Group Runs Anti-Kerry Ads on Black Radio Stations
Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post, Aug. 12
A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as “rich, white and wishy-washy” and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.
The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush’s 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.
One of the radio ads addresses Kerry’s failure to vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks: “It needed 60 votes to pass. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators voted — Kerry did not! It lost by one vote! Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting, the more likely we would vote Democrat.”
