Obama, health law star in campaign ads

Oct 5 2014

The Center for Public Integrity says there have been more than 300,000 Obama-related ads this election cycle. Elsewhere, abortion figures prominently in Senate races such as Colorado's where Democrats look to push their differences with the GOP.

Chicago Sun-Times: Obama, Health Care Get Starring Roles In Campaign Ads
President Barack Obama is not looking to return to the U.S. Senate or the state legislature, but he's popping up in hundreds of thousands of ads for those offices, an analysis of campaign advertising released Thursday found. The Center for Public Integrity reviewed campaign ads that ran through Monday and found that Obama and his health care law are the stars of more than one-third of the ads in Senate races. For state-level offices, which have little to do with the president or the four-year-old law, that figure stands at one-in-10. ... The Center for Public Integrity puts the number of Obama-related ads at more than 300,000. The nonpartisan group analyzed data from ad tracking service Kantar Media/ CMAG (10/2).

The Associated Press: Reproductive Rights On Center Stage For Democrats
When U.S. Sen. Mark Udall aired the first television ad of his re-election campaign in April, the spot did not list his accomplishments, or otherwise argue why voters should send him back to Washington for a second term. Instead, it went after his challenger, Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, on his opposition to abortion rights. Five months later, Udall and his allies are still filling the airwaves with ads hammering Gardner on abortion, hoping to use the issue -- once thought by Democrats to be a wash politically -- to win [Colorado] for the third consecutive election cycle. It's the most prominent example of how, from Alaska to Florida, reproductive rights have taken center stage in Democratic campaigns, a stark shift from the days when abortion issues were often used to rally the party's base but rarely discussed in front of those who might end up voting for either candidate (Riccardi, 10/3).

Meanwhile, in Washington state, Democrats are pushing legislation on birth control access ahead of the election.

Seattle Times: Dems Seize On Birth Control Access In State Campaigns
Concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court has eroded women's access to birth control, a group of Democratic state leaders announced plans Thursday for legislation that would bolster insurance coverage of contraception in Washington. And with the general election only a month away, the Democratic senators and Gov. Jay Inslee also took swipes at Republican lawmakers, accusing them of failing to protect women's reproductive rights (Stiffler, 10/2).