Here is the first item from my “Albany Insider” column today:
The GOP majority in the state Senate is trying to avoid an electoral revolution — by dishing out cash to an ad firm with deep Tea Party ties.
The Senate GOP has already paid The Strategy Group for Media $25,000 to work on TV advertisements geared toward the fall election, according to the latest campaign filings.
The Ohio-based company lists among its clients a host of congressional Tea Party caucus members, including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.).
The group also has done ads for Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit that waged a lawsuit that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision barring the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions — a verdict that opponents say magnified the role of special interests in the electoral process.
And it has worked for the Family Research Council, a Christian group that has fought against gay marriage and abortion.
On its website, The Strategy Group quotes a biblical proverb and promises ads that “touch the heart and appeal to the mind.”
It boasts of winning in more than 80% of the campaigns it has worked on in the past five election cycles, including — by its own count — the most Republican majority pickups of state legislative chambers of any ad firm.
“We have been blessed with an opportunity to change America for the better by helping elect good people to public office,” the firm stated.
The Senate GOP paid the company $53,000 for ads in 2010 in its successful attempt to recapture a majority in Albany’s upper chamber.
Senate Democratic spokesman Michael Murphy, however, says the firm’s rehiring “sends a message that Senate Republicans are being led by the extreme right wing of the party and are out of touch with the average New Yorker.”
Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif downplayed the firm’s Tea Party ties.
“This is an absurd line of attack, even for the increasingly desperate Senate Democrats — and the facts bear that out,” Reif said.
He noted how the Senate Republicans over the last 18 months have worked closely with Gov. Cuomo and the Democratic majority in the Assembly to end Albany’s dysfunction and “deliver the bipartisan results New Yorkers want and deserve.”
But even Cuomo — who has repeatedly refused to publicly back the Senate Dems’ effort to retake the chamber — recently criticized the GOP for kowtowing to the right after the conference blocked a potential minimum wage hike and the governor’s push to decriminalize the public possession of small amounts of pot.
“There is no place in this state for extreme conservative theory,” Cuomo railed. “If the Senate wants to run as extreme conservatives, how much do you want to bet on the outcome in November?”
