If you live in my part of the state you've seen the recent spate of ads attacking Ron Kind. Ron Kind may not be exactly my sort of Democrat in some ways, but he's been in many ways a good reliable Democrat, and has had a very good record on a number of issues, including the environment. And I don't think much of anyone sees him as anything but a straight shooter, even if they may disagree with him from time to time.
Except the 60 Plus Association, which has been funding these ads. And almost identical ads against Steve Kagen over on the other side of the state. Mind you, these ads are not much different than a lot of the ads we're seeing this season - "too liberal, voting for health care reform, voting with Pelosi ". You know, acting like a Democrat. The shame!
Life gets a lot more interesting though when you realize who is funding these ads, and what the 60 Plus association really is -- an astroturf group that is funded by big pharma. Yup, that's right, they're attacking Kind because they feel he's threatening the pharmaceutical industry - again, by acting like a Democrat. As opposed to - oh -- say wanting to save Social Security and Medicare by putting them more into the public sector. Remember how the drug companies keep getting laws passed to protect themselves against things like competition? More of the same is coming if the 60 Plus people get their way.
This is the same group that refers to AARP as the Association Against Retired People, probably because of the work AARP and Public Citizen have done to expose 60 Plus. Anyone seeing the ad would think this is a group that has the interests of seniors at heart, but what they're really for is prying more drug money out of seniors and Medicare. They claim to be a Grassroots group, but it's pretty clear from all reports that all of their money comes from drug manufacturers. This is the sort of money that is promoting candidates like Dan Kapanke - who has recently been chastising Kind for not running a "clean race". Something's not clean, but I'm pretty sure it's not Ron.
Now that you know where the money is coming from, it makes you kind of wonder why they're trying to pull the wool over seniors' eyes in the state, and convince them that Ron Kind is against them, and Dan Kapanke is for them. You have to think that the drug companies actually think that Kapanke would be better for them than Kind. And I'm pretty sure they're right about that. Don't be fooled. And think about this seriously before you make that mark on the card in November.
Hat tip to Cory over at Eye On Wisconsin for doing the initial research for this article.