Crossroads America ad, launching next week in Missouri, rips Obama over economy

Karl Rove's Crossroads group, which launched an attack against Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. this week, is aiming at a bigger target with an ad scheduled to launch next week in Missouri. The advertisement can be seen in the accompanying video. The news release is printed below.)

Today, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (Crossroads GPS), a conservative advocacy organization, announced a new $20 million issue advocacy initiative over the next two months to frame the national debate on jobs, the economy and the national debt in anticipation of congressional action on these issues.


In the first phase of the initiative, on Monday Crossroads GPS will launch a new national TV ad, “Shovel Ready,” which details the Obama Administration’s failure to improve the economy with its $830 billion stimulus legislation and other policies.

The spot’s $5 million television buy covers national cable news channels as well as local network affiliates in key states, including Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Virginia.

The new ad will start Monday and run for two weeks and can be viewed here, with a script here.

“President Obama may have inherited a recession, but his policies have made things worse for everyday Americans by running up the debt and causing economic uncertainty,” said Steven Law, president of Crossroads GPS. “Now Obama seems checked out of efforts to reduce America’s dangerous debt load, while his party is pushing massive tax increases and even more spending.”

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the national debt has increased by 35%, gas prices have more than doubled, and unemployment is up more than 20%, with more than 2.5 million jobs lost since the passage of his stimulus bill. Obama and his advisors claimed unemployment would drop to 6.7% at this point with passage of the stimulus; instead unemployment actually increased to 9.1%.

With politicians in both parties debating how to close the deficit and create jobs, the new Crossroads GPS initiative, including the spot launched today, seeks to move the center of debate toward cutting spending and the national debt without raising taxes, and pursuing pro-growth policies that will promote job creation.