It appears that two reporters of the Wall Street Journal have confirmed that the Republicans have "coordinated" the broadcast ads of American Crossroads, run by Karl Rove and Edward Gillespie and the American Action Network of former Senator Norm Coleman.
It would be fun if the real reporters at the WSJ are disgusted enough with the Murdoch-Rove spread of the right wing editorial page constant "attack Obama" theme to the news pages and are fighting back, but in any event, the story makes clear that at least one Republican source, unnamed, clearly states that the media buys in Indiana and Illinois are "coordinated" as discussed, below.
As those who read the Wall Street Journal know, Karl Rove is a regular on the editorial extra pages and more and more appears in the news pages. An example is in the Monday October 11, page A 7 article of Elizabeth Williamson where Rove is quoted as to what Rove said on Fox and they do not mention he is a regular editorial writer for the WSJ.
In the Wednesday paper two other reporters discuss Rove's activities that are described in the second paragraph as "The coordinated effort . . ." of expenditures.
The details on Karl Rove and American Crossroads is fully covered in the postings, below, of JoanMcCarter.
On Wednesday, however, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, Wednesday October 13, 2010, at page A4, entitled “GOP Groups Launch Massive Ad Blitz” by Brody Mullins and Danny Yadron. I don’t know who these reporters are of if they have now lost the right to do stories as they put some material in the WSJ that surely is not approved by Karl Rove and the Murdoch-Ailes machine.
The article has a big picture of Karl Rove and shows states of Colorado, Maryland, Florida, etc, and notes that “American Crossroads was set up with the help of Former Republican White House advisors Karl Rove and Edward Gillespie.”
In the third and second to last full paragraphs under Karl Rove’s photo is the following:
“The American Action Network will spend $240,000 on broadcast TV ads in South Bend, while American Crossroads and its affiliate will buy $150,000 of ads on Chicago-area cable, which shares its medial market with northwest Indiana.”
“The spending is coordinated to avoid overlap. ‘It’s fair to say that the targets are coordinated so that we are not all tripping over each other,’ said a Republican involved with the effort.”
The “Republican” source as to this coordinated media buy is unnamed, and presumably intentionally so as the coordinated advertisement buy would appear to clearly violate the prohibition on these supposedly independent committees of Rove and Gillespie doing coordinated buys with the Republicans.
I don’t know if readers will ever know if this statement in the WSJ was intentional, by reporters tired of the Rove, as WSJ editorial page writer, getting “news” coverage almost daily in the WSJ as if he were an independent news item, or if these reporters are simply pushing the story as far as they can as to the apparent violation of the coordinated activity and just could not get permission to name the Republican source.
In any event, it appears the news pages of the WSJ confirm the suspicion of many that these so called independent groups are, in fact making coordinated buys.
See earlier stories:
See Joan McCarter, October 13: http://www.dailykos.com/...
And http://www.dailykos.com/...
And http://www.dailykos.com/...