Interest Group Targets Moderate Democrats in Ad Calling on Support for Obama Budget

The liberal interest group Americans United for Change is launching a TV ad blitz Wednesday in 12 states to push moderate Democrats and Republicans to support President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget proposal.

The new ad, entitled "Blueprint," doesn't name names of specific lawmakers but asks citizens in target markets to call Congress and "tell them you support President Obama's budget. Let's all get to work rebuilding America."

"For eight years, the Bush administration turned our economy into a house of cards," an announcer says. "Now President Obama has drawn up a budget blueprint that will rebuild our economy on a solid foundation. Jobs, health care, education, clean energy -- reform. On this foundation we can build real, long term economic prosperity for all Americans."

The specific ad markets include Maine, Bismarck and Fargo, N.D.; Omaha, Neb.; Richmond, Newport News and Roanoke, Va.; Indianapolis, Ft. Wayne, Terre Haute and South Bend, Ind.; Little Rock, Ark.; Baton Rouge, Shreveport and New Orleans, La.; Anchorage, Alaska; Scranton, Pa.; Ashville, N. C.; Tucson and Phoenix, Ariz.; Manchester, N.H.; and Wilmington, Del.

The ad buy will total more than $700,000, and is going up in the home states of a number of key moderate Democratic senators, including Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Mark Warner and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, who has been somewhat critical of the budget recently. The spot will also air in Maine,  home to moderate Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

"The work that begins this week on President Obama's budget is by far the most significant in shaping the president's transformational commitments to health care reform, education and clean energy -- investments that will rebuild and renew America's economy and lay a solid foundation for long-term prosperity," said Tom McMahon, Acting Executive Director of Americans United for Change.

"This ad is designed to engage the American people in the process of bringing about the transformational change they voted for in November by contacting their elected representatives and asking for their help in putting our country on the road to prosperity. It is our hope that Congress gets the boost it needs to stand up to the special interests that will do anything to maintain the failed policies of the last eight years that were entirely stacked in their favor and that turned our economy into a house of cards."

The spot is the latest ad by AUC, which most recently launched spots arguing that Republicans in Congress were following the lead of talk show host Rush Limbaugh in saying "no" to every Democratic proposal.