August 21, 2012 05:26 PM UTC

$100,000 Radio Ad Buy Thwacks Colorado House GOP

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• by: Colorado Pols

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It’s been playing heavily on local radio for a few days now, but we didn’t want this significant radio ad buy to escape mention. FOX 31’s Eli Stokols reported last week:

“Earlier this year Republican leadership recklessly shut down the legislature and stopped working, refusing even to debate more than 30 important bills,” the ad’s voice-over says. “Including measures that would have lowered taxes on small businesses, would have improved public safety, and would have invested in water projects critical to Colorado farmers and Colorado jobs. Why did the Republicans quit on Colorado?”

…Of course, it’s not McNulty these groups are going after – it’s his one seat GOP majority that’s on the line this November.

Paid for by the Campaign for a Strong Colorado (a group some of you will remember from the 2010 U.S. Senate race and more recent pushback against Scott Gessler), this ad campaign takes a whack at Republican Colorado House leadership–and by extension the whole caucus–for “shutting down the legislature” at the end of this year’s legislative session.

This ad is interesting in that, although it concerns the shutdown of the legislature last session over the civil unions bill, it doesn’t actually mention civil unions–being more focused on the other legislation that Republicans jeopardized in their zeal to kill civil unions before it could receive majority support in a GOP-held chamber. Republicans are singling out this “omission” in their defense, but the fact is, civil unions is supported by a lopsided majority of the public, and was supported by a majority in the GOP-controlled House when it was killed.

In fact, we’d suggest more people know the civil unions part of this story than all the other parts. The noncontroversial legislation killed by the GOP in the battle over civil unions absolutely should evoke broader anger than simply killing civil unions, with or without the overwhelming public support–or at least push voters to evaluate the choices made by GOP leadership last May.

One thing’s certain, this is not the framing of the debate that Frank McNulty would prefer.