NYT: Ad War Heats Up in the Maneuvering on Judicial Picks

[Pirate Smile]

Ad War Heats Up in the Maneuvering on Judicial Picks
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 3, 2005

ASHINGTON, May 2 - A conservative advocacy group began broadcasting commercials Monday supporting two of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees, and drew an immediate rebuttal from liberal opponents.

The conservative group, Progress for America, said it planned to spend $3.3 million on advertisements backing the president's nominees and Republican efforts to get them confirmed in the Senate. For now, the campaign, on both radio and television, will center on commercials praising Priscilla R. Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, whose appeals-court nominations have been blocked by Democrats but who have both been newly approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Seeking to influence the votes of senators who may prove pivotal, Progress for America said it was broadcasting the advertisements in six states: Alaska, Arkansas, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and Rhode Island. The group said it would begin broadcasting advertisements nationally next week, when the Senate returns from a recess.

In a rebuttal to the new advertising campaign, the liberal People for the American Way, as part of a $5 million drive it had previously undertaken, introduced its own commercial criticizing the two nominees as extreme and the Republicans as power-hungry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/politics/03judges.html