Attack on Shaheen no doubt just the beginning
For months, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and her friends have been sending out fundraising emails that proclaimed the sky to be falling.
One day they cite the expected run of former Mass. Sen. Scott Brown; the next day they announce that the Koch brothers are pouring some of their billions into Republican efforts to unseat Shaheen.
Last week, they found out just what a falling sky looks like, when the conservative group Americans for Prosperity launched a $600,000 series of television ads that hammered Shaheen for supporting the Affordable Care Act.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley called the ad “dishonest.”
What, for having the audacity to use the senator’s own words against her?
The real problem for Democrats is that the ad contains too much truth.
It quotes Shaheen speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate, uttering some words about the ACA she no doubt wishes she could take back: “You can keep your insurance if you like it.”
Turns out that claim wasn’t totally true, and people in New Hampshire are pretty steamed about that.
So it should come as no surprise to anyone that Republicans are using the issue as a club to soften up Democrats leading up to the 2014 election.
Shaheen and her fellow Democrats who backed the ACA – including Reps. Ann McLane Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter – had better get used to it and devise a counterstrategy if they want to avoid a repeat of the 2010 midterm elections.