Less than a week after his first general election television ads went on the air across Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new commercials today.
The first ad is the most brazen image make-over I’ve seen in a while, casting Grassley as a brave warrior against drug companies. The other commercial touts the way Grassley uses new media to keep in touch with constituents.
Videos, transcripts, and more are after the jump.
UPDATE: I’ve also added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of these ads.
This 30-second spot is called “He wrote the bill”:
My transcript:
Unidentified man (senior citizen): Iowa’s Chuck Grassley wrote the bill for Medicare to cover prescription drugs.
Grassley: We had to compromise to get it passed. It’s really helped people, but there’s more to do. Like the same drug shouldn’t cost more here than in Canada. We beat the drug companies before. We’ll beat ’em again.
Female voice-over: Grassley works…
Man from beginning of ad: …for us.
Grassley: I’m Chuck Grassley, and I approved this message.
This commercial isn’t entirely false. Grassley did help write the 2003 bill that added prescription drug coverage to the Medicare program. It’s also true that the Medicare Part D program needs improvement in several ways.
But I am stunned that Grassley is posturing as someone who has “beat the drug companies before” and could “beat ’em again.” The Medicare Part D bill was designed to benefit the pharmaceutical industry, with plenty of input from corporate lobbyists. There’s no evidence Grassley ever tried to include simple provisions that would have reduced the disparity in drug prices between the U.S. and Canada (allowing prescription drugs to be re-importated from Canada or allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices). Nor did Grassley advocate for either of those ideas during last year’s health care reform debate.
President Obama and Congressional Democrats enabled Grassley’s image makeover. They should have kept their campaign promises on bringing down drug prices. Instead, Democrats protected the pharmaceutical industry’s interests in the health care reform law. Grassley can now campaign against problems Democrats didn’t solve–who’s going to call him out on the fact that he also did nothing to address those problems? Probably not most Iowa journalists.
CORRECTION: In the comments, ragbrai08 notes that Grassley did vote for an amendment on drug re-importation last year. He also introduced a bill on the subject in 2004. It doesn’t look like he put any muscle behind that bill, however. It had no co-sponsors and never even got a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, to which it was referred, even though Republicans controlled the Senate during the 2003/2004 session. It’s misleading for Grassley to brag about writing the prescription drug coverage bill, which prohibited Medicare from negotiating for lower prices.
If Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin had as large an advertising budget as Grassley, she could expose his hypocrisy. She could mention how much money he takes from lobbyists and corporate PACs representing drug companies. She could remind voters that Grassley never tried to stand up to the industry when Medicare Part D was passed. Or, she could talk about the prescription drug benefit in the context of Grassley’s fake deficit hawkishness, as she did on Iowa Public Television this weekend:
Two tax cuts mostly benefiting the very wealthy passed by Senator Grassley, chair of the [Senate Finance] committee, not a dime paid for. Two wars fought on the credit card. Medicare Part D which includes that crazy provision that we can’t negotiate prices with the drug companies. Those were under Senator Grassley’s finance committee and resulted in $1.3 trillion dollars a year of deficit.
Grassley’s second new commercial showcases the 30-year incumbent’s embrace of social media:
My transcript:
Woman (senior citizen): I heard Chuck Grassley has a … twitter.
Second woman (senior citizen): Oh. Can it be cured?
Grassley: Oh, not that kind. I like to use new technologies like Twitter and Facebook just to keep in touch, and meetings in 99 counties every year. I’ll tweet, I’ll text, I’ll do whatever it takes. I work for you.
Female voice-over: Grassley works…
Young woman: …for us.
Grassley: I’m Chuck Grassley, and I approved this message.
To underscore Grassley’s hipness, the woman who says “for us” near the end of the ad has a nose piercing.
Who doesn’t like the way Grassley uses Twitter to vent or give advice and updates from Iowa sporting events? The Iowa Democratic Party jabbed at Grassley’s failure to respond to people who ask him questions on Twitter, but to me this just looks like a clever ad.
Conlin href=”http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=210214″>unveiled a jobs plan today that combines public works programs, steps to promote renewable energy, fiscal aid to state and local governments, tax relief for the middle class and small businesses, and various trade policy changes, such as “Buy American” requirements for government at all levels. Conlin would pay for the plan by ending various corporate tax breaks and no-bid contracting. More on that in a future post. My first take is that the plan has many good ideas, but Congress is no more likely to act on them than they are to “beat the drug companies.”
UPDATE: The Conlin campaign responded to Grassley’s commercial touting the prescription drug benefit for Medicare:
“The only true statement made by Senator Grassley in his ad is that he wrote the bill. Everything else is a deceitful attempt to mislead Iowans in the hopes that we will forget just what was and was not in the bill,” said Conlin spokeswoman Paulee Lipsman. […]
Here’s a list of what the Conlin campaign says in inaccurate along with where the campaign obtained it’s information.
* Cost $1.2 trillion without any way to pay for it [Washington Post, 2/9/05]
* Provided a $139 billion windfall for pharmaceutical companies [Philadelphia Enquirer, 9/18/05]
* Denied the federal government the ability to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare, just as the VA and private insurance can do, which could save Iowans $400 million per year [Des Moines Register editorial, 4/24/07]
* Grassley’s bill was considered a win for the drug companies [Des Moines Register, 11/26/03] , who have become Grassley’s fourth largest special interest contributor since 1989 [www.opensecrets.org]