Working for us ad White House demands Maryland super PAC pull Senate ad The ad hit the wrong nerve with the Obama administration, where gun control is the most emotional issue from the Oval Office on down.

The White House is wading into one of the hardest-fought Democratic primaries in the country — to tell one side to stop invoking the president on its behalf.

In an unprecedented and forceful move, President Barack Obama’s administration is slamming a new gun control-themed ad from a super PAC backing Rep. Donna Edwards for Senate in Maryland, calling it “misleading” and demanding it be pulled down.


The White House always avoids hitting Democrats, even in races where Obama has endorsed an opposing candidate. But the ad, written to hit a nerve, hit the wrong nerve in the White House, where gun control is the most emotional issue from the Oval Office on down. Political director David Simas moved immediately on Tuesday to get the ad hitting Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Edwards’ opponent, taken off the air, acting on behalf of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who’s been leading the administration’s gun control push.

The primary is April 26, and the White House had stayed out of the marquee Democratic showdown until now. While Obama has handed out endorsements in several other Senate primaries this year, he has not picked sides in Maryland.

The new ad, from a super PAC called Working For US, featured a clip of Obama tearing up in January as he remembered the children killed at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School and talked about new gun control measures. The ad then connected that moment to Van Hollen’s support of the DISCLOSE Act, 2010 legislation aimed at forcing more campaign finance transparency. A compromise version of the bill included a carve-out for the National Rifle Association, to try to draw more support from moderates and conservatives. Edwards' campaign has been pushing the issue, even releasing its own TV ad on the subject Wednesday (though Edwards left Obama out of it).

Obama supported the DISCLOSE Act. But that’s not the White House’s main problem with the Working for Us PAC ad, which implied presidential support for Edwards ahead of a primary in which Obama has explicitly not endorsed a candidate.

“Simas reached out to the Working For Us PAC and asked them to immediately take down the ad and stop using it going forward,” White House deputy press secretary Jennifer Friedman said. “He made clear that the use of the president's image and statement in this context were misleading."

There’s no reason to believe Obama saw the ad himself before the White House put its foot down.

Steve Rosenthal, the PAC’s treasurer, didn’t return requests for comment Tuesday about the ad or its plans about keeping it running. The White House wouldn't comment on what the PAC told Simas about its plans in response to his complaint.

Wednesday morning, Working for US PAC spokesman Joshua Henne followed up with a statement saying the group would delete Obama from the ad — but not pull the ad itself.

“We stand by the facts laid out in POLITICO in June 2010, when reporters called it a 'classic backroom special interest deal' and detailed how Chris Van Hollen met twice with the NRA’s 'chief lobbyist,’” Henne said. “Van Hollen caved to the NRA and carved out their gun lobby loophole, while Donna Edwards voted against it. However, out of respect for the White House and the work they’ve done on this important issue, we will be taking President Obama out of the spot.”

Henne declined comment on when the decision to change the ad was made, whether any apology was made to the White House, and what the PAC's response was to the White House calling the ad “misleading.”

Simas wasn’t the only one complaining about the ad. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also called it “dishonest” and “shameful,” and argued it “should be taken down.”

“The bill had nothing to do with gun violence. It was supported by Democratic leaders, including myself, President Obama, Leader Pelosi, and strong majorities of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus,” Hoyer said. “Both Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen have lifetime 'F'-ratings from the NRA.”

The DISCLOSE Act included exemptions from the transparency requirements for very large political groups like the NRA, the liberal Sierra Club, and the nonpartisan AARP. Van Hollen, as one of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenants, was in charge of crafting the bill. Exempting these groups was considered key to passing the law and winning support from conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

The Edwards campaign distanced itself from the super PAC ad Tuesday night, though the congresswoman is making the same core argument in campaign appearances and in a new campaign TV ad released Wednesday morning.

"We had nothing to do with the ad and would not have used the president’s image, but Donna would never have cut a deal with the NRA like Congressman Van Hollen did,” Edwards campaign spokesman Ben Gerdes said Tuesday.

"There are just too many guns on our streets in the wrong hands," Edwards says in her ad. "And nothing will change until we break the gun lobby's stranglehold on Washington. So when my opponent and the NRA cut a backroom deal so they could keep buying off politicians, I called them on it. And we won."

Edwards’ campaign telegraphed its interest in pushing this message to outside groups last month, publishing a post on its website about what it would like to see on television in the final weeks of the campaign. “We know that African American voters need to see and hear about Donna’s fight against the National Rifle Association, and the politicians who protect them, to end the scourge of gun violence plaguing our communities,” the post read.

The candidates’ records on guns have become a major flash point in the race. On Sunday, The Washington Post’s editorial board complained that Edwards is trying to “mislead voters in suggesting that Mr. Van Hollen is somehow soft on the gun lobby.”

“This bill had literally nothing to do with gun violence — an issue I've been fighting my entire career,” Van Hollen said in a statement.

The ad opens with a black-and-white shot of a vigil. “The NRA and its campaign cash are all that stands between us and gun reform,” a female narrator says. It then cuts to footage of Obama at a news conference in the wake of the Newtown shooting. “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad,” the president says, as another black-and-white shot of crosses and a parent holding a child’s hand appear.

The ad goes then cites a 2010 POLITICO story noting Van Hollen met with the NRA’s lobbyists to help carve the group out of the DISCLOSE Act, the Democratic Party’s response to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. The proposal would have required nonprofits, corporations and unions to reveal their campaign donations and made other reforms.

The Obama administration supported the legislation, as did 85 percent of House Democrats, including overwhelming majorities of the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Progressive Caucus.

“Chris Van Hollen met with NRA lobbyists to craft a loophole to help the NRA skirt a new campaign finance law and block gun control, but Democrat Donna Edwards said no to the NRA loophole and stood up to the gun lobby,” the female narrator says, before noting Edwards’ support for an assault weapons ban.

Different unions have funded Working for US in the past, and the group’s most recent campaign finance filings showed it with just $70,000 on hand at the end of last year. But the group is spending at least six figures on its television buy in both the Baltimore and D.C. media markets. FEC records identify Rosenthal, a former AFL-CIO political director, as the group’s treasurer.

Throughout the campaign, Edwards has identified herself as the true progressive in the race who would bring more stridency to the Senate’s liberal wing, while Van Hollen has emphasized his ability to pass legislation and win support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Recent polls have shown a close race.

