Fire the Democratic Consultants

They're burning money...

Jan 20, 2025

On Friday, Laura Belin at Bleeding Heartland reported: Democratic group already running ads against Miller-Meeks, Nunn.

Here are the first two paragraphs of Laura’s reporting:

One of the biggest spenders on behalf of U.S. House Democrats launched digital advertising this week targeting U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn in Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts. The ads, enclosed in full below, claim the GOP incumbents “could cost you more,” because they support President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The House Majority PAC’s 501(c)4 affiliate, House Majority Forward, is funding the 30-second spots, part of a $10 million campaign targeting nine potentially vulnerable House Republicans.

So, shortly after an election cycle in which we were so inundated with digital ads that we wanted to puke, House Majority Forward is spending $10 million now on ads for an election nearly two years in the future. I suspect that these ads have, for the most part, already been memory-holed.

That’s burning money.

I can hear Republican coffee shop laughter from here, where I live nearly 20 miles from the nearest Casey’s General Store.

The Democratic House Majority PAC and House Majority Forward are important dark money organizations for Democrats in these unfortunate times when dark money rules. Axios has more on why they have made the ad buy, but not on the timing.

Must Read Alaska is as befuddled as I am about the timing of the ads with the story: So soon? Democrats buy ad time to attack Nick Begich.

Laura is right that Iowa Democrats should be pleased about the investment; I just question the timing and the fact the ads bear little relation to reality, are tone-deaf, and likely written by a D.C. consultant who has never been to Iowa before.

She’s also right that these ads are “strange.”

I’d link the ads here, but I wouldn’t even know about the ads without Laura’s story, so I encourage you to go to her column and read her deeper reporting there. Please consider subscribing.

Here’s Laura’s transcription of the ad for Zach Nunn. All of the ads are nearly identical.

Male voice-over: Everything is too expensive. But Congressman Zach Nunn could cost you more.

Zach Nunn is supporting Robert Kennedy Jr., who plans to restrict safe products farmers rely on, based on conspiracy theories. That will drive up the cost of meat and produce.

And with RFK Jr. in charge, they plan to put a new sales tax on imported food, making groceries even more expensive.

Tell Zach Nunn, stop supporting RFK Jr.’s plans to raise prices. [the viewer sees the phone number for the Washington, DC office of the member of Congress]

Laura goes into detail about the wobbly connection to Kennedy and points out that there will be no sales tax, but tariffs that will drive up the cost of goods. Lots of bad logic in the ad.

But to me, the worst bit is: Zach Nunn is supporting Robert Kennedy Jr., who plans to restrict safe products farmers rely on, based on conspiracy theories…

I find it hard to believe that anyone in the Iowa Democratic Party read this ad. Which herbicides and pesticides are the “safe products” the ads refer to? While there are many reasons to oppose RFK’s nomination, the logic here is twisted—but hey, maybe the PAC thinks Dems can win with even more not-so-subtle pandering to some farmers that hasn’t worked before. More likely they are pandering to giant agribusinesses.

I suspect the ad is at least partially about RFK’s and other’s concerns about the common use of the controversial herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup by the pharmaceutical company Bayer. Some research has suggested that glyphosate is a carcinogen in humans and Bayer has paid out over 1.5 billion dollars in lawsuits brought forth by cancer victims when courts found Bayer culpable.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reviewed and reassessed glyphosate's safety since it was registered in 1974. The EPA found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen when used as intended, and reaffirmed this as recently as 2020.

Contrastingly, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans" in 2015.

The science is murky, but certainly not the “conspiracy theory” the ad says it is. The ads’ inappropriate use of the term devalues it.

Iowa has the second-highest new cancer rate in the nation. While cancer has numerous causes, it has been argued that our high cancer rates are at least partially the result of intense agricultural production polluting our lands and waterways in part because of the agricultural industries’ use of inputs, including Roundup. Here’s a contrasting local opinion defending the use of Roundup.

Governor Kim Reynolds is investing one million dollars to build a team to research what’s behind our cancer rates. We’ll see what comes of that—it’s not nearly enough money to do any real cancer research and a lot of money to pay for a scientific literature review. It’s going to be very interesting to watch where this money goes and what comes of it.

Fellow Iowa Writers’s Collaborative members Chris Jones and Art Cullen have written extensively on the relationship of agriculture and water quality to cancer rates.

I can’t resist saying this, even if it’s off the mark. I forget where I read it, but someone wrote something like: “Bayer profits on both ends—selling us the carcinogens that cause cancer, and then the pharmaceuticals that fight it.

In landing on the side of Roundup and other herbicides and pesticides they allude to, the Democratic PAC ad embraces what many Democrats and other progressive groups would say is the “wrong side.”

Iowa Republicans are considering legislation that critics say will indemnify pesticide and herbicide companies, including Bayer, from being held liable for health claims. It seems many Democrats will likely oppose it. But you never know. Chris Jones has argued repeatedly that many Democratic legislative votes have been captured by Bayer and other large corporations.

Regardless of what legislative Democrats will do, this post by the Iowa Environmental Council says many aligned groups will rally to oppose the legislation.

The Iowa Environmental Council, along with Food & Water Watch Iowa, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Progress Iowa, and Pesticide Action Network North America are uniting in a campaign to kill the Cancer Gag Act.

The ad is on the “wrong side” of the issue from the perspective of many progressives.

This isn’t the first time the House Majority PAC worked against the best interests of Democrats. The PAC donated more than $1.1 million to a lobbyist-run centrist group that has worked to undermine the Biden administration's agenda on lowering drug prices, regulating the finance industry, and more.

Do these ads make any sense to you?

The House Majority PAC is an important fundraising arm of the party but they don’t know how and when to invest locally—as evidenced by this ad buy.

Fire the D.C. consultants who decide how to spend money or let Iowa Democratic leadership have a say in how the money is spent (if any Iowa Democrat had a role to play in approving this ad, they need a different job).

House Majority PAC—these ads suck. The timing sucks.

You are burning money.

And it looks damn lazy from here.

“The Democratic Party has…a problem with a class of people, from elected officials to consultants, who care more about their careers than actually delivering for people.”

Nina Turner, former Democratic National Committee member.

Coincidentally, Michael Bloomberg gave that same amount discussed here—$10 million—to the House Majority PAC last August. It’s stunning to me how little can be bought for that massive amount of money—digital ads for only nine candidates. If this $10 million were Bloomberg’s, I wonder what his thoughts might be on this return on his investment.

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