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new attack ad from the Club for Growth that started airing in Idaho on Saturday misrepresents Larry Grant's stands on tax policy and is in direct violation of standards set forth by Project Vote Smart, among the nation's leading nonpartisan sources of voter information. On learning of the ad, Project Vote Smart released this statement:
A national special interest organization, the Club for Growth PAC, has attacked Larry Grant (D), a candidate for the 1st Congressional District in Idaho, with misleading information and used Project Vote Smart's name to give their accusations credibility. This kind of negative campaign activity is precisely the sort of tactic that the Project attempts to counter with its factual database. By using the Project's name to give credibility to these attacks, the Club for Growth PAC is cheating the public out of their need for trusted, abundant, accurate, factual information.
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The Project prohibits the use of its name and programs, including the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT), in partisan political advertising. This policy is posted prominently on the Project Vote Smart website.
This kind of behavior occurs in less than 00.05 percent of all races nationally. It is our policy to condemn this misuse of Project Vote Smart's name and reputation and to alert the public to any misuse of our name or programs for negative political activities.
The Club for Growth said Friday on its blog that it has spent $168,000 on the Idaho ad buy and that it may run similar ads in other states. The Club has endorsed candidates in these House races: CO-5, CO-7, IL-08, IN-02, MI-7, MN-06, NE-03, and OH-01, as well as the Senate races in Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, and Washington.
Club for Growth has been by far the biggest backer of Bill Sali's campaign, bundling hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to him from its members. The Club also spent $133,000 to run last-minute attack ads against two of Sali's GOP primary opponents in May, accusing them of raising taxes. Ironically, Sali himself voted for the recent 20% hike in Idaho's sales tax, despite continuing to claim he has never voted for a tax hike.
The Club for Growth ad is not the first time the Sali campaign or its backers have misused and distorted Larry Grant's answers at Project Vote Smart's National Political Awareness Test. For example, Sali frequently says Grant wants to preserve the federal estate tax (the so-called "death tax"), but Larry favors reforming it to make it more fair to small businesses and farmers. A Sali radio ad accuses Grant of wanting to increase funding for the arts, but Larry wrote at Project Vote Smart that he wants to maintain it at current levels.
Ironically, Sali has himself repeatedly refused to fill out the Project Vote Smart questionnaire, making it all but impossible for Idaho voters to learn where he stands on dozens of issues. It's well known, however, that the Club for Growth seeks to dismantle Social Security (its founder has called senior citizens "the most selfish group in America today") and abolish the federal departments of agriculture, commerce, and education. Clearly, the Club for Growth's values are not shared by mainstream Americans.