Foes ran $100 million in ads against health care -- after it passed

Why are Democrats on the defensive over health reform? This statistic, buried in today's big New York Times piece on that very topic, is striking and deserves some more attention:

Opponents of the legislation, including independent groups, have spent $108 million since March to advertise against it, according to Evan L. Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks advertising. That is six times more than supporters have spent, including $5.1 million by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the new law, Mr. Tracey said.

So $100 million in ads tarring health reform have run since Obama signed the bill into law in March. And many ads on health care contain multiple falsehoods and distortions. Is this entirely to blame for making health reform a political liability for many Dems? No, of course not. Though majorities have steadily said they like individual provisions, the overall law was unpopular in the lead-up to passage. Dems have not done what they needed to do to change the public's mind at the rate they had hoped to.

But even if the massive post-passage ad campaign against the law is only part of the story, it's nonetheless significant. Clearly, those heavily invested in returning the majority to the GOP recognized that a concerted campaign to tar this major Dem achievement -- after it had been enshrined into law -- had to be a central feature of their strategy. It seems likely that this massive ad onslaught may have been one key factor in preventing public opinion from turning around quickly enough.

If the GOP takes back the House, as expected, a huge argument will erupt among Dems over the wisdom of passing reform and over whether the "liberal overreach" it embodied helped sink the Dem majority. I hope folks will remember that the enormous amount of money spent to twist and misrepresent the law in the public mind might have also played a role in what happened.

