely the kind of thing Americans are so angry about at the moment.”
But this is not:
Sixteen years ago, House Republicans put together the “Contract With America” based on polls and focus groups. This year, House GOP leaders are launching the “America Speaking Out” project, in the hopes of crafting a new “contract” based on public feedback and interactive social media. The biggest difference, however, is that this time, American taxpayers are being asked to finance the partisan initiative. Republican officials will kick off the project with an event in D.C. this morning, and it’s been described, accurately, as an initiative intended to help the GOP craft “a set of policy items that Republicans would pursue if they won back control of the House in November.” When asked about this yesterday, GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) was vague about financing. “‘America Speaking Out’ is not a project of the political” campaign arm, Pence said, reluctant to go into further detail. Now we know why. Republicans are claiming that the project will be kept separate from their campaign committees, and can therefore be financed by taxpayers.
This is going to be a seriously stupid campaign.
.