The Payoff

The Washington Times reports today that Blanche Lincoln and several other moderate Democrats will be getting a public relations boost from pro health care reform groups.

Ads add heat to health care debate
Advocacy groups target both sides of issue

By Jennifer Haberkorn

For weeks, Sen. Blanche Lincoln has been attacked as a "flip-flopper" or an obstructionist in television ads aimed at Arkansas voters, who will decide next year if she gets to keep her job.

This week, she and other moderate Democrats who made a politically risky vote to start debate on the Senate's health care bill may get a bit of positive support from two campaigns, funded by reform advocates, highlighting their votes to allow debate on the Democrats' bill.

It's a rarity among political ads, which tend to highlight the negative aspect of important votes, but they're just two in a slew of health-related television advertising and grass-roots campaigning expected between now and the end of the year, when the Senate plans to hold a vote on the bill.

Families USA and PhRMA, the pharmaceutical-industry trade group, are airing the ads in Arkansas this week with hopes of airing similar ads in the states of other "swing-vote" lawmakers.

PhRMA is a familiar name.  This is the industry group that made a back room deal at the White House first reported by the New York Times back in August.

Drug Industry to Run Ads Favoring White House Plan

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: August 8, 2009

WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday.

The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed. Both sides had announced that the drug industry would contribute $80 billion over 10 years to the cost of the health care overhaul without spelling out the details.

We must be witnessing the Chicago government-industry cooperative model gone national.  Government threatens industry with heavy and costly regulation.  In hope of persuading government to impose a less burdensome regulatory framework, industry promises financial support for wildly unpopular legislation that will vastly increase the power and reach of government.  Government and industry coordinate what they hope will be an overpowering media campaign that will drown out opposition voices.