Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the political committee headed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, released a new television commercial this morning targeting Elizabeth Warren, the first major advertising salvo against the Democratic Senate candidate.
The $596,000 advertising buy stresses Warren’s support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. “Fourteen million Americans out of work, but instead of focusing on jobs, Elizabeth Warren sides with extreme left wing protests,” the narrator says as an image of Warren, is superimposed against protesters, flashes.
The ad says the group supports “radical redistribution of wealth and violence.” Then it shows Warren’s comments in which she says “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do...I support what they do.”
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Warren has said in other interviews that she has urged the protesters to stay within the law and does not agree with all of their goals. But she has clearly tried to capture some of the energy and attention that the Occupy movement has harnessed, and her boast that she helped inspire it was seen by some political observers as a gaffe.
“The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is the wrong response to our country’s economic morass,” said Nate Hodson, Crossroads GPS Director of State and Regional Media Relations. “This issue ad is designed to alert citizens to the radical views of Elizabeth Warren and turn up the heat for solutions that help Massachusetts’s job creators instead of propping up her intellectual theories.”
Crossroads said the ad is part of a $1.8 million group of ads being broadcast in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
The group is trying to define Warren as an extremist while some of the public still does not know who she is. Polls show she is a significant threat to Republican Senator Scott Brown.
Warren’s campaign warned supporters about the impending ads in an “urgent update” fund-raising appeal e-mail last night.
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The e-mail to Warren supporters from new campaign manager Mindy Myers says Crossroads GPS has “bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of TV time, and you know they’ll have money to stay on the air.”
“We don’t know exactly what the attacks are yet, or exactly how big they’ll be,” the e-mail continues. “But we do know we’re going to need your help ... to fight back and set the record straight. ... Hasn’t Karl Rove done enough damage to our country already?”
Republican Senator Scott Brown has already been the subject of attacks from outside groups criticizing his environmental record. And, like Warren, he has also used the attack ads in fund-raising appeals.
Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahbierman