Things just got real for House Republicans.
House Majority PAC announced Friday that they are targeting Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) with an ad slamming him for throwing a temper tantrum that caused a shutdown of the federal government.
The ad is called “Temper Tantrum,” and it will play this Sunday in Speaker Boehner’s district during the Bengals-Patriots football game. House Majority is a super PAC that aims to elect House Democrats.
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Watch here:
Over an extreme close up of a baby crying, the voice over is: “Speaker John Boehner didn’t get his way on shutting down health care reform. So, he’s shut down the government and hurt the economy.”
“Speaker Boehner didn’t get his way and so, like a child, he threw a Tea Party-inspired temper tantrum and shut down the federal government,” said Andy Stone, Communications Director for House Majority PAC. “The American people are sick and tired of the intransigence and manufactured crises that have become all too common from Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans. Speaker Boehner should stop playing politics, end the nonsense and finally focus on the real-life consequences his government shutdown has caused Americans.”
“Temper Tantrum” is part of a House Majority PAC ad campaign targeting 9 House Republicans over the shutdown, with web and TV ads. The other Republicans being targeted are Dave Joyce from Boehner’s Ohio, John Kline from Minnesota, Steve Southerland from Florida, Gary Miller from California, Mike Coffman from Colorado, Rodney Davis from Illinois, Mike Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, Michael Grimm from New York, and Joe Heck from Nevada.
These ads will put pressure from a new direction on the targeted representatives, who are currently trying to save their hides by trailing after the corporate tea party’s commands. Yes, the corporate money behind the tea party can primary them, but they also have to be able to win against the Democratic challenger. If these ads are any indication of how ugly that might get for them, they might want to rethink their definition of “winning”.
The Tea Party Republicans in the House probably don’t see where this could go, especially since many of them aren’t the targets, seeing as they are in safe, gerrymandered districts. They obviously missed the part where Democrats won the popular vote for U.S. House seats by 1.7 million votes. I doubt they would like being the minority of the minority.
However, as the National Journal pointed out a few days ago, only 17 House Republicans represent districts that voted for Barack Obama in 2012.
Let us not forget that Democrats are begging Republicans to fund the country with a short term CR that is set at the levels Republicans exacted via the sequester, which is to say that we are already several steps down the GOP hostage taking path. We’re not even talking about a real budget here, and we’re not even talking about funding at levels that were negotiated in good faith by two parties.
It seems relevant to note that the American people rejected the “ideas” Republicans are currently shutting down the government in order to exact. Sure, the public might not know what’s going on and they might think ObamaCare isn’t the Affordable Care Act, but at some point, they know who they trust for national and state wide elections and it isn’t Republicans.
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