June 11, 2012

Obama Super-PAC and National Union Unveil $4 Million Spanish-Language Ad Blitz

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/5655674841/">Barack Obama</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Hispanic voters are crucial to President Barack Obama’s bid to win a second term in office this November. To bolster the president’s Latino base, the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA Action and Service Employees International Union on Monday launched a $4 million Spanish-language ad campaign in Colorado, Florida, and Nevada slamming GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Priorities and SEIU unveiled a different TV ad for each state, though each are titled “Mitt Romney: En sus propias palabras” (Mitt Romney: In his own words). The ads pluck out quotes of Romney’s—”You can focus on the very poor; that’s not my focus”; “I’m also unemployed”; “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me”—then show Hispanic men and women reacting negatively to Romney’s remarks. “What about us? He’s not thinking about us,” one woman remarks. “He is…just thinking about those that have made money already,” says another woman. The ads end with the message: “Mitt Romney: His words say it all.”

Here are the three Priorities-SEIU ads:

Florida:

Colorado:

Nevada:

The Priorities-SEIU ad blitz comes as GOP-friendly super-PACs and shadowy nonprofits are spending tens of millions attacking Obama. A month ago, Crossroads GPS, founded by GOP political gurus Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, announced plans to spend $25 million on a monthlong ad blitz in 10 battleground states.

Priorities has struggled to keep pace in spending with other candidate-specific super-PACs. The pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future, which is run by Romney’s former political director Carl Forti, has spent $46.5 million so far this election cycle. Even the now-dormant Winning Our Future super-PAC, devoted to electing Newt Gingrich before he dropped out of the race in early May, spent $17 million.

The Priorities-SEIU ads are attempt to define Romney as someone who won’t work in Latinos’ best interests. “This ad is part of a broader effort to ensure Latino voters know the stakes in this election and who has been on the side of Latino families and who will continue to stand with them in the coming years,” SEIU national political director Brandon Davis said in a statement.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate