Group Run By Anti-Stimulus Crusaders Rove And Gillespie Airs Ad Attacking Reid For Lack Of Stimulus Money In NV

By Ben Armbruster

GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie recently founded a network of right-wing attack groups to rival what they view as inept and ineffective Republican National Committee. One of those groups, American Crossroads, is a 527 committee, formed to spend tens of millions of dollars on House and Senate races this year.

The group recently launched an ad in Nevada attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D):

It’s bad enough that Nevada has the highest unemployment in the nation. And Harry Reid claims to be helping the jobs situation? Really Harry? Recent data show Nevada ranks 50th in the money received from Harry’s stimulus bill. That’s right — Senate leader Harry Reid has gotten his own state less help than every other state but one. And along with bailouts, deficits, and Obamacare, that’s what Harry Reid’s done for Nevada. Really Harry? That’s not the kinda help Nevada needs.

Watch it:

Is American Crossroads really concerned about who gets what monies from the Recovery Act? Here’s Rove and Gillespie attacking the stimulus:

GILLESPIE: The fact is that we’ve got unemployment at 9.5 percent. They said it wasn’t going to go above 8 when they passed the stimulus. We have a $1.4 trillion deficit. We have $13 trillion in debt.

ROVE: Look, the stimulus bill was not stimulative. The American economy is strong enough it’s gonna come out of recession. The question is did these policies impede or speed up its recovery. I think they impeded its recovery. I don’t think they sped it up.

Rove even attacked the stimulus for not creating jobs. “We’re approaching the anniversary of the stimulus package, and a recent poll shows, and I think it was 9 percent of the American people think the stimulus package has helped create jobs,” he said.

Moreover, Nevada is one of the smallest states in the U.S. and as the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson noted, “stimulus money went disproportionately to states with larger public sectors and higher Medicaid bills.” In fact, it’s Reid who has been trying to get unemployment benefits extended for out-of-work Americans, but Senate Republicans have been blocking it from getting though. “Almost two million people who are long-term unemployed. These are not numbers. They are people,” Reid said scolding the GOP for their obstruction.

“The ad is factually accurate, [but] It’s also an embarrassment,” Thompson noted. “Republicans have spent the last three months blocking a Sen. Reid-endorsed extension to unemployment insurance that would particularly help Nevada.”