Facebook Twitter Tumblr Close Skip to main content
A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Axelrod Wrong on Health Care Ads Claim

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod incorrectly claimed that Republican Scott Brown “didn’t run one ad on health care in the entire campaign” against Democrat Martha Coakley. In fact, a Brown campaign TV spot attacking health care legislation ran heavily in the days before Tuesday’s Senate election in Massachusetts.
Axelrod, in an appearance alongside White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” on Wednesday, was trying to play down the role of the health care issue in Brown’s upset victory.

More Mischief in Massachusetts

Last week we barely dipped our toe in the torrent of ads blanketing Massachusetts, where voters are going to the polls today to decide who will replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy: Democrat Martha Coakley or Republican Scott Brown. There have been more since in the close race, too many for us to keep up with.
But we found one single-issue flier sent out by the Massachusetts Democratic Party particularly offensive and off-base. The background of the flier shows blurry images of women on which these words are superimposed: "1,736 women were raped in Massachusetts in 2008.

Bay State Battle

In the Massachusetts special election campaign for the Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, the conservative American Future Fund and Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley’s campaign are on the air with misleading attack ads. AFF’s ad uses a Coakley quote, “We need to get taxes up,” to portray her as a tax-hiker. But …