Washington Post

By Paul Kane

Monday, April 21, 2008

 

PHILADELPHIA -- In a sign of the fall campaign the GOP hopes to run against Democrats, a Republican candidate today unveiled a web advertisement linking a House freshman to Sen. Barack Obama's comment that many small town Americans "cling" to gun rights and religion.

Republican Melissa Hart, who lost her House seat in 2006 and is running in a rematch in November, published an ad hitting opponent Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) for his refusal to condemn the Democratic presidential front-runner for his April 6 comment at a San Francisco fundraiser.

The ad, which questions Altmire's neutrality and includes a picture of Altmire at an Obama rally, was quickly distributed to political reporters by the National Republican Congressional Committee, the fundraising and strategy arm of the House Republicans.

"Jason Altmire might claim that he is remaining neutral in this Democratic primary contest, but it couldn't be any clearer who he is pulling for behind the scenes. After all, Altmire refused to condemn Barack Obama's elitist remarks after he insulted Pennsylvania voters by claiming that they 'cling' to the Second Amendment and religion because they are 'bitter,'" Ken Spain, NRCC spokesman, said.

Altmire, one of 42 freshmen who thrust Democrats into the majority after the 2006 elections, hails from western Pennsylvania, where his constituents have battled the decline of the steel and industrial manufacturing economy.

Altmire has declined to sharply criticize Obama for the San Francisco comment, in which the candidate suggested small town residents fell back on gun rights and religious values out of bitterness from being left behind during the Clinton and Bush administrations. But Altmire is also one of about 100 House and Senate Democrats who has not declared his support for Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), reserving his superdelegate preference for some later date.

Congressional Republicans spent most of 2007 banking on Clinton winning the nomination, hoping her unpopularity among conservatives and some independents would propel their House and Senate candidates this fall to victories that would at least narrow the Democratic margins.

Now, the GOP campaign committees are retooling their strategies to prepare for a potential fall campaign against Obama. In the short term, however, Republican candidates and committees lack the financial muscle to leverage the emerging anti-Obama message.

The Hart ad is only running on the web, not on television or radio. The NRCC trails its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by a roughly 6-to-1 margin in cash on hand.

This article originally appeared at the following link:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/21/obama_comments_an_issue_in_pa.html