Another xenophobic ad in a red-state Senate race,
this one from the Karl Rove-backed Kentucky Opportunity Coalition attacking Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: We want to make sure that we've got a pathway to citizenship.
VOICEOVER: Alison Grimes, proud supporter of Obama's amnesty plan:
GRIMES: We need an immigration bill [...] giving a pathway to citizenship for so many millions.
VOICEOVER: The Obama plan? Citizenship for millions who broke the law. Illegal immigrants would become eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits: Foodstamps, unemployment, even Medicare. Obama and Grimes: Two liberals for amnesty, too liberal for us.
This ad is wrong in so many ways:
1) Although Grimes—to her credit—supports immigration reform, the ad twists her words to claim she developed the "Obama-Grimes" plan with the president, something that is completely false, as Sen. Marco Rubio—who co-authored the reform legislation—would admit (albeit reluctantly).
2) Although she didn't have a chance to vote on the immigration reform bill that did pass the Senate, it was bipartisan and certainly wasn't the president's plan. In fact, it wasn't particularly liberal or progressive. Proof? The same Karl Rove political operation that produced this ad also supported that bill, which they now call the "Obama-Grimes Amnesty Plan."
3) The ad claims that Grimes wants "illegal immigrants" to get "taxpayer-funded benefits," but the only evidence they offer for the claim is a controversial report from the conservative Heritage Foundation that analyzed legislation that Grimes has never voted on, let alone said she supports.
But other than the fact that the ad is a dishonest and cynical attempt to exploit xenophobia by people who have the same position as both Obama and Grimes, it's a great ad. Republican politics at its finest.
