By JEDD ROSCHE 9/28/12 5:42 PM EDT
Todd Akin is coming out with a new ad, aggressively going after Sen. Claire McCaskill for getting rich from the president's 2009 stimulus plan. The ad, shared early with POLITICO, comes amid a flurry of new activity as Republicans decide whether to support Akin now that there's no question that he'll stay in the Missouri Senate race.
"Ever wonder why Claire McCaskill called the stimulus bill 'wildly successful'? The stimulus that didn't create jobs, that cost us billions. Well, now we know: The stimulus made McCaskill rich," the ad starts, adding that the stimulus sent more than $1 million to McCaskill's family through partnerships they owned.
The ad ends piggy backing off a 2009 quote McCaskill gave NBC's "Meet The Press", saying she and other Senators went through the Stimulus bill "line by line". "Claire McCaskill: Getting rich off us, line by line," the ad says.
Republican Senators and conservatives leaders are re-examining whether to back Akin since another deadline passed for Akin to get out of the race on Tuesday. On Thursday evening, the Louisville Courier-Journal published an interview with National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. John Cornyn re-enforcing the previously stated strategy not to put money into the race after Akin's controversial comments on rape, and calling the contest "not a winnable race". Former Missouri Sen. Kit Bond put out a statement today supporting Akin, after calling on him to get out of the race last month. Earlier in the week, Akin received endorsements from Sen. Jim DeMint and former Sen. Rick Santorum.
UPDATE: McCaskill's campaign reached out to take strong exception to the charges leveled in the Akin ad, and provided documentation that some of the claims in the commercial are misleading or wrong. The critical data point is that Akin's ad says McCaskill's husband, Joseph Shepard, pulled in $1 million from investments in government-subsidized housing projects -- but his share of investment in those projects was actually less than 5 percent, leaving him with far less than $1 million in income. What's more, McCaskill's campaign says that the payments Shepard received from the government were for contracts that predated the stimulus, and that the government would have been legally required to pay out regardless of whether the stimulus was passed.
That doesn't mean that Shepard wasn't tied to properties that received stimulus money, but the story is more complicated and rather less salacious than the Akin ad suggests.
McCaskill spokewoman Caitlin Legacki said in an email: "This ad is factually incorrect and is exactly the kind of nasty, desperate campaigning that Missourians hate. Todd Akin can't defend his own extreme record, so he's resorted to false, misleading attacks against Claire's family.Todd Akin should be ashamed."
(with Alexander Burns)
Source: Politico
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