Posted on 04/19/2003 7:05:47 AM PDT by Deadeye Division
Conservative group likens Voinovich to French
By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A conservative Republican group begins running TV ads today against GOP Sen. George Voinovich, likening his fight against President Bush's tax cuts to France's disloyalty to the United States during the Iraq war.
In a press release announcing its $100,000 ad campaign, the anti-tax Club for Growth denounced Voinovich as a "Franco-Republican" for deserting President Bush when he needed the senator's support on his proposed $726 billion tax cut.
Along with Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe - a target of identical ads - Voinovich struck a deal with GOP leaders to keep the tax cut to $350 billion. A self-described "deficit hawk," Voinovich said he will support more only if Congress finds a way to pay for it, with spending cuts or closing tax loopholes.
"Senators Voinovich and Snowe have single-handedly thwarted the central piece of President Bush's economic stimulus package," said Stephen Moore, Club for Growth president.
Moore said the ads would air only in Columbus. It would have been too expensive and inefficient to air in Cincinnati, he said, because much of the viewing audience would be outside Ohio.
The ad features Voinovich's face juxtaposed against a waving French flag, and calls him a "so-called Republican."
Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn called the ads "ridiculous."
"It reminds me of the Iraqi information minister's daily briefing," he said. "Not to trouble these people with the facts, but the senator is for the entire tax package. He just wants to make sure that anything over $350 billion is not simply added to the big national credit card called the deficit."
Voinovich also has suggested holding off on a proposed dividend tax credit, rolling that into some tax reform bill in the future.
President Bush said he would settle for a $550 billion tax cut and has been sending members of his administration across the country to sell the tax cuts, which the White House says is key to creating jobs.
"The White House will continue to work with members of Congress to pass a robust jobs package," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. As for the Club for Growth's campaign, Stanzel said the White House doesn't comment on what outside groups do.
The Club for Growth has worked to oust moderate Republicans from Congress, recruiting primary challengers to them. This year, the group persuaded Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., to challenge centrist Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a primary.
"We've heard from a lot of our members in Ohio: 'Gosh, George Voinovich has turned into a RINO' - a Republican in name only," Moore said. "If you call yourself a Republican, you should be for economic-growth tax policies."
Moore said he had solicited "through the grapevine" several conservatives in Ohio to challenge Voinovich, including former Rep. John Kasich and Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Both said no.
A spokesman for Blackwell, a former mayor of Cincinnati, said any conversations he had with GOP conservatives are private.
"Ohioans have known for years that while Secretary Blackwell and Senator Voinovich share a strong pro-life ethic and fierce opposition to the expansion of gambling in Ohio, they differ radically on economic fiscal and tax policies," Carlo LoParo said. The only office Blackwell is seeking is governor, he said.
E-mail cweiser@gns.gannett.com
By Jason Embry
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON | A conservative interest group unveiled TV ads Friday comparing Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio and Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine to French President Jacques Chirac, in hopes of shaming the Republican senators into supporting President Bush’s tax-cut proposals.
The Club for Growth is running the ads in Ohio and Maine to criticize Voinovich and Snowe for opposing Bush’s proposal to cut taxes by at least $550 billion over 10 years.
Both senators have backed a $350 billion tax-cut plan, saying larger cuts would drive deficits too high. The closely divided Senate could not collect a majority for a higher figure without their support, and voted last week for a $350 billion package.
The television spots compare the senators’ lack of support for the Bush plan to France’s opposition to the war in Iraq. The ads feature a quick shot of Chirac, and later put images of Voinovich and Snowe next to footage of the French flag.
‘‘At home, President Bush has proposed bold job-creating tax cuts to boost the economy,’’ the ad says. ‘‘But some so-called Republicans like (Voinovich or Snowe) stand in the way.’’
The group will spend $100,000 in the next two weeks running the spots in Columbus and Portland and Bangor, Maine. Club President Stephen Moore said the ads may run later in the states and districts of other senators and House members who do not support Bush’s plan.
In a Rose Garden speech this week, Bush called for ‘‘at least $550 billion’’ in tax cuts. He is expected to travel next week to drum up support for his plan.
Administration aides also have fanned out to several states, including Ohio and Maine, to create support for the deeper tax cut.
Aides to Voinovich and Snowe said the senators could support tax cuts beyond $350 billion if they are combined with spending cuts or other budget offsets.
Voinovich ‘‘believes you can provide a good stimulus package right now for $350 billion, and if you want more right now, all you have to do is pay for it,’’ spokeswoman Marcie Ridgway said.
Comparing Voinovich to Chirac is ‘‘almost too ridiculous to even merit a response,’’ she said.
The Club for Growth’s ads are offensive to the people of Maine because about a third of state residents are of French-Canadian descent, Snowe spokeswoman Elizabeth Wenk said. Wenk also noted that the head of the state GOP quickly denounced the ads.
The Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports moderate GOP positions, has bought two weeks of television time in Maine to run ads supporting Snowe’s stance.
The ad touts her efforts to boost the Bush budget by adding money for education, Medicaid and veterans’ programs.
Similar ads are not running in Ohio because Voinovich is not a member of the group and because he is said to not be particularly worried about the commercial running against him, said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Main Street Partnership.
Voinovich is up for re-election next year, but has no major challenger in the GOP primary. Snow is up for re-election in 2006.
[From the Dayton Daily News: 04.19.2003]
04/19/03
Tom Diemer
Plain Dealer Bureau
Washington- A conservative group, known for taking on Republicans who lack ardor for tax cuts, attacked Ohio Sen. George Voinovich yesterday, calling him a disloyal "so-called Republican."
The cause of the Washington-based Club for Growth's ire is Voinovich and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe's refusal to support President Bush's $550 billion tax package out of concern the country cannot afford it.
The two Republicans helped form a majority in the Senate demanding a lower number - $350 billion. The House stuck with the bigger tax cut in the budget resolution passed last week, allowing for a sharp reduction in taxes on corporate dividends.
"In our view, there is no room for disagreement on this point," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, which raised $10 mil lion for conser vatives in the last election.
To highlight its "frustra tion" with the senators, the group is airing television ads in Columbus and in Portland and Bangor, Maine, comparing their stands against Bush's tax cut with France's unwillingness to back the Iraq war. As the president presses for his economic growth package, "George Voinovich stands in the way," a narrator declares as the screen shows a photo of Voinovich next to the French tri-color flag.
With a relative modest buy of $100,000, the commercials are expected to run for a week or two, Moore said. He denied that his group was sowing discord within the Republican Party.
"The people who have divided the party are precisely George Voinovich and Olympia Snowe," he said. Voinovich, he said, is becoming known as a "Rino - Republican in name only."
A spokeswoman declined to respond to such characterizations of the first-term senator, who also has served as Ohio governor and mayor of Cleveland.
"This is not about loyalty," said press secretary Marcie Ridgeway. "The senator believes in tax cuts - in the largest tax-relief package we can provide for the American people. It just has to be paid for instead of putting it on the national credit card, otherwise known as the deficit."
The size of the tax package is unresolved because Congress must consider the tax bill itself in a debate later this year.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
tdiemer@plaind.com, 216-999-4212
Strangely enough, When Reagan cut taxes, and the democratic congress reneged on its promise to cut spending, the economy still turned around and lead to 12 years of the largest growth this nation has ever seen. While I would very much like to see a decrease in spending I still don't believe that tax levels should be tied directly and proportionally to spending cuts. JMO
The right-wing group "Club for Growth'' is teeing off on Sen. George V. Voinovich, seething over the Ohio Republican's pivotal role in slashing President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax-cut package.
But from the left, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee charges that Voinovich is going too far by favoring up to $350 billion worth of tax cuts over the next decade.
This is all just too rich. Is Voinovich paying these guys out of that $3 million in campaign cash he's already raised heading into a 2004 reelection bid? The slings and arrows from the right and left are putting a shine on Voinovich's already rosy prospects for a second Senate term after eight years as a popular governor.
Yep, Voinovich stands poised once again to steamroll right up the middle, drawing support from moderates of both parties and those all-important independents. Voinovich's stance on the tax cut might not satisfy the left or the right, or even his fellow Republicans in the White House or the U.S. House, but his position appears to be in sync with the only constituency that matters: Ohio voters.
Many polls show that people are distinctly queasy about a big new tax cut right now, with a majority against one as big as Bush is pushing. In some polls, respondents are divided even over a smaller cut.
For the third election in a row, dating to his 1994 gubernatorial re-election campaign, Voinovich won't have an overly formidable opponent, at least on paper.
If state Sen. Eric D. Fingerhut of Cleveland is it, Voinovich is once again facing an underfunded opponent not well known statewide and whose base is the same northeast Ohio area Voinovich, who was mayor of Cleveland before he was elected governor, long has dominated.
If it's TV trash-talk host Jerry Springer, Voinovich will be going up against a millionaire apparently willing to use his own money. Springer is well known by Ohioans, but polls show they don't much like what they know.
Members of the Club for Growth, which essentially gives money to Republicans who believe tax cuts are the answer to every public-policy question, are bitter because Voinovich refused to go along with Bush's entire tax package, including the proposal to eliminate the tax on stock dividends.
Voinovich, along with one Senate Republican, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and one maverick House Republican, Amo Houghten of New York, "single-handedly thwarted the central piece of President Bush's economic stimulus package,'' said Stephen Moore, the club's president. Moore went on to accuse Voinovich and the others of being "Franco-Republicans'' as "dependable as France was in taking down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.''
Oh, please. Does anyone think such hysterical rhetoric is going to faze a guy who's been in public life as long as Voinovich? If anything, it causes the famously stubborn Voinovich to dig in.
On the Democratic side, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee accuses Voinovich, who supported Bush's 2001 tax cut, of flip-flopping on the tax-cut issue and betraying his own position that a time of war, a staggering economy and soaring deficits isn't the right time for a large tax cut.
Is the committee forgetting that Senate Democrats joined with Voinovich and Snowe in passing the 2004 budget amendment that endorsed a tax cut of up to $350 billion? True, many Democrats might have preferred no tax cut, but in the end, they sided with Voinovich.
Ironically, when Voinovich came to the Senate, he would grouse about its inefficiency, about never knowing when votes would occur and the fact that a single senator can gum up the works. But he seems pretty content now to use the gum-up power when it will help achieve his goals.
That's being a pragmatist. And that's a big reason why Voinovich has been so successful in capturing public office in Ohio, a state where many Republicans and Democrats are comfortable in the middle ground.
Jonathan Riskind is chief of The Dispatch Washington bureau.
Toledo Blade Editorial
Going after Voinovich
It’s always smart to read the fine print on full-page political advertisements or scrutinize the groups bankrolling blistering attack ads on TV. If the message is packaged and paid for by unabashed partisans wholly dedicated to funneling money to conservative or liberal causes and candidates, chances are it won’t pass the truth in advertising test.
That’s certainly the case with the conservative backlash against Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich for opposing the size of President Bush’s proposed tax cut.
One of the more pathetic attempts to discredit the moderate Republican for rightly balking at tax cuts that balloon the deficit is the full-page senior citizen scare appearing in some Ohio newspapers. It shows a worried elderly woman under the banner, "Please don’t tax my savings away."
The political advertisement beseeches readers to "Tell Senator Voinovich we need his help to preserve what we’ve worked our whole lives to save." It’s as though your grandmother is pleading for someone to protect her life savings before it’s too late.
The reality is much different. The ad is a pitch for the repeal of corporate tax dividends, a provision that accounts for more than half of President Bush’s proposed $726 "economic stimulus" package. The truth is most seniors, as well as most Americans, won’t benefit a whit by the President’s plan to eliminate the tax on stock dividends.
But the old-folks theme is an especially potent one that can easily turn seniors - who vote religiously - against an incumbent. This time it’s brought to you by the Seniors Coalition and the 60 Plus Association, described respectively as "the responsible alternative to the AARP" and "the conservative alternative to the AARP."
Both groups bill themselves as non-partisan. But the president of 60 Plus has a long history of GOP connections and once gave a young college student named George W. Bush his first political job working on a campaign. The Seniors Coalition skews to the right and seeks to restore traditional American family values in addition to reducing taxes and big government.
Another tax cut advocacy group attacking Senator Voinovich in TV ads in Cincinnati and Columbus, makes no attempt to hide its love affair with the far right of the Republican Party. The Club for Growth subjects the political recipients of its campaign contributions to strict conservative litmus tests and boasts on its web site that it "delivered nearly as much campaign funding to Republican candidates (in 2002) as the No. 1 and No. 2 corporate PACs combined."
Its president, Stephen Moore, likens Republicans who voted against the President’s tax cut, including Senator Voinovich, to the countries that refused to support U.S. military action in Iraq. He calls them "Franco Republicans" and aims to single them out for ridicule in TV ads.
The political messages produced to exert pressure on Mr. Voinovich are slick, but the truth is stretched to fit the format.
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